Shoot in HDV, Output to DVCAM

I am a newbie to the HDV format and have been outputting programs simply using the print to video command in final cut and a DVCAM deck. I have some HDV footage that may or may not need to be mixed in with DV NTSC footage and was wondering the best way to go about editing/outputting this footage for broadcast on DVCAM.
Would the quality really suffer if i simply edited all of the footage together on a DV NTSC timeline? I figured better that than editing on a timeline better suited for the hdv footage.
Also, one last thing, as far as planning ahead what is the best way to shoot HDV if you know that you will be outputting to DVCAM, I have heard that 1080i 60 is the best wayto go but wasn't sure.
Thanks in advance,
Tyle

Just finishing a project that I did exactly this. It was shot on HDV with a Sony camera. I captured HDV and did a downconvert in the deck to DVanamorphic, recapturing exactly the same clips. You might want to capture and keep the HDV material for use in a SD sequence. On occasion, we found a shot we wanted to blow up and reposition. I simply dropped the HDV shot in the SD timeline and scaled and repositioned. This material was indistinguishable from the SD 100% material. Very handy.

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Shooting/Editing HDV Before Blu-Ray Equipment Is Available ?

I have recently purchased a Canon HV20 consumer HDV camcorder. However, I have not got any Blu-Ray burning/playback equipment and will not be getting any until the prices drop to a quarter of the present levels.
This means that I am presented with a number of choices as to how I shoot and edit the material.
I have worked out the following solutions but would value any comments as to their feasibility etc.
1. The camera can shoot both HDV and DV. I think my best choice is to shoot HDV (for future re-editing) even though my final output will be DV at present. The only downside I can see is that I believe that HDV motion does not look as good as DV ?
2. The camera can down-convert the HDV to DV so should I capture the down-converted video and edit in DV or would it be preferable to keep everything as HDV ? I am inclined to prefer the latter option.
3. Assuming that I shoot and edit in HDV is the best and simplest way of transferring the project to DVD by selecting File>Export>QuickTime Movie and then importing it into iDVD/DVDSP ? (Actually, iDVD does everything I require).
4. I believe that a standard definition DVD made from HDV material looks better than one made from DV. Is this correct ?
Ian.

4) Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. I work with baseband video, both SD and HD, and I find even cross-converted HD (1080 to 720 and visa versa) to be ugly and the hardware cross/down/up converters I have to deal with are obscenely expensive. Again, if you like the product, that's all the matters.
3) Best and simplest are often mutually exclusive ideas. This workflow has been talked about for years on the board now, not sure if anyone's come up with anything that everyone likes. Search for the The Bonsai Method, that seemed to be a happy medium.
2) See #4 above. I should think that that you'd want to capture native what you shot but then I would recommend that you do a test to see which method you like better. I'm sure there will be others talking about the need for "future proofing" which as an idea I think is kinda funny as who really knows what the future is. I found some discs for a Bernoulli drive the other day, that was the future then.
1) See #2. Your point about HDV motion is reasonable but like anything, the video format is just a tool to be considered. Many folks don't even bother to think about the package acquiring that video format. Your HV20 is TINY!! Tiny means small lensing, small imagers which play the largest part in the quality of the acquisition.
I saw an hd broadcast on a Sony tube hdtv via DishNetwork of "The Deadliest Catch" which is acquired through sony hdv cameras. I, frankly, was shocked at how good the show looked. I found a lot of artifacting but honestly, given the tech specs of the blasted format, that HDV should not have looked that good.
Zeb
Message was edited by: Zebulun
One of us needs to change our avatar!

Shooting in HDV, Broadcast from Beta - what captrue codec?

Hi know similar questions are regularly asked but I couldn't find one for this particular set of circumstances...
We're shooting in HDV and will supply to the network uncompressed Quicktimes that they will put onto Beta for broadcast. It's likely the show will be released on DVD at some point too.
Is there any advantage to capturing using prores, or should I stay in HDV?
Have I read correctly I can't batch capture if I go with prores?
Kind regards
Hugh
ps - the specs below are my home mac - we'll be using FCP6 on a 2.8Ghz Intel Mac Pro with 10gig ram

Is there any advantage to capturing using prores, or should I stay in HDV?
Less load on your computer processors, rendering takes far less time, because you are in an I-Frame format and not a GOP format.
Your footage is now in a 4:2:2 color space for color correction, not 4:2:0 which falls apart fast.
Disadvantage? ProRes takes up more space.
Have I read correctly I can't batch capture if I go with prores?
Not unless you have a capture card....with a capture card that is very possible. Without it the only way you can capture HDV as ProRes is this way:
http://library.creativecow.net/articles/poisson_chris/hdv-prores.php
Shane

Shoot HDV, capture HDV, edit Hdv, output SD

is that possible?

Certainly. It may take some computer work if you want to drop it back to MiniDV tapes, but you can definately compress it for DVD output without trouble.
~Luke

Trial by fire. Three camera fitness shoot. TC fed by DVCAM Deck.

Hi all,
I am embarking on a three camera shoot for two 90 minute fitness videos. The timecode will be fed to all three cameras by a DVCAM deck that we are also using to play the live music that the performers will be exercising to. This way all four sources (three cameras & 1 music) all have the same Time code.
Although I see a million potential editing Gotchyas in this scenario (and there are probably a million more that I don't see), I only have one question at this time...
Regarding FCP Capturing...
Whenever the performers mess up and we have to rewind the music (DVCAM) and reshoot a section, the timecode (that FCP will need to read) on all three cameras will suddenly jump backwards by a few minutes. We will be very careful to pre-roll and post-roll the music before starting or stopping cameras so we do not actually BREAK the timecode, but the actual TC clock will be jumping backwards with every take. This seems like it might be difficult to capture for FCP... any thoughts?
Thanks for your brainstorming.
G5-2000MP, ATI 9800 Pro, 17 & 20 flat panels & PBG4 1.67 Mac OS X (10.4.6)

Heya Zeb...
No problem on the TC IN on the cameras. Panasonic AJ-SDX900.
Regarding distribution of signal... feel free to point me in a direction... I have no idea and am on the hunt for just that piece of info.
Regarding VTR: Sony DSR-45. Has TC out, I hope it only spits out TC when the tape is rolling.... otherwise my whole paradigm is a house-o-cards.
Regarding logging and capturing:
I assume that I am going to have to dust off my old fashion logging chops. Since I will have multiple instances of the same timecode on a single tape, I will probably have to manually set the in and out points and capture for each take. Then set the in and out points and capture the next take... etc.
My DP is trying to convince me to use a smart-slate... we are going back-n-forth about the pro's and con's.
A TC Generator will take care of many of the problems with the shoot, but it isn't the best answer as far as creating an editable (and more importantly, a re-editable) product. Remember, this whole thing is the equivalent of a three hour music video that is edited from probably about 20 hours of tape.
The TC generator will sync the cameras together, but I will still depend on older visual methods to sync the video to the music. When you have takes that are 15 to 25 minutes long, it would kind of stink to have to drop a 20 minute clip into the timeline and sync it, just because I wanted to find a 1 second long b-roll cut at the 18 minute mark.
IF, I can drive the entire shoot from a VTR that plays the performance music AND outputs timecode to three cameras.... seems to me that I will have hit a sweet spot for this type of production.
The music, and videotapes from three cameras will be in sync. If I "media manage" the project to a storage drive (or just want to offfload 15 hours of unused footage) the remaining clips will all have the right timecode embedded so when my client wants another complilation video, I can move things around with the knowledge that they will be in sync by simply lining up the TC.

HDV outputting to SD DVD... + mixing with XDCAM

Hi
Earlier this year we shot a documentary on a Sony PDW-F350L HD XDCam (great camera, stunning footage - 35Mbps). Working in FCP has been fine.
We're doing a follow up and budget and logistics dictate that we sadly can't use 350s again (where we're going, carrying 2 Z1s for example is going to be a lot easier). We're also on a fairly steep learning curve (being relatively new to FCP, Compressor etc).
So I'm looking at options. We know that there are significant differences between say a Z1 and a 350 but from my research so far and from some relatively simple testing mixing Z1 footage (native) and 350 footage on FCP, at least editing on the timeline doesn't seem like it's going to present any problems (although thoughts on that welcome).
The issue seems to be outputting. In the first instance we'll be outputting to SD DVD. Yes, that old gem...
Searching round various forums, it seems this problem (HDV - SD) is fairly universal. Solutions seem to range from not working in Native HDV (suggestions vary on the format to ingest in - AIC etc); outputting to different formats first (eg DVCPro HD) and then to MPEG-2; outputting the timeline to tape (DV), re-importing; using some thing like a Matrox MXO to output and others...
We're aware of the shortcoming of HDV and the compressed nature of the format and our expectations, given our kit are realistic. I've even tried putting some PD150 footage on the timeline but that's just not going to cut it.
So, I've got to put a kit list together by next week and wondered if anyone had any thoughts on:
1) Mixing XDCAM and HDV on the timeline and any gotchas we should watch out for.
but more importantly
2) Any suggested routes I can look at to get some reasonable output with these two formats on the timeline - particularly HDV (don't think we'll have time to look at the Matrox route right now).
Many thanks in advance for any thoughts.

Thanks Andy, Michael
That's good input. From an editing point of view we seem to be ok. Although, Michael, I take your point and that's a good suggestion.
The main problem is the workflow to create a decent SD DVD without the artefacts caused by compression/motion etc in HDV (and to some extent XDCAM).
Have read the prores whitepaper at
http://images.apple.com/finalcutstudio/resources/whitepapers/L342568A_ProResWP.pdf
And looked a little more into understanding GOP structures and it seems that ProRes will help in terms of editing.
The white paper seems to suggest that converting to ProRes, because it uses I frame–only encoding "Ensures consistent quality in every frame and no artifacts from complex motion. "
We'll try some tests but, does anyone know if this is true?
But it also seems that deinterlacing may solve some of the horrendous vertical edge rippling we're getting on the HDV footage when outputting to SD DVD - although if I'm honest I'm not sure how we achive that with our current setting.

Why does Compressor's HDV output look worse than iDVD's output of same?

Okay, here's the thing... for weekly updates I've been sending the client outputs via iDVD. And they've honestly looked great. The HDV footage fills the screen and doesn't show any noticeable compression funkiness. But for the screening of the completed first cut I wanted to deliver what I thought would be an even higher quality look (esp since I intended to deliver the completed project mpeg and AC3), so I exported the HDV cut out of FCP via QT and converted it with Compressor's DVD: Best Quality 90 minutes to turn the HDV into SD 720x480 16:9 letterboxed. I then burned it with DVDSP, complete with nice looking menus, etc. And I was shocked viewing the output. The two clips I'd reversed in FCP stuttered, and even a clip with nothing on it was strobing. Plus, close ups showed noticeable compression on the faces. So what gives? Why does it look so much better when I just slammed it out on iDVD? What don't I "get?" I've scoured the books I have and nothing seems to give me a clue.
Any direction would be greatly appreciated!

Lightroom uses its own raw converter and its own camera profiles to convert the raw data into an image. This will never be the same as the camera-manufacturer’s raw image decoding either in camera or using camera-manufacturer-supplied software or any other third-party software.
Here is a general explanation from a few years ago, that is mostly valid, with the one exception that there are no camera-matching profiles for your brand of camera:
http://www.lightroomforums.net/showthread.php?1285-Why-did-Lightroom-ruin-my-photo
The IDC is apparently using camera settings and is clearly sharpening the image and quashing some of the lens-flare, oversharpening in my opinion.
You can do these sorts of things in LR, too, but you have to tell it to do things, it won’t do this by default.
The 2010 and 2012 are related to Process Version not Profile, and one difference between the two PVs is how the toning responds to near clipping conditions. Your reds are very saturated and near if not actually clipping so it is not surprising that the two raw conversions are not the same.
Can you provide a link to the raw file, using DropBox.com or similar large-file-hosting-service and maybe someone will give some tips on how to make the LR processing closer to what you’re seeing with the camera-manufacturer version.?

XDCAM to HDV output to HVR25U

We have been producing content with the Sony Z1U, editing natively in FCP 6x, outputting to HDV tape with the Sony HVR25U that was sent to the DVD producer for SD DVD's. Maybe not the best workflow but worked moderately well.
Recently we replaced our Z1's with a couple EX3's and an EX1 and edited XDCAM natively in FCP. That worked great, unfortunately you can't export an XDCAM sequence to the M25U. So we exported an HDV Quicktime from the XDCAM sequence and then placed that Quicktine into an HDV sequence and tried to print to tape from there. The resulting Quicktime played fine in the timeline but it kept pausing/freezing in the M25U.
To get around this problem we copied the XDCAM timeline and pasted it into an HDV sequenced and then rendered AND THEN conformed for a print to video. It worked but this process took more than five hours for a fourty minute sequence.
Anyone else experience this? Any ideas why FCP would have any trouble printing to tape an HDV Quicktime that it generated from and XDCAM sequence?
We have 2.66MGHz Mac Pro's with 5GB RAM, served by a shared file system that is running about 280MB/s per work station.
Thanks in advance for any help.

its a 40 minute sequence and from the XDCAM time line I exported an HDV 1440x1080i 60 Quicktime which took about three hours to render. I then opened a new project with an HDV sequence and tried to print to tape from there.
When that didn't work I copied all from the XDCAM sequence and pasted it into an HDV time line rendered for about 2 hours and then conformed for at least another 2 hours but it did print to tape successfully.
I would have thought that the rendered self contained HDV Quicktime would print to tape without any difficulty.
In the past I have had this problem trying to print an HDV Quicktime to tape from a firewire attached Lacie, and thought it might be a fragmentation issue. But this Quicktime was stored on our shared file system via fiber channel. So I don't think this is a bandwidth issue but I'm at a lose on this.

Print hdv sequence to dvcam tape

I've never tried it, but can you print a hdv sequnce to a dvcam tape?
I've had a look at the forum and a few people mention using compressor, but I have fce 4 which hasn't got compressor.
Does anyone have any experince doing this in fce 4?
Thanks.

Do you have a DVCAM camera or deck? Do not do this with copy and paste. Take your edited HD sequence and place it inside a DV anamorphic sequence to scale it properly and correct the pixel aspect ratio. Before you do that make the the HD sequence is fully rendered and mixed down. Then once inside the DV anamorphic sequence, render and mix down that, then print to video.

How to shoot 1080p/60, output to 720p/60, so Warp Stabilizer or zoom/crop has no quality loss?

I'm new to AE, and making a painful transition form FCP to Premiere, so please be patient, I don't understand many of the subtalties of these apps yet. :-)
Also, please forgive the long explaination, I'm having trouble articulating the problem...
I'm shooting in 1080p/60, AVCHD. I plan mainly to output to 720p/60.
The idea being, that if I need to warp stabilize footage, or zoom/crop, I can do so without any quality loss.
I don't want to edit the project in 1080p/60, because if I stabilize it, and it blows up the image, it will result in quality loss. Then when I scale down for final output, that pixilated/crapified footage will be present just in scaled down form.
I don't want the footage to be scaled down first, then, when I stabilize it, I'm blowing up 720p footage (thus defeating the whole purpose of doing this) and once again, outputting pixilated/crappified footage.
What are the steps / workflow to set up Premiere and the stabilizing shots in AE, such that I'm working in 720p, but using the 1080p footage, so that extra resolution is available when I need to crop, zoom, stabilize, etc. the footage... and can do so without any quality loss? It would be great to have that ability to zoom in on elements in post, almost 2x, and not see any loss of quality.
Thanks in advance!
-Jason Wallace

100% positive. There is a family of lesser known Prosumer Panasonic cameras (my particular model is the TM700) that record 1080p/60. It's a 3-chip, CMOS, that genuinly records at that resolution and frame rate. Has audio input, headphone output, shoe mount, zebra stripes, touch screen, good battery life, and a manual focus ring (fly by wire, can be set for exposure, framerate, or focus). Also has very good low light capabilities, that are much better than the published specs would lead you to believe. The firmware is a bit goofy, and was clearly designed by engineers, not people who have ever shot video. For example some things that should be easily accessible, are buried in menus, while other useless "fluff" features are front and quickly accessible.... but if you can live with a few stupid firmware compromises, it's absolutely AMAZING bang for the buck, and well under $1k to buy.
Note: if I'm not mistaken, the camera can only output via HDMI 1080i/60, but for absolute certain the video files being recorded are genuine 1080p/60. (This has lead to some confusion and forum arguements as to whether the camera is actually 1080p/60)
This was one of the main reasons for my moving from FCP to Premiere, as Premiere Pro handles the 1080p/60 AVCHD files, while FCP requires they first be transcoded and inflated to a intermediate codec.
-Jason W

BEST WORKFLOW To shoot in HDV mode or DV from HDR-HC1

For a final DV project burn on a DVD, what will be the best workflow using FCP to get the BEST quality when I will put my DVD in my DVD player, sit and enjoy the work from the filming to the burning process. I bought the Sony HDR-HC1 and I've play with FCP and iDVD a few times.
-Should I run the camera in DV mode ?
-Will I get a better image quality filming in HDV and converting in DV ?
-What will best the way to export the projet to get full quality ?
-I'm expecting to use iDVD, will i get a better quality using DVD PRO STUDIO ?
- What are the best setting using iDVD to get the BEST ?
Merci,
Jean

Jean:
why not spend the time and try it on a 10 minute sequence both ways.
What I or others think looks "best" is pretty subjective.
I do both with a Sony Z1U. Sometimes downconverting HDV looks best; other times shooting in DV looks best.
As to DVD authoring. . . iDVD is a consumer application with virtually no controls.
It also only provides uncompressed audio.
DVD SP is a professional environment with flexibility and capability a free consumer app can't equal.
Sometimes everybody's opinion is just that.
Your opinion by experimenting is what counts.

Shooting in HDV mode on DV tape

Hi
I have heard that you can shoot HDV on DV tape and still produce the same results. I tried it ( why not)
and can only capture in NTSC mode. I presume it's the fact that I used a DV tape and that this is not possible?
Thank you
George

George,
I had the same question a couple of months ago. I have used both the HDV tapes and the Sony Premium DV tapes and they are both working the same. I hear that the DV tape can have a higher probability of dropouts, but I have had no problems and have shot over 40 HDV hours on DV tape. Hope this helps!

HDV output to a M10U

I can capture from this deck just fine but when I go to the view menu and go to the video out section - all of the HDV options are greyed out. Please help

If you are trying to monitor HDV with your deck using firewire it won't happen. These decks don't have an HDV encoder within them, however they can record a conformed HDV signal. FC must conform the HDV video and the deck needs to be properly setup to record this HDV signal.
Good Luck
Z1

Anyone Know *Why* There's No HDV Output Over FW?

Hi
Seeing as FCP 6 can ingest and play (via Cinema Desktop) HDV/ MPEG2 fine, does anyone know what the technical reason is that it can't stream playback (after rendering edits if need be) or lay back to HDV tape via the built in FW port?
After all it's just a 25mbps data stream right?
Are there just too many HDV formats? Or is it a matter of support still coming?
Thanks for any illumination
Lee

When you're editing DV, the DV stream is converted to analog for viewing externally by the camera/deck/box you're using connected to the FW port on your Mac... so the problem here isn't that FCP can't do it... (it never could and probably never will) . The problem is that the hardware to do this isn't in any HDV device... Bet it's not cheap either. HDV is an MPEG stream, and to decode that in real time converting it to analog would take a LOT of heavy lifting... expensive heavy lifting.
I'd suggest that you get a capture card that will do this... I'd look right at a Kona LH series card. Better yet, if you have an intel Mac, is an Io HD for the job. Capture as ProRes instead of HDV, and you'll find the whole system is faster, and graphics look a ton better.
Jerry

HDV output to 16:9 ratio QT file

I've finsihed a small project on FCP5 shot & edited in HDV. I want to get it out of Final Cut and create a QT file (download or streaming) that retains the aspect ratio 16:9 and has full motion (much like the film trailers you can watch on the Apple site). Is there an easy way to do this? Everything I try ends up being a stretched standard TV frame ratio or something that looks terrible with jerky movement. There should just be a thing you can select in compressor to give what I'm looking for. Any help? Thanks.
Powermac G5 Dual 2.0 Mac OS X (10.4.6)

Bob -- try this workflow on a small piece and see if it doesn't work for you...
File - Export - Quicktime Conversion - make sure it's set for Quicktime Movie export.
Change compression method to BROADBAND HIGH. THEN click OPTION and then SIZE... change size to 480x270 and click out to save.
Let it run.
Then, open THAT in iTunes and using iTunes, select the video file and right click (control-click) and choose 'convert for iPod.'
That's always worked for me.
When you are done, do another right click on the video file in iTunes and do a SHOW FILE IN FINDER (or something like that.) Look for the .m4v file... that's the iPod video one. Open it up and see if it isn't 16:9.
Good luck,
CaptM

Shoot in HDV, Output to DVCAM

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