Upconverting DV for an HDV project

Hiya,
I have been putting together a large project based on HDV footage.
I have a small amount of footage filmed on a PD-170 in 16:9 mode, delivered to me captured onto hard drive as DV.
Is it possible to process this so that I can use it in my HDV project without rendering and resizing all the time?
TIA
Miller.

You'll want to start a new hdv proj - drop your dv into the tl - resize it then export out as HDV to use in the hdv project.
Think I'd opt for an fcp render then use a ref movie in the proj - if that doesn't work or proves to be problematic then you'll have to export out a hdv movie file to use.
Do it once and get it as good as you can.

Similar Messages

Are jpg's okay for an HDV project?

I'm working on a 60-minute HDV project in PP3. In addition to ~50 minutes of HDV footage, I have ~150 still images.
To prepare the images before import to PP3, I do the following:
* open the RAW image from Adobe Bridge...perform edits in Adobe Camera Raw...save as PSD file
* open the PSD file in PShop...resize the image to ~1440x1080 pixels...sometimes larger if I expect to zoom in
* save it as a JPG with a quality setting between 9 and 12 so that the resulting file size is between close to 1MB...never more than 2MB.
I specifically avoid importing image files as PSD files, since they are usually 4 MB and up in size.
Comments, please.
- Mike -

Hunt,
Thanks for your continued help and for taking the time to be so thorough in your postings.
I read your Article with great interest. Based on your attention to image quality and the importance of preserving the original files, I can tell that we're cut from the same cloth. I also come to the video world from still photography and am sensitive to those issues.
Re: your most recent post...I agree completely about testing the quality difference between PSD and JPG files. There have been times when I have animated layers in a PSD and have needed that capability...but that was in an SD project, not an HDV project. It was a family history movie which ran over an hour, including the extra features. It was a combination of jpg stills (~200) and SD video. I had no performance issues with my PP3 configuration.
But my HDV project seems fragile by comparison. My first 25-minute HDV project took ~6 minutes to load and caused frequent (Not Responding) semi-crashes. I also learned the hard way that using MP3 audio files caused render failures and crashes (not experienced in my SD project). Replacing all audio soundtrack files with WAV files has helped...but I am not too trusting of the systems' capabilities. I have initiated a fresh project to continue work on the same production. Since this is for personal consumption (not client work), I can live with having my Europe Trip production parsed, although I hope to combine them into one HDV project at the end with a run time of ~ 1 hour.
I render the project(s) to MPEG2 files using the the Adobe Media Encoder and use a Western Digital WD TV HD Media Player to serve an HDMI signal to my 46" TV. I am very pleased (stunned, actually) with the fidelity of the images...what an improvement over seeing one's work rendered down to SD. I highly recommend it...the WD player is only $100 on Amazon...much cheaper than going Apple TV (max 720p) or with Blue Ray burning and playback. I'm happy to provide my AME settings if you're interested.
To the topic of proper scaling - maintaining circles than want to morph into ovals...
This is only a recent problem for me. In an effort to make my project as lean as possible, I took some advice offered on the Creative Cow PP forum to scale images to 1440x1080. That prompted me to use PS3 to do that scaling (using Rectangular Marquee+Crop, or simply the Crop Tool) with settings entered into the Tools' parameters. As I began to import these into my HDV project, I noticed that some images were being stretched on the horizontal axis.
That prompted me to experiment by creating a perfect circle of black on a white background in PS, trying difference Scaling and Save As options, and evaluating the results after import into PP. Frankly, that has been a mind twister. The same PSD file, when Saved as a JPG, exhibits the stretched behavior...go figure that one. That has led me to the wonderful world of PAR settings...again, experiments on that circle document have had unexpected results. At this point, I have some interest in figuring it all out, but am pressed with a Thanksgiving deadline on my Europe Trip production.
In brief, my original workflow is as follows:
* open the image (use raw converter for global adjustments and save as PSD)
* if images from the pt&shoot are used, skip the raw work but open in PS3, as below
* use PS3 to adjust for composition, lighting, etc. and save as a PSD
* make a copy to be used for the video project only
* open those copies...assess how much zooming I'm likely to want...use Image Size to downsize/resample the longest dimension accordingly
* use Save As to compress to a JPG file of ~ 1 Mb...max of 2 Mb. With possibly 200+ images in an already fragile project, I feel it's essential...and the JPG's display very well all the way through to the WD TV and the TV
In the spirit of getting this project finished, I am going to abandon the "proper scaling" efforts with 1440 parameters and go back to my original plan.
I'm tempted to write up the workflow in a bit more detail and call it "The Survival Guide for Handling Still Images in Premiere". Hunt, your Article was the first thorough discussion I could find on any forum...I'm wondering why I couldn't find it earlier...my loss. It's a shame that the Adobe User Manual and other books like the PP3 Bible don't spend much time at all on advising folks on how to handle still images. In books that are hundreds of pages long, you'd think a page or two could be devoted to it.
Thanks again for your help.
- Mike -
(I'll append my h/w and s/w config in a second post)

Best storage solution for FCP HDV projects?

What is the best storage solution for Final Cut Pro HDV projects (i.e. internal or external drives, SCSI, external firewire drives, etc.)?

Don't forget you can also use the "Send to Tape" command to send your footage back to miniDV HDV tape. This isn't the ultimate solution, but is a good way to cheaply "backup" large projects to inexpensive tape without killing your drive storage with every project.
Here's a new feature request for Media Manager... Forget that. I'll start a new post for it.

Advice on exporting PPCS3 HDV Project to file for WD TV player

I would like to maintain HD quality through the Export process to create a file that will be played on a Western Digital TV HD Media Player. I have tried a multiple of export settings without success. My goal is to play back using the WD TV player with the file stored on a USB drive...file size is not an issue.
I capture the HDV footage from a Canon HV30 camcorder into PremProCS3
I use the Project Settings preset = HDV, HDV 1080i30 (60i)
I have stabbed around with Export, Movie... as well as with the Adobe Media Encoder and can't find the magic
When I capture/edit in iMovie09 on a MacBookPro, I can easily export to a .m4v which plays back in great HD quality on my 46" TV via the WD TV player. But I can't seem to find the right preset or custom setting within Premiere Pro to get the job done. I greatly prefer the PP editing environment and want to stick with it.
The attached jpg file is a scan from the WD TV User Manual...supported video formats.
Thanks, in advance.
- Mike -
HP Desktop E6750 Core 2 Duo, 2 Gb, dual internal SATA drives, GeForce 8500GT, 30" LCD monitor, Vista Home Premium, Adobe Premiere Pro CS3

Hey, I'm glad I found you guys. This problem has been messing up my workflow for over a year. Maybe you can help:
I'm shooting HDV with Sony HD1000, capturing with HDV split, editing in Premiere. (So far, so good) Problem is, exporting from premiere (HDV 60i project) produces "squashed" and letter-boxed video, and my graphics and titles are "mis-aligned" with the video. It's like premiere scales down my video files, letter-boxes them, but leaves graphics untouched, which of course throws everything off. My only work around is to edit in an NTSC project, and scale down every single video clip myself, which yields lots of rendering. I thought I solved the problem, by importing the entire premiere project into after effects. Export worked great, no loss of quality, but after effects doesn't recognize premiere time-remapping, titles or wipe transitions (and has issues with .m2t audio)!
I've tried every form of exporting from an hdv project (adobe media encoder, straight to encore). ALWAYS squashes and letter-boxes the video files, while leaving the graphics/titles as is (now appearing larger than they did in the program monitor and less crisp.)
Any help would be greatly appreciated. I love premiere for standard dv, I just can't get around this obstacle with HDV...

Upconverting SD clips for an HDV timeline....

So I took my SD clip into compressor and upconverted it to HDV 1080i 60.
When dropped it onto my HDV timeline it requires no rendering and matches up with the other native HDV clips (frame size wise)
Although when the upconverted clip is played in the viewer and on the timeline, at first the audio and video is synced but then quickly becomes un-synced. The video speeds up while the audio remains normal.
I then exported this upconverted clip to quicktime and viewed it through the QT player. The clip is then synced and normal.
What would cause FCP to mess up sync? Should I upconvert differently? If so, how?
Any insight?
Thanks,
-B

Alternative method, drop the SD clip on the HDV FCP timeline, change scale to 200% and render - this is how I use anamorphic 16:9 SD material with in HDV projects.

Appropriate "master" format for HDV projects

If you have a typical HDV project in Premiere and you'd like to give your client a "high quality master" of the finished project, for them to recode at their leisure, what's the most appropriate output CODEC to use, where file size isn't an issue (very short projects like TVC's, or longer projects delivering on hard drive)?
Matthew P

This will probably get moved over to the appropriate forum, since this isn't about CS5, but...
Lagarith or Ut Video Codec
Since you're using CS3, you need the 32-bit version of either of those.
For uncompressed, your options would be Microsoft AVI with None as the codec, or QuickTime with None as the codec. Both are playable (well, they can be opened, but realtime playback may not be feasible) on either a PC or Mac.
I would not suggest Animation for live video; it's better used for (surprise) animation or any type of motion graphics that has large, even fields of color, and not the various gradations usually associated with live video.
Pixel aspect ratio and frame size will vary based on the end application, but my typical course of action is to export with square pixels at whatever dimensions are full raster for the particular format you're using--for example, 1920x1080 or 1280x720. Anamorphic aspect ratios (like HDV 1080i) are usually fine, however; it just involves the end recipient realizing that the aspect ratio needs to be properly interpreted.

Preparing a HDV project for a DVD

I've finshed a 80 min HDV project in FCP.
I also have compressor and DVD studio pro.
What is the best way to just the project to DVD-r?

Another question to add. I have edited a hd video that is about 30 minutes. When I export to Compressor, it takes FOREVER. I am on the second day of rendering, and it says that there is going to be about 3 more days. After reading a thread on here, I am not even sure that, even if I get it to a manageable file size to fit on the dvd, the dvd will even work in any dvd player. Any help?

I need to output a PAL HDV project from FCP as a PAL DV file with 4 audio t

I need to output a PAL HDV project from FCP as a PAL DV file with 4 audio tracks - specifically one stereo pair to be t1&t3, the other stereo pair to be t2&t4. This is the standard way requested by an international distributor of tv programmes. I understand how to set the sequence in FCP to output 4 audio tracks - either 2 stereo pairs (1&2, + 3&4), or 4 discrete tracks. But how do I then output this as a QT file?
The manual tells me that to export multiple audio tracks, File>Export>QT Movie has it's Config pop-up menu in the Audio Settings area of the General tab of the Sequence Settings. Well, that's set for 4 discrete channels, but the QT export settings only allow for 2 mono or 1 stereo output, and that's what I get when I try it. What it says in the manual just doesn't happen.
Exporting via Compressor, on the other hand, has an abundance of choices of 4-track outputs, none of which are labelled as anything resembling 'discrete'. Would any of those 4.0 settings suffice? Or am I likely to get myself into difficulties further down the line? As I am monitoring for this task on a 2-track audio system, I cannot confirm exactly what I am getting when I use any of those settings.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
John

Call me naive, but I've not heard of splitting the stereo pairs like this before.
What broadcaster? (perhaps one of our EU regulars will drop in...)
You can do all sorts of pairing but it is coincident tracks pairing- eg 1/2 + 3/4
Sorry I can't offer anything.
x

No thumbnails in PRE12 for m2t hdv files

Hi folks
I have similar issue as some others and did not reslolve it with information from other threads. HDV from Canon HV40 camera either directly read by PRE or prepared by HDVsplit can be played and used in timeline or project but in Organizer thumbnails are without pictures. Thumbnails in project data window are OK but too big to be used. In PRE3 thumbnails could be set to small and therefore they were managable but this option is missing in PRE11 and 12.
W7, recent freshly installed Quicktime (7.7.4). Uninstalled Haali media splitter, Uninstalled ffdshow. Uninstalled VLC player.
When I made m2t file from footage with PRE12 it worked on Organizer correctly, but when the file is from camera, even donloaded with PRE, it does not work.
I do not want reinstall Windows as a last resort as other programs like Powerdirector worked (it is gone half a year ago because I prefer PRE for some neat features but without resolving this issue PRE is unworkable).
Thanks for hints.
Petr

p.pik
Premiere Elements Windows Project Assets
I am not sure if your target question is really about thumbnails in Project Assets or not. Or is the target rather an aside comment to your real problem display of MPEG2.mpg or MPEG2.m2t in thumbnails representing your HDV files in the Elements Organizer 12?
Assuming for the moment that your target is the size of the thumbnails in the Premiere Elements 12 Projects Assets.
a. Project Assets has two different views, List and Grid (block looking). When you are in the List view, you can right click on a blank space in that area to get a pop up which includes an option for thumbnail size (Off, Small, Medium, or Large).
b. Also, did you know that you can organize your Project Assets contents into folders?
Elements Organizer 12
a. Please correct me if I am wrong, but the issue (no first frame of video in Elements Organizer 12 thumbnail) resides only with HDV from your camera.
In the case of HDV data capture firewire into Premiere Elements Capture Windows (MPEG2.mpg on the Timeline)
or
In the case of HDV data capture firewire into HDVSplit, followed by import of the MPEG2.m2t files into a Premiere Elements HDV project (MPEG2.m2t on the Timeline).
b. Yet you say that, if you export a Timeline content to MPEG2.m2t saved to the computer hard drive, there is no problem in the representation of it (first frame view et al) in Elements Organizer 12.
I do not have a sample file from your Canon camera. And, when I export my Premiere Elements 12 Timeline to MPEG2.m2t and bring that saved file to the Elements Organizer 12 (File Menu/Photos and Videos/fro...), the Elements Organizer 12 crashes specific to that file. On the other hand, I can import that same MPEG2.m2t into a Premiere Elements 12 project without problem. And, it automatically is placed in the Elements Organizer 12 (thumbnail with gray content). If I right click that thumbnail and select Update Thumbnail, the Elements Organizer 12 crashes.
More work needs to be done to define this issue further.
Please review.
Thanks.
ATR

SD Footage in HDV Project Anyone

has anyone here ever included *SD(720x480 DV)footage* in a *HDV project?* I have massive amounts on footage captured in SD from my Sony VX1000. I would like to move forward by editing all my projects in HDV format, which will include the DV footage. I downloaded a trial from BorisFX called "UpRez" that is supposed to take SD footage and make them work wihin the HDV format. My questions are:
1: Has anyone used the BorisFX "UpRez" plugin and does it really work
2: Is there a plugin bundled with FCP 6.x that does the same thiing
3: Can a HDV project playback on a SD meduim
4: If not can compressor "downsize" my HDV project to play back on SD mediums
Thanks in Advance

As far as I know in 2009 all things will be digital, not necessarily HD. But if you want to keep you HDV timeline, though I would recommend transcoding to ProRes because of HDVs long-gop, I have had some success with using Compressor to upRes SD footage to use in an HD timeline. Using the frame controls use best for the resizing filter and deinterlace filter. Be aware that this will take quite a bit of time, depending on how beefy your machine is. Although, I've only been going as far as 720p. 1080 sizes will really hinder the look of the SD footage.
If you want to keep all you edits in HD, simply downconvert your finished edit using compressor to SD and encode your MPEG 2 files. You'll just have to decide if you want to crop the sides of your 16:9 footage to a 4:3 or letterbox the 16:9 into a 4:3 frame.
hope this helps.

Universal publish settings for a particular project?

i was wondering if it was possible to set up a universal publishing directory for a given project so that i do not have to go and manually change the publish settings for each individual .fla.
any help would be much appreciated.
thanks
angus

Gustavo,
Your end result should be DVD, which is 720 x 480 NTSC or 720 x 576 PAL.
Use a SD widescreen sequence setting and downrez your HDV or let the camera do that for you by capturing SD format. If you have captured HDV, you can either downrez by using Motion/Scale to fit your SD resolution or use Scale to frame. The latter has a small drawback in that it will result in small black bars left and right, that will normally not show up when played on a TV.

How achieve highest playback quality from shared iMovie HDV Project?

I have a Sony HDR-HC9 1080i HDV tape camcorder and I am able to play back HD video to either a Mac computer or to a Panasonic Full HD 1080p TV. Playback quality of unedited HD holiday video footage to TV using HDMI cable and to the computer via Firewire is superb. This excellent playback quality is also preserved in an edited iMovie Project in HDV format 57 minutes long and 48 GB in size which I made from the original 90 minutes holiday video footage.
The problems arose in trying to preserve this high quality when sharing the iMovie Project. Before I bought this HDV camcorder I had a Sony DV tape camcorder and I always used to make an archive tape from an edited DV Project by exporting the iMovie Project back to tape. However, when attempting to do the same with this latest HDV 48 GB Project the computer message informed me that it would take about 43 hours to do this. So that is out of the question!
Next I decided to make a Quicktime movie from the iMovie HDV Project using Full Quality compression via Apple Intermediate Codec (1440 x 1080). This took 12 hours to do! Computer viewing of the resultant 44 GB movie gave excellent image sharpness in still views, but for views of moving objects and also panned footage from the camera, closer viewing showed fine comb-outlining on most objects, but especially on narrow vertical objects. Is this what some of you call "jaggies" and is it an interlacing artifact? Whatever it is it was NOT in the iMovie Project but was introduced by the compression process Project->>Movie. Still worse was the jerky playback of the movie. The "IMovie Inspector" info confirmed that the movie had been made during the compression process at 25 frames per second whereas playback was in the range of only 3 to 10 fps! Previously made shorter Quicktime HD movies have not shown this jerky playback and played at 25 fps. Can anyone explain why this jerky playback occurred with the the longer 44GB movie?
Finally I made a DVD by dragging the uncompressed iMovie HD Project icon directly onto a DVD theme in iDVD and burning. The result was OK on both the computer and on TV but not great. Close viewing on the computer showed an effect which looked like a thin film of water rippling horizontally. This effect also showed in TV viewing of the DVD. Interestingly, this effect was almost eliminated when "Deinterlace" was UNCHECKED in the iDVD player viewing options.
My own conclusion is that the highest quality for archiving and playback is achieved by storing the large edited iMovie HDV PROJECT on an external hard drive and playing it back at full screen size on the Mac computer. In this way the iMovie editing functions such as the Timeline are hidden from view and cause no distraction when watching the superb HDV quality.
IS THERE A BETTER WAY?
Please comment and advise.
Vee Kay

I have a Sony HDR-HC9 1080i HDV tape camcorder and I am able to play back HD video to either a Mac computer or to a Panasonic Full HD 1080p TV. Playback quality of unedited HD holiday video footage to TV using HDMI cable and to the computer via Firewire is superb. This excellent playback quality is also preserved in an edited iMovie Project in HDV format 57 minutes long and 48 GB in size which I made from the original 90 minutes holiday video footage.
The problems arose in trying to preserve this high quality when sharing the iMovie Project. Before I bought this HDV camcorder I had a Sony DV tape camcorder and I always used to make an archive tape from an edited DV Project by exporting the iMovie Project back to tape. However, when attempting to do the same with this latest HDV 48 GB Project the computer message informed me that it would take about 43 hours to do this. So that is out of the question!
Next I decided to make a Quicktime movie from the iMovie HDV Project using Full Quality compression via Apple Intermediate Codec (1440 x 1080). This took 12 hours to do! Computer viewing of the resultant 44 GB movie gave excellent image sharpness in still views, but for views of moving objects and also panned footage from the camera, closer viewing showed fine comb-outlining on most objects, but especially on narrow vertical objects. Is this what some of you call "jaggies" and is it an interlacing artifact? Whatever it is it was NOT in the iMovie Project but was introduced by the compression process Project->>Movie. Still worse was the jerky playback of the movie. The "IMovie Inspector" info confirmed that the movie had been made during the compression process at 25 frames per second whereas playback was in the range of only 3 to 10 fps! Previously made shorter Quicktime HD movies have not shown this jerky playback and played at 25 fps. Can anyone explain why this jerky playback occurred with the the longer 44GB movie?
Finally I made a DVD by dragging the uncompressed iMovie HD Project icon directly onto a DVD theme in iDVD and burning. The result was OK on both the computer and on TV but not great. Close viewing on the computer showed an effect which looked like a thin film of water rippling horizontally. This effect also showed in TV viewing of the DVD. Interestingly, this effect was almost eliminated when "Deinterlace" was UNCHECKED in the iDVD player viewing options.
My own conclusion is that the highest quality for archiving and playback is achieved by storing the large edited iMovie HDV PROJECT on an external hard drive and playing it back at full screen size on the Mac computer. In this way the iMovie editing functions such as the Timeline are hidden from view and cause no distraction when watching the superb HDV quality.
IS THERE A BETTER WAY?
Please comment and advise.
Vee Kay

Problems with exporting my first HDV project

Hello everybody
When I want to export my 30 min HDV project it takes forever around 10-15 hours. When I finally got a self-contained quicktime movie file exported. It does not play in anything but FCP. Why is it so slow and how can I make it go faster?
I have a Macbook 1, 83 ghz 1 gb ram and FCP 5.0 the video is compressed to HDV1080i50.
Rendering is finished.
Thanksful for help
/David

Without wanting to spell it out to you, yes, as the other guys have correctly interpreted, the article highlights the fact that HDV is processor/RAM intensive, and it seems to me that your system just hasn't got the grunt to make HDV a fluid format to work in... One of the main hassles is the re-conforming of the GOP structure (HDV is an mpeg2 type format) when exporting HDV sequences, which is why many people capture/transcode to a full i-frame format to avoid GOP structures all together.
Without meaning to seem rude or brush off your original enquiry, there is loads of information on the forum about pro's/cons of HDV... a simple search will help you out.
regards,
J
Message was edited by: James M.

Is there a way to export an HDV project out to tape (FX1) after Export?

I know I can import HDV footage from the FX1 into FCP5, perform edits and then "Print to Tape" (FX1), but is there a particular format I need to export to, to be able to created a file for import into a new Project for "Print to Tape"?
In other words how do I export an edited HDV File back to tape frm within FCP5?

I import footage from 2 diff tapes (Cam Angles) of a Cooking show taping.
I edited the clips together and added titling
I then exported the Project out (Current Settings) to a single file
I open that file in After Effects to add Motion Graphics
I export that back out in the HDV format
Now I want to export that file to tape by importing into FCP5 HDV project and doing a "Print to Tape" command. But when I do this I get serious frame drop outs.
I hope that made my situation a little clearer.

Preparing to Print a BIG HDV project to tape.

I have a 80mins HDV project that I'm preparing to Print to DV tape (I have 83min tapes)
Is there anything I should know to make this process flow a bit smoother?
I project is on 2 HDs.
I was thinking that I would mixdown the audio tp begin with.
The project is mostly conformed
Has anyone successfully Printed 80mins of HDV?
This is for a premiere on monday night.
I also want to run a bkup. What is the fastest way to get a usable, decent looking output?
Thanks
DP 2ghz Mac OS X (10.4.3) Visit colorsstudios.com

Honestly, a great looking image can only br achieved by outputting certain areas, then going back in to FCP and making changes. I'm sure a decent output will be achieved with a straight print to tape (that's what one would start with anyway). If you tweak it now based on what other people have found you're playing with fire. Just print it and go from there. If you have time to make changes and reconfrom and reprint, that's great, but if you start fiddling, you may get a complete failure, for which you don't have time.
As for the 95% conformed, don't trust it completely - until it is finished conforming.

Upconverting DV for an HDV project

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