HV20 23.98/24P workflow. Frustrated!

[Glyn Williams]

Originally Posted by David Garvin

The only difference was that I didn't want to convert all my footage into ProRes files like those instructions indicate. Instead I wanted to stay in native HDV so I just went into the compressor preset and changed the video settings “Compression type” from ProRes to "HDV 1080p24"

I don't think this can possibly work.

HDV is simply is not engineered to work at arbitrary frame-rates and arbitrary bit-rates. Go with the ProRes workflow. And don't be tempted to scale the frame up or down. Compressor does a bad job of scaling.

[David Garvin]

Originally Posted by Glyn Williams

I don't think this can possibly work.

HDV is simply is not engineered to work at arbitrary frame-rates and arbitrary bit-rates. Go with the ProRes workflow.

I'm not sure what you mean by saying it can't work, because it absolutely does work. Even the Apple doc makes it clear that you can select other codecs besides ProRes and that they're just using ProRes for their example "Note: ProRes is used as an example in this workflow; other codecs can also be used." I just chose to use the HDV codec.

And I don't know what you mean by saying HDV isn't engineered to work at arbitrary frame rates either. These frame rates aren't arbitrary. I'm not trying to use 19.563 fps for goodness sake. HDV footage can be captured directly into FCP using 60i or 24p. If this was shot at 24p with the A1, you could use FCPs 24p settings, but since the HV20 has an irregular cadence, you have to use 60i. If you wanted to, you could leave it in 60i and edit and export it that way as well. The only thing that's happening to the frames after using Compressor is that all the interlaced frames are fixed. I've watched the footage, frame by frame, counting as items move in and out of the shot, there's nothing odd happening here at all.

Originally Posted by Glyn Williams

And don't be tempted to scale the frame up or down. Compressor does a bad job of scaling.

I'm not scaling anything. Why would I?

[Glyn Williams]

Originally Posted by David Garvin

I'm not sure what you mean by saying it can't work, because it absolutely does work. Even the Apple doc makes it clear that you can select other codecs besides ProRes and that they're just using ProRes for their example "Note: ProRes is used as an example in this workflow; other codecs can also be used." I just chose to use the HDV codec.

And I don't know what you mean by saying HDV isn't engineered to work at arbitrary frame rates either. These frame rates aren't arbitrary. I'm not trying to use 19.563 fps for goodness sake. HDV footage can be captured directly into FCP using 60i or 24p. If this was shot at 24p with the A1, you could use FCPs 24p settings, but since the HV20 has an irregular cadence, you have to use 60i. If you wanted to, you could leave it in 60i and edit and export it that way as well. The only thing that's happening to the frames after using Compressor is that all the interlaced frames are fixed. I've watched the footage, frame by frame, counting as items move in and out of the shot, there's nothing odd happening here at all.

HDV is built for one purpose. It's built-in properties are set to accommodate a number of hardware requirements.
Consequently the data-rate is fixed. The frame rates are fixed and the resolutions are fixed. None of these factors can be changed without potentially breaking HDV.

Compressor might let you make the change. But there is no guarantee that any other software or hardware will work with it. In short, if you change the frame rate - it ceases to be true HDV.

Use ProRes422. That's what it is for.

Using HDV is a bad idea for quality reasons too.

[David Garvin]

Originally Posted by Glyn Williams

The frame rates are fixed and the resolutions are fixed. None of these factors can be changed without potentially breaking HDV.

So you believe that changing the frame rate from the 60i that comes out of the HV20 camera to 24p 'breaks' HDV and makes it potentially unusable? What do you think this entire thread is talking about?

Originally Posted by Glyn Williams

Use ProRes422. That's what it is for.

Using HDV is a bad idea for quality reasons too.

Give me a break. The footage was shot in HDV and it's still in HDV. There was no reason for me to convert it to ProRes422 just to reverse telecine it back to 24p

[Glyn Williams]

Originally Posted by David Garvin

So you believe that changing the frame rate from the 60i that comes out of the HV20 camera to 24p 'breaks' HDV and makes it potentially unusable? What do you think this entire thread is talking about?

Yes, exactly. What comes out of the HV20 is already 24p embedded in a 60i stream. Convert it to ProRes 24p ... and it works fine. Convert it to "24P HDV" and suddenly it breaks. I wonder why?

HDV is not designed to do this. HDV is a horrible technical compromise. Not designed for editing. Not designed for anything other than squeezing a HDTV image onto a DV bitstream. The fact that Final Cut falls over trying to do this confirms this.

Originally Posted by David Garvin

Give me a break. The footage was shot in HDV and it's still in HDV. There was no reason for me to convert it to ProRes422 just to reverse telecine it back to 24p

1... Using codecs which exploit inter-frame compression is utterly the wrong format for editing. It's a dumb idea.
2....The fact that it cannot possibly work.
3... The fact that it does not work.

Other than that, there is no reason whatsoever.

[Brendan Donohue]

I'm bringing this thread back to life with a quick question.

When I inverse telecine with JES using the posted workflows, i prefer to output an AIC, instead of photo-jpeg file. When I import the file into FCP though, and set up a sequence and edit the sequence settings to accept said AIC file, it still wants me to render everytime, should this be happening?? Others had stated that the file would not need to be redered after import and adding to timeline. What am I doing wrong here??

[Brendan Donohue]

ok, so I found what was wrong...I neglected to change my editing timebase to 23.98 when setting up my sequence in FCP..oops..but it's working great now!!!