Suggestions for matching an HV20 to A1s?
 

I'm prepping to do a three camera shoot with 2 A1s and a single HV20. I want the end product to be in standard def widescreen @ 24 frames. I'm hoping for suggestions on the best avenue for this.

I'm planning on setting the A1's to that format natively but am unsure how best to handle the HV20's settings. I'm guessing that it should be set to HD widescreen @ 24 but then what's the best way to down convert it?

Or are there any other suggestions for how best to end up with the video from the HV20 looking as close as possible to the A1s footage?

Thanks,
Kevin

I would shoot the HV20 in Cine mode, so you will have wide latitude primary file to work from. I don't have A-1, but I have heard that the there is a preset that is close. I want to say Preset 8, but I can't swear by it.
You don't say what platform you are editing in. I use Vegas, and Cineform and I would shoot it all in HDV 24 and use Cineform to do pull down for capture, then edit in that intermediate format, rendering out to that intermediated for the final file or files I want to put into my DVD. I would render to the DVD from by using DVD Architect, pulling the intermediate files into that program.

Chris has some good input....

another option for DVD authoring would be DVDit HDPro....

This way you can output the project to both SDDVD and Blu-ray...

Even if you don't have a Blu-ray writer, you just output the blu-ray portion to the disk drive....

The DVDit also gives you the ability to creat menu's for both SD and HD...

That way you can allways create a blu-ray disk at a later time if you want...
or just play back the blu-ray file from a usb mem stick...

at least you get both, SD and HD for your troubles, I mean pleasures.. :-)

My only post production tool at this point (for video) is Vegas 7. I don't have much of a budget for buying additional software as this is a pro-bono shoot where I will get a cut of the proceeds from the sale of the finished product.

I'd say that I've got maybe $200-250 that I could spend on additional tools at this point. Would the tools from VASST do me any good? An additional constraint for this project is time. I'm shooting on the 21st and have about a month to have all three cameras mixed down and ready to master so learning curve on new utilities for conversion could kill me.

Are these constraints making the conversion step an unrealistic barrier?

I'm curious as to what Cineform product you're using? I've got a partner who has an older version of Connect HD. Would that work? If so I might take my footage from the HV20 to him for conversion. If not, which current version is the minimum needed to get good HiDef to Standard Def in 24 frames conversions? I see prices from $250 through $1500 for the Neo line that is advertised as what to use with Vegas.

huh?
 

Okay... here's an update and an odd happening on this shoot...

So to remind you all, I've got footage from a 3 camera shoot, 2 A1s and one HV20. We shot the A1s in Standard Def Widescreen at 24 frames and the HV20 in Hi Def Cinemode and "24f".

The pulled footage from the HV20 reports 1080x1440 and 60i which I believe I've read is what's expected for the "24f" of the HV20. Last night I started trying to do some conversion of the HV20 footage on one machine and on a whim, on my other editor I did the following in Vegas 7:

I put the HV20's m2t files right on the timeline with the AVIs from my A1s into a NTSC Stan. Def 24p project. I edited one 6 minute song and rendered it out to Uncompressed AVI NTSC WS 24p 2-3 pulldown and then burned that AVI into a DVD project and popped some popcorn.

I don't know what I expected to see, but I can't really tell the difference other than to say that the HV20's colors are more saturated. I can't visibly see and stutters or obvious (non-color related) differences in the footage from the A1s to the HV20.

I have no problem admitting that it could be my untrained eye but I was really expecting something major. Can anyone shed any light on this? Is it possible that Vegas 7 does a fair job of this conversion or do I just not know what to look for?

I've got the 1.6G AVI on a DVD here at work today and was going to put it on putfile or YouTube to show but I fear their compression routines would introduce too much noise to make that useful.

Ideas?

-Kevin

Kevin, I might be wrong here but I believe if you are just going to view it on a DVD then you will not necessarily see any artifacting (or ghosting). But if you are planning to make it for the Web you need to properly remove the pulldown from the HV20's footage. From what you wrote it seems that you just used Vegas to render out a 24p timeline with the original M2t file (of course mixed with your A1's AVI files)...

Try watching the footage on your PC before burning your DVD...you might see a "slight" difference with the HV20's footage on every 4th frame. Once you remove pulldown you should see no difference at all.

Anyways, Vegas does not properly remove pulldown (from the HV20)...but like I said...you can leave it alone if you are just burning directly to a DVD.