HDV Workflow PP - Help An Idiot, Please!
 

As an inexperienced, fast learning xha1 user, I am slightly worried my workflow and archiving are not helping me get the best quality. Can you look at my workflow and suggest a better way, please.

I capture straight to PP CS3
Edit directly on the HDV file
Render a master .m2t file by using the export to tape workaround.
Print this .m2t to tape using canopus because it misses frames if I use PP.

Is this final .m2t file as high quality as the original capture or is there a better file to store it as?


Hope this isn't too confusing,
a confused man!

It seems you have to render to m2t for saving onto a tape, as a master. However rendering the timeline to a less compressed format (your choice:) would give you a better file as a master. This file would also create a better m2t and mp2 for DVD.

When I develop a workflow, I always keep the delivery media in mind. Since most of my work ends up on DVD and BD or on the Web I use a much different (and more complex) workflow than I did years ago when the world was SD, and tape and DVD were the most common delivery options.

You haven't stated what your ultimate delivery media are so it's hard to give you really salient options.

That said, your workflow to get back to HDV tape seems reasonable. Unfortunately you do recompress when you output your mt2 file but I think that's unavoidable.

I gave up trying to get finished projects back onto tape when I made the jump to HDV. It just didn't seem worth the effort for the loss in quality. Depending upon the size of the project, there are other better ways to archive projects... at least for me.

Thankyou guys.

I thought saving to HDV would give me the highest possible render, as its HDV to HDV. Would there be a better format to render my master file to, that was around 10 - 20GB per hour?

I pass a hard drive of masters on to someone else, who then compresses them in various web formats.

many thanks,
Paul