Am I asking for trouble?
 

Im about to shot a project for work. They want it 16:9.
I'll be shooting with my XH A1, editing using FCP 5.04 and will eventually end up through DVDSP on DVD in 16:9 format.

So my question is, should I record HDV? Or shoot SD 16:9 format?

Any comments or suggestions?

Thanks,
Mike A.

I've been shooting HDV at 24 fps. Capture in the FCP 1080P24 Easy Setup, edit in a 23.98 timeline, export for DVD authoring. No problems at all. The only differences are that after you edit and start to export it will want to "conform" the program. That seems to be about a 2:1 time factor--ie., if it's an hour program it might take up to 2 hours to conform.

The second issue is that you can't watch playback on your NTSC monitor unless you have an HD one. What I do is set the compressor output to one of the DVCPRO settings (it won't affect what you're doing when editing but set it back before exporting). You still can't play to an NTSC monitor, but you can see a still frame on the monitor. That's good enough for eyeballing color correction (assuming you've got the monitor adjusted properly).

So, no, you shouldn't have any problems. It edits just like DV. FCP5.1.4 is what I'm using too--next upgrade will be FCP6.0.

The nice thing about shooting HDV is (a) it looks so darn good, and (b) if the kiddies ever decide to play nice and settle on Blu-ray as the HD DVD format, then you're already there--all you have to do is re-export and re-author the DVD.

Asking for trouble?
 

Bill,

Thanks for that.

I've been researching the forums and found they were at one time having problems with HDV to SD....but I also think this was in 2005 early 2006....so I had a feeling things have been fixed or smoothed out with updates/upgrades.

Also, I should have mentioned that I will be shooting HDV 1080/60i
I dont think that makes a difference but thought I should add it.

Thanks again for the help.

Mike A.

Never hurts to shoot HDV and down convert as long as your system can handle it. Much better pic, and if you need to crop anything, you can drop the hdv into a dv timeline and move it around.

The FCP 5.0.4 will probably be a problem -- you'll want at least 5.1.2 if you want to edit in HDV then output as SD.

You'll probably be ok with 5.0.4 if you downconvert out of the camera and edit SD all the way.

Either way, I'd shoot HDV.

Oops--I misread that as 5.1.4 and he wrote 5.0.4. Yes--you will need to upgrade to 5.1.2 to make things work properly. Shooting 1080i is no problem either, just use the right setup.

In order to get 5.1.2 you should have already done the $49 upgrade to Universal. That then allows you to get 5.1.2 free, but you have to have the Universal upgrade first. I don't know if that price is still valid. The upgrade went on for months and then they extended it, but it could be over by now. You have to go to the Apple site and track down the form, print it out, fill it in and send in your old discs. Read the form carefully--you don't send in everything, just certain ones. You'll need the ones you don't send in as you install the ones they send you back. It took about 2 weeks when we did our upgrade, but that was last year sometime.

Pretty sure it expired at the end of March which was the extended deadline.

-gb-

I heard the price was going to be 200 bucks after the deal expired, but I don't know if that's true. If it is a guy would be better off to pop for the $499 upgrade to 6.0 with all those new goodies.