16x9 SD dimensions
 

I have only used the H1 with HDV (I don`t get to 'play' around as much as i`d like at work) and the m2t files are 1440x1080 1.33 PAR. Is it the same for SD with the A1?

Hi Nathan. SD is DV format which is 720x480 (NTSC) or 720x576 (PAL). Note that 16:9 and 4:3 DV have the same resolution.

Richard

Thanks. So now a new question off of that. What options are there to mix SD and HDV footage in the same video to keep them both at the highest quality possible given the circumstance that one is double sized.

Hi Nathan,

You can always downconvert high definition footage to standard definition and the results should be very good. Going in the other direction is possible, but the standard definition footage will look a little soft since you can't create detail which doesn't exist in the first place.

As far as how to do this, that will depend on your type of computer and software, so you might want to start a new thread in the appropriate Mac or PC forum here.

I have a Sony Z1, but I think the same principle would apply to you. I shoot in HDV and use the camera to downconvert the tape to standard definition as I capture the footage. This gives me better results than I would get if I set my camera for standard definition while recording, and I have the bonus of a high definition tape to keep for future use.

Downconversion from HD to SD
 

I found downconversion a bit tricky. Note one small complexity: HDV footage is widescreen, but the pixel aspect ratio is 1.33 (4:3). NTSC DV widescreen is 720x480 has a different pixel aspect ratio.

If I use in-camera down-convert, the SD image comes out softer than HD, noticibly softer. If I add HD file to HD project in Premier Pro 2.0 and then use Adobe Media Encoder to encode to MPEG2-DVD 16:9, the image again comes out much softer. Applying sharpen filter to HD timeline doesn't help, as it (over)sharpens the HD image before MPEG2 encoder gets a hold of it. The output is again soft.

When I ended up doing and what gave me extremely good results is this. I add HD footage to 16:9 SD timeline (720x480) in a separate project in PPro.
Then I scale the footage on the timeline to 45%, which fits it very nicely within the frame. Then I apply sharpen filter with sharpen amount set to 40%. This results in a very nice and very sharp output SD MPEG2 file. There's a small downside to it, though. Encoding of this timeline with 2pass MPEG2 takes 1 hour per 1 minute on my 3GHz machine. Other than that, I am extremely satisfied with the results. The sharpness and color rendering is exactly what I was looking for. Now I can honestly stick "Filmed in high definition" mark on the video.

[QUOTE=Maksim Yankovskiy;680798]I found downconversion a bit tricky. Note one small complexity: HDV footage is widescreen, but the pixel aspect ratio is 1.33 (4:3). NTSC DV widescreen is 720x480 with 0.9 pixel aspect ratio.QUOTE]

Hi Maksim. Not sure if it's relevant to the rest of your post, but the pixel aspect ratio for widescreen NTSC DV is more like 1.2121. (4:3 frame aspect ratio is around 0.9 pixel aspect ratio.)

Richard

Thanks for clearing that out, Richard. I was talking about 16:9 aspect ratio, yet for some reason I fall into the full frame aspect ratio number. Sorry for the confusion. You are absolutely correct. In fact, I edited my original post above to avoid confusion.