DVCPRO HD over SDI
 

So, I want to get a better quality picture, but don't want to go with uncopmressed. I thought I could take my mac to the field, and connect camera over SDI output to my blackmagic card, and record to DVCPRO HD codec, which I assume should be better than HDV. I know the best is to go uncompressed, but my HUGESYSTEMS RAID has some problems with power adapter, and thus I only can record to the drive inside the mac. So I thought best that I could go with is DVCPRO HD.

Please let me know your opinion.

What's your final product? Of course uncompressed is the best way, but a lot of times overkill. Then DVCPROHD is a good option. But why not fix your Huge power adapter?

Levan,

I'm not totally convinced that DVCPRO HD is all that much better than HDV from the H1. I've taken my computer out and recorded tethered in, while also recording HDV, and the differences are extremely subtle, at best. As a matter of fact, I noticed more compression induced noise in shadow areas with DVCPRO HD than HDV. It wasn't much, but the HDV rendered the darker areas a little cleaner, I thought.

Maybe it will be different for you because 50hz DVCPRO HD offers 1440x1080 images, w/ 4.2.2, so it may indeed be a step up, but if you roll tape too, you might be surprised to see little difference altogether. You may find it's not worth the hassle overall, unless you have a controlled studio shoot or an assistant to help with the carting around and setup of the computer.

What it does offer is negating the possibility of motion artifacts that HDV can succumb to in rare situations. Also, it's I-frame, so there's no need to convert to other formats for smoother editing.

My hope is that Apple will support 24F in the next revision of FCP and that there will be an easy way to manage media, so that you can edit in an intermediate codec, captured live and in real-time, and then replace the media w/HDV original material, (batch recapture) then output to whatever format is needed for distribution.

Hi Barlow, have you actually gotten motion artifacts with the XLH1? Everything I've seen from this cam so far is terrific.

By the way, thanks for all the great stuff you've posted!

www.philipwilliams.com

Hi Philip,

The only time I've seen barely noticeable artifacting was shooting a little babbling brook at night. I also shot little waterfalls at an outdoor mall, and if you looked frame by frame closely, you could see tiny blockies. 24F looked a little cleaner, but it had them too. Again, the XL-H1 has so much friggin' detail that it stressed the codec the way I shot it...but it was more than acceptable. I bet if I backed off the detail and did a few other image tweaks it would've been practically non-existant...but what I love about the H1 is the enormous detail it renders, so it's a pick your poison thing. Myself, I'll take the tradeoff the camera offers. If I had the need for absolute image purity, I'd find a way to tap the SDI.

You're welcome! That's what this forum's all about!

Thanks to everybody for your opinions. (oh, and I am fixing the HUGE, but it will be ready only next week, and I need it today)

Well, I will record to tape simultaneously and let you know if I see the difference.

Now I am on my way to shoot.