integrating DVC-PRO HD and HDV
 

Hey guys, have a question that is boggling me. My footage will come from a Panasonic HPX500 (DVC PRO HD) from a p2 card, hdv tapes from a Z1, XLh1, and several Canon hv30s.

I'm not worried about making the cameras all have a similar look, that can be done using custom presets, etc.

I dont really have an editing system in mind. All I can say is, i have 2 sources of raw footage, the higher end DVCpro HD footage from the HPX via p2 cards and regular old HDV material from the tapes.

Considering that the finished program will be a 60 min program, what are my best options for a NLE that will let me mix the 2 sources on the timeline and not give me any hiccups in terms of mixing diff formats, etc. It will all be in 1080i and the master would be in HD.


Which OS (mac/windows) and which NLE will suit my need the best? IF there is anything i haven't answered, please let me know!Thanks very much

What are you editing with currently?

Not enough information.
What format will you be shooting in? Will you be using 24p? Will the aspect ratio always be 16:9? As for editing systems, FCP works well with P2 media (Avid MC works in later versions but is costly).

Most likely, you'll have to de-interlace your HDV footage to get it to match your 24p Native DVCPRO HD. I usually render my HDV footage to DVCPRO HD via After Effects (down convert from 1080i to 720p @ 23.98 FPS).

Hope this helps,
-C

we use adobe cs3 currently with an aja xena card/breakout.

We will be shooting standard format HD/HDV, which is 16:9 1080i

I don't want to spend time de-interlacing footage to make it compatible with each other before everything hits the timeline. Id rather the NLE deals with that automatically during ingest.


I am thinking about investing the avid media composer with the Mojo DX hardware; with a powerful turn key system, does this give me a pretty suitable solution? Thanks guys, appreciate it!

Well. You're going to SOL with your HV20 / HV30 footage. No NLE will drop the frames on Ingest. You are better playing nice and making everything the same codec when you edit. Otherwise, omit the HV20 / HV30 from your workflow and only shoot in 24pA (Advanced always has frame markers which your NLE can detect and remove upon ingest).

Getting an Avid won't help with HV20 / HV30 footage. It is a pain to work with when mixing resolutions (although I haven't worked with it in an Avid Environment but something tells me it won't play nice).

Hope this helps.
-C

Raylight lets you mix & match DVCPro HD in Sony Vegas and Adobe Premiere. Also works with Final Cut Pro.

ok, i'm a bit confused about the hv20/30 comment Chris. I thought it shot in regular old 1080i such as the canon xlh1 and the z1?

Although, this does bring up a new question thanks to you, what would the benefit be if we shot on the various modes of 24p/f each of these cameras handle so uniquely..Can you think of any?

Edius Broadcast can handle a wide range of codecs on the same timeline, but I don't know how it fares with 24f footage from the Canons. If you use Edius, capture the HDV footage to the provided "HQ" format for smoothest editing performance.

I don't see a reference to 24P in your original post so I'm not sure how that became part of the discussion.

If you're going to mix these different cameras and formats you can make your workflow *slightly* less complicated by shooting everything in straight 60i/1080i and avoiding 24p altogether. It will be hard enough just to try and match the cameras.

If having a painless workflow in post is a higher priority, let that dictate what you decide to shoot with.

If you have to shoot on different cameras and 1080i formats, you can use something like the AJA Kona card to capture your material into FCP all in the same format.

I agree with Ben Hill. Adding 24p to the game confuses the workflow. His point about matching the cameras is a valid one. Any shoot I'm on, I demand that they use the same camera unless color correction / "Look" is going to be very heavy in post (this can save your butt with camera matching).

I like his idea about using a capture card to remove the codec headache. Honestly, if you have a capture card that supports HDMI in (Intensity Pro) you'll avoid the HV20/30 issue if you aren't shooting 24F (as 60i will be OK) and could potentially skip the crummy HDV codec all together (Just go directly to Pro-Res).

Hope this helps,
-C

If time is a concern (since it sounds like you will have a lot of footage), go with Edius, the only NLE that will edit everything without transcoding. Simply capture to the Canopus HQ codec, dump on the timeline and go to work.

You will, however, need the top of the line version, Broadcast, the other versions will not handle DVCPRO-HD.

Capturing to a different codec than the original is exactly that- transcoding.

As I told the OP, you can do this in Final Cut Pro with the AJA Kona card and capture everything to the same codec, e.g. ProRes 422.

Since the OP is using Premiere, I suspect he is on a Windows platform... is FCP available now for Windows?

The Canopus HQ codec is optional (recommended for speed). Edius will work with pretty much ANY video format/codec.

Read the original question:

<<Which OS (mac/windows) and which NLE will suit my need the best?>>

Regardless of which NLE one chooses, obviously we agree that transcoding everything to one format- be it ProRes, Canopus or what-have-you- is one possible solution for the OP.

Onward,

thanks for all the info guys; I definitely don't want to switch operating systems to Mac, so we are leaning more towards an AVID Media composer 3.0 wi/ Mojo hardware combo. Even though it is quite expensive at 10k for just the avid suite (without a turn key system) I think it will last us some time with an NLE that is quite tried and tested.

We have been using Adobe premiere CS2/CS3 and I am pretty much fed up with that software with all it's bugs and random errors/crashes. I have found the software great to use but totally unreliable and with a big production, I can't afford chances anymore. It would definitely have been cheaper to just get a high-end workstation with an AJA capture card with premiere pro CS3 and integrate it all into one particular codec but as I said, premiere just isn't cuttin it for us (slight pun intended)