Videoguys Guide to Understanding HD Formats
 

The goal of this guide is to provide you with a general foundation of knowledge about each of the most popular HD formats, so that you can use this information as part of your decision. It is not a technical manual. I am going to do my best to avoid tech speak and keep it in simple to understand terms.

This guide was NOT written to help you choose a specific camcorder. For that our best advice is to go to your local store and check them out. Talk to your friends/ colleagues who are already shooting HD and ask them what they like best and least about their camcorder. If you can, try to borrow it and try it yourself. If you already have an HD camcorder, this guide will help you better understand the format you have, and it’s pluses and minuses for post production.

HD is not DV
This is a very important fact you need to understand and appreciate. Editing DV footage is a breeze. Even with a four year old computer it’s a piece of cake. You don’t need a ton of processing power or storage. You don’t need special hardware and the workflow of importing DV footage into your computer via FireWire (or USB), editing it, encoding it and then burning it to DVD or publishing it on the web is easy.

Unfortunately working with HD footage isn’t that simple, and each HD format has it’s own unique workflow that can require special settings, plug-ins, work arounds and even hardware. Don’t let that scare you away. By the end of this article you will have a solid understanding of each HD format and a bunch of suggested workflows and solutions.

Videoguys Blog - Videoguys Guide to Understanding HD Formats

Gary

Nice article, Gary. Well done and a very informative summary. Thanks.

Just so you know, for me on Firefox 2, some of the text extends into the right border and disappears.

And to be nitpicky, HDV is not an inherently tape-based format. It's a spec. For example, the Z7 records it to CF cards.

And DNxHD is not a lossless codec. It's a mastering codec, but is compressed.

Thanks for the article Gary. :)

Gary I know you don't sell Canopus anymore but Canopus HQ is another intermediate format just like Cineform that works well too and unlike Cineform will retain the 6 channels of audio for AVCHD conversion.
Ron Evans

We do include Canopus HQ in the comparison chart at the end of the article. I'll try and learn more about Canopus HQ workflows and add it to the next update of the article.

GAry

Gary sorry I missed that column in the chart. Yes it would be worth you updating as HQ also supports 1920x1080 and is usable much like Cineform as an AVI file. Can't confirm for CS4 or Vegas 9 but HQ will certainly work in Vegas 8. There is no 64bit codec version so will not work in Vegas 8.1. One would of course need Edius to even get the converter for HQ.

Ron Evans