Editing in HDV vs. DVCProHD
 

I recently shot a large amount of footage on a Z1 then captured it via the camera to the hard disk as native HDV. Since then, I have been told that I should have captured it via KonaLE to DVCProHD. That the HDV will take too long to composite and conform. Plus, it will not be acceptable for broadcast quality because of the large amount of compression.

Can you help me understand the realities of the two ways of editing? I understand the long GOP theory, but have trouble knowing who to believe for the final word on editing

You don't lose any EXTRA quality by capturing from taped footage in the camera to HDV on disk. The HDV compression happens in-camera ... transfer over firewire is just a lossless transfer of 0s and 1s.

Oh wait...I see what they are saying, that staying in native HDV will be tedious for editing. I'll defer to others on that...but the answer will depend on your processor specs in part.

what is your NLE ?

most NLE have a intermediate codec to convert the HDV so you are editing individual frames ( avi) .. IE: vegas & premiere use cineform codec ( 4:2:2 color space) ... i don't remember the name if the intermediate for FCP but there is one ...

NLE is FCP 5. Editing on a MAC G5, Dual 2, 3 gig of RAM, Kona LE card.

No problem there. Transcoding the footage from HDV to DVCProHD will actually do more harm than good. It's the final step, where you recompress your timeline back to HDV in order to print it to tape where you will loose quality.

If you're not going back to HDV there won't be a problem. How exactly are you going to deliver?

Isn't it possible to edit in DVCProHD as a proxy?

I'd be very keen to hear from whom told you to convert to DVCproHD! DVCproHD is a highly compressed codec, that's worth using if you shot it in the first place, but there are many superior choices for intermediary codecs.

Indeed, in FCP, it's easy to edit natively in HDV, especially on a decent system like you have, and, right at the end, convert the timeline codec to uncompressed, do the final render to that for the best possible quality master.

You can use the Kona to monitor while editing HDV, and in the end dunp out to your HD D5 master or whatever.

Graeme

Provided his disk subsystem is fast enough to stream uncompressed HD...

Won't he get the same output from the HD-SDI output without rendering if Safe RT in High Quality is used (provided his system is fast enough to do that)?

There's not much point in having the Kona card if you don't have the hard disc to keep up with HD-SDI, and similarly, there's not much point in any of this if you're just going back to HDV tape.

Once you want to elevate your production values beyond HDV, you need to do it all!

And you can also use PhotoJPEG75% instead of uncompressed and get 95% of the benefit in 10% of the disc space.

Graeme

Delivery Formats
 

HDV is an excellent acquisition format, and is very capable of capturing images that will work beautifully as broadcast HDTV, or as downloadable image files with HD resolution, such as a 720p QuickTime encoded using the H.264 codec.

In other words, you can disregard anyone who is suggesting that having acquired with HDV, somehow made youself ineligible for national broadcast. There are some threads in the JVC HD-100 area that include links to really lovely work shot on HDV that has already found airplay, as well as blogs dealing with folks using HDV to source images for the far-greater demands of theatrical projection.

And if a broadcast-ready deliverable is what's being called for, it's unlikely that DVCproHD will show up anywhere in your workflow. To the best of my knowledge, none of the major broadcasters accept DVCproHD for air. Instead, each has their own set of resolution requirements (i.e. CBS and NBC only accepting 1080i, while ABC, ESPN and other Disney channels all require 720p), as well as a specific delivery format (either HDCam or D5.)

Both of these formats can accept data with far less compression than that needed by DVCproHD, so you can happily work with your footage in its native state (FCP5 on the new G5 Quad handles this beautifully) and up-res according to the needs of your delivery master as the last step before you output to tape.

Hope this helps.

Alex

I have sent out several DVCproHD tapes to various networks, no issues at all. HDV will not be accepted, period endstop. Most stuff for "big" networks gets sent out on D5 but I am more a shooter than a finishing editor so I am not as familiar with that.

The uncompressed rebuild is the best option as any color correction or effects can get really nasty in HDV and even DVCproHD.


ash =o)

I'm in a similar situation, I have been told by several vedors that I need to edit with the DVCproHD codec instead of HDV. The vendors were suggesting this along with purchasing a Kona 2 setup to eliminate some of the strobing in our HDV video. If this isn't the best setup what is?
Our output is mainly to DVD, but still unsure what to master to in HD. Any suggestions?
Kevin

Graeme, are you saying that PhotoJPEG75% is superior to DVCproHD, say at 1080i? i ran some tests on an HDV short film that my wife made and at JPEG75 the datarate runs at about 60% file size of what DVCproHD would be, and it does look pretty similar (though I'm using MPEGstreamclip to convert anf there seems to be an annoying colourshift from the original MPEG files that I can't trace, it's difference whatever codec I use.)

Dylan, it's a very much superior codec to DVCproHD!

Graeme

Graeme, Alex, Ash and All,
Sorry it has taken so long to get back to you. The person who told me the HDV would not pass broadcast standards and that DVCproHD was the way to go was Gary Adcock who was conducting a seminar on HD Mastering. He was quiet adamant.

I would like to output to the highest broadcast standards possible. What do you recommend? One possibility is for me to hand over the FCP files to the network and let them output to uncompressed.

Suggestions and recommendations would be appreciated.
Mickey