Workflow tips for combining HDV and DV?
 

I’m currently beginning work on a project where I will have some standard DV clips (mostly after effects animations) that I would like to combine with some HDV footage: comped green screen from Ultra and an HDV interview. Is that possible?

This project is ultimately going to a standard DVD (4x3 aspect ratio).

What is the best workflow/project setting for a project such as this? Do I drop the HDV footage into a DV template (project) or do I drop the standard DV clips into an HDV template (ala 1080 60i)?

With my testing so far, it seems that the Cineform intermediate version of HDV plays best on my system, so I do plan to convert all HDV clips.

Any tips or guidance would be VERY appreciated. Thanks--


*And for those who might know – what is the best output file type from Ultra to go back into Vegas? My green screen footage is going into Ultra as Cineform. I could go back out that way, but apparently I need to purchase an addition license to do so. Does uncompressed AVI work? If so, how does that affect the HDV Cineform file/clip (if I am to go back into an HDV project)? I know it obviously works with a standard DV project, and maybe it sounds silly to ask, but I wasn’t sure.

-- anybody?

As your final product is 4:3 SD, I guess the simplest option is to down-convert all your 16:9 HD footage. The question is, how do you do it? Do you want black bars at the top and bottom? Can you get away with "squeezing" the footage? How about "cropping" it? You could always "pan and scan" (see link) the HDV footage so that it fits in a 4:3 frame - but that's a fair bit of work. Not sure how you would do this using Vegas, but there IS a way. Someone else will be able to tell you how to do it.