Back to early in this post... there were comments about converting to AVI as an intermediary. Is there a 1280x720 version of AVI I'm not aware of? Or are you losing your resolution?

For a couple of low value projects I've converted my m2t to standard DV/AVI, but there was noticable resolution loss, visable lines, etc. I'd never do it for something I was giving a client. So I'm a little confused about the method?

Re: Don't you love it when Brainiacs get a little competitive?
 

Yes, I agree, it's awesome. Every bit of info I wanted was in that exchange. I'm with Steven on this one. I see FCP6 in my future as well. Honestly, for what I'm doing the FCP6 workflow is fine. Once I'm done I'll take it into Color and then export to SD. I'll rent an HD Deck if for whatever reason I would have to make an HD master and re-export to whatever is needed. I doubt any of this is as complicated as it's being made considering current advances. I don't think it's about right or wrong way to edit HDV, simply more choices. Your workflow is mainly based on your output (mine is anyway).

Even the Straight to Video market has gone HD. They really don't want anything shot in DV, I actually lost a sell that way to a foreign buyer. That sucks. Honestly I'm sure if you've got enough breast and blood anything will sell but for the basic martial arts action film the market is saturated with such and even that is shot on HD/HDV so they've got a lot of choices so DV is out of the question unless you're self distributing.

As for HD-DVD I knew it wasn't going to make it. It made too much sense. Hollywood and the movie industry is mainly about figuring out the worst possible way to do something and figuring out how to jump on that immediately. Plus keep in mind for a period of time this locks the little guy out of making Blu-Ray disc that can be read on your basic BR player. HD-DVD was easier to code for. I was going to start doing some HD-DVD test but I guess that's down the drain. This is the second time I've cheered for Microsoft over Sony. First was the Xbox 360 versus the PS3.

-Nate

Hi Paolo
 

Here's a workflow I thought of for a feature shot on HDV 720p on a JVC 111E:

1. Capture *.m2t
2. Edit native HDV (only cuts).
3. Once the edit is complete, which will be around 90min of movie, I export uncompressed QT or TIFF.
4. Import the movie in AE, and then finish the transitions, compositing and titling, etc. Export uncompressed TIFF (or QT).
6. Import into a CC software at a professional facility (I don't have a good monitor nor do I have the eye for color). Export uncompressed HD in TIFF (or QT). This is my MASTER, I hope. This is another 300GB of HDD space. I'm adding music and sound with this, Dolby 2.1 Stereo.
7. Encode M2V for DVD.

DVD is my primary target release...but wanted a film-out option as well. I had one basic question though:
You mentioned to transfer the timeline from FCP to AE, but then won't AE be working on the HDV footage? Or should I first render out uncompressed from AE in 16/32 bit and then reimport and do the animations? I'm a little confused here. And what would be the difference in file size for 16 bit and 32 bit? Thanks. More info can be found on the thread I posted on this subject:
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=126419