FCP: Sony vs JVC & AIC vs HDV
 

Looking at the docs for 5.0.3 I found a very interesting tidbit.

We know Sony records a PES data stream to tape not a TS as does JVC. But, I've always assumed that both used Closed GOPs. Not so.

While JVC quite does -- Sony uses Open GOPs which mean there are dependencies accross GOP boudaries. The advantage, of course, is Open GOPs squeeze the data more. The downside is that for even a cuts-only timeline all GOP boundries must correctly reflect these dependencies. That may require more than a few new conformed frames as should 720p.

Apple notes that the entire timeline must be "conformed" to meet Sony's HDV requirements. Likewise, even if you are going to another format, it seems as though the entire timeline must be conformed to get proper MPEG-2 that can be decoded and then re-compressed/re-encoded.

So if you have experienced very long export times with HDV and were -- as I was -- using 1080i, this could explain why it took so long.

So it makes sense to me that AIC will be faster to edit than HDV and faster for 1080i during export. But, HDV should be faster to export for 720p.

Still don't have my Mac up so it would be great if someone who has both 1080i and 720p were to experiment with a cuts-only Sequence.