Exporting from old miniDV: Loss of Quality?
 

I want to be sure I'm getting as much video data as possible on export from my Canon XHA1 into FCP X. I am currently just playing VCR mode out through the Fire Wire 400 into FCP X. I've heard whispers that there is a best setting for exporting (on camera) and importing (NLE) but I've never been able to track down info on this. Anyone know about this? or is it a suburban legend?

Re: Exporting from old miniDV: Loss of Quality?
 

Urban Legend Strikes Again!

It's digital, it either gets it all or it gets nothing, you cannot "get any better" with a digital transmission path.

[I will conveniently leave out the analogue "elephant in the corner" which is the analogue coded digital signal on the tape, it either reads it sufficiently well to allow the digital correction circuitry to reconstruct a valid byte/ record, or it gets dropped, hence "drop out" even though it's digital]

Same as an HDMI cable, it either works or it doesn't, paying $500/ foot for "better" cables does NOT improve anything (and seriously impinges on the bank balance), you either get the whole picture or you get black.


CS

Re: Exporting from old miniDV: Loss of Quality?
 

No you won't get me lol. Casey, sounds like your XH-A1 is new for you. FW400 is the only way to go, but be careful there are traps involved.

Seems after getting used to FW transfers, many ppl get sloppy with their connection technique and end up breaking their system.
So always connect everything together before powering up the A1 and the computer. Some get away with hot wiring to the computer, some don't,
don't risk it.

Take care plugging in the FW cable, easy does it. The A1 has a 4 pin FW socket which has proved to be breakable if you don't insert the plug carefully.
The A1s model has been upgraded to a 6pin socket.

Try using the A1 remote control to shuttle your tape back and forwards to cue it. This way you can position the cam further away on your editing desk
and there's less wear on its LCD buttons.

Other tips: because the A1 front right hand strap support will break off if it gets a hard knock, Canon offered a free upgrade, it may be still available.
If you use custom color presets, list them on a small piece of paper and tape it to the rear of the cam battery. Just pop the battery cover to see the list.

BnH still offer a great deal on the Canon WD-H72 wide angle adaptor, it's excellent, I never take mine off.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/464579-REG/Canon_1724B001_WD_H72_72mm_0_8x_Wide.html

Cheers.

Re: Exporting from old miniDV: Loss of Quality?
 

I've never heard of this lens, but I am new to the XHA1 world. I was looking at the Letus Extreme EF adapter so I could use my nice photo lenses, but this is way cheaper. What do you think?

Re: Exporting from old miniDV: Loss of Quality?
 

Well I bought mine at full price and think so much of it, I bought one for my A1s and for each of my Canon HV20/40. At that price from BnH it's a cinch.

It comes with a lens hood and there's no front thread for a filter, you don't need one, the ND filters on the A1 cope very well.
And you don't need batteries or any support rods.

Cheers.

Re: Exporting from old miniDV: Loss of Quality?
 

Back to EXPORTING really quick: what is the best format to import my video into FCP X. Everything is 24 frames and 1440 x 1080 --> 1080i coming from a Canon XHa1, but of course I want it to resize nicely to 1920 x 1080 without interlacing artifacts. I need my FCP project settings to match the footage for best performance, right?

Note: Clearly I'm new to miniDV, Be gentle.

Re: Exporting from old miniDV: Loss of Quality?
 

+1
I repair the XHA1 camcorders on a daily basis and haven't got very many busted hand straps. The XHA1's have been great cameras.

Re: Exporting from old miniDV: Loss of Quality?
 

You mean you don't get higher quality video with Firewire 800? ;-)

As far as FCP and your frame size goes, the A1 is built on a video format named HDV. That format is 1440x1080. However it looks wrong at that resolution because the pixels are rectangular (vertical) and are expected to be stretched left to right to 1920 in order to look right. Your timeline needs to be set for HDV so that everyplace it's displayed, that stretch takes place.

Re: Exporting from old miniDV: Loss of Quality?
 

I must say, I found my capture via IEEE/FW into Premiere pro from my XL2 looked pretty awful, I swapped to WinDV for capture and got a higher quality capture.

Re: Exporting from old miniDV: Loss of Quality?
 

Really? Why would that be? I thought ones and zeros were ones and zeros?

Re: Exporting from old miniDV: Loss of Quality?
 

DV can be displayed at different quality settings. This was there in the early days to ease the processing power to display the video at full speed. Lowering the output quality let you trade off IQ for framerate during playback. All the data was still there however.

One possibility is that the capture utility defaulted the Quality setting in the file to Low whereas the next one defaulted to High. Especially if the file sizes were the same.

Re: Exporting from old miniDV: Loss of Quality?
 

You need to capture in the respective DV setting of course. Maybe if your capture program directly converts the DV stream to something else, you might end up with a bad result - you need to make a 1:1 DV capture to receive the perfect 1:1 quality result. But usually any NLE is able to do that. Even Windows Movie Maker can do it (at least the older versions could, not sure about the recent one)