newbie v1 questions (HDV vs. DV/best qulity sd dvd?)

[Bob Drummond]

Hi folks. I'm new around here. I'm thinking about renting a v1 in a few weekends to play around with, and I have a few questions.

As editing/playing/delivering a finished HD project seems little beyond me at this point, I plan on filming in HDV, saving the footage for potential future use, but editing now in DV, and maybe creating an SD DVD of my weekend tests. The way I see it, even if I won't use HDV immediately, the v1's 3-chip, native 16x9 and native progressive modes will be a quantum leap in quality over the mid-level 1-chip camcorders I've used until now. Correct me if I'm wrong, but even if I film in HDV with the v1, I can still output a down-converted DV feed via firewire.

1. So is there any potential down-side to filming in HDV if I plan on only using it as DV footage for right now?

2. This question is more complex. How is it possible to make the best quality 24p SD DVD Mpeg2 file from the footage? I understand that if I film in 24p a pulldown will be added to the DV footage so that it will play as a normal 60i dv file with the motion characteristics of 24p. I guess I'm wondering if it it really necessary to have my editing package to recognize the footage as true 24p to make the best quality DVD?

There seems to be some confusion how an NTSC DVD stores progressive and 24p content. The famous DVD FAQ states this:

There's enormous confusion about whether DVD video is progressive or interlaced. Here's the one true answer: Progressive-source video (such as from film) is usually encoded on DVD as interlaced field pairs that can be reinterleaved by a progressive player to recreate the original progressive video...

So this seems to mean that even hollywood films transferred to DVD are prepared as a video file with similar settings as the v1 video in 24p dv mode (initially filmed in 24p but transfered to 60i video with the pulldown added to stretch the frames to roughly 30fps)

So if I film in 24p, edit in dv 60i, and flag the resulting mpeg2 file as "progressive" and as having pulldown added, is that about as good as a DVD from v1 footage cam look? If I only pan on delivering an SD DVD is there any benefit from editing and encoding a true 24p file?

[Tim Allison]

We have a brand new V1. I haven't had time to thoroughly test everything, but on first glance, scenes shot as HDV, and then down converted to DV look at least as good, if not better, than our Betacam cameras.

[Doug Graham]

The only downside to shooting in HDV is that there will be an additional step if you want to downconvert to SD...either an in-camera process, or one performed by your editing software.

However, you'll get better results if you shoot in HDV and carry that through to the creation of your MPEG-2 file(s) for your DVD. HDV uses the same 4:2:0 color space as DVD, so there is no color space conversion as there is with footage originating on DV. The downside is that your computer has to have enough horsepower to edit HDV without slowing to a maddening crawl.

[Bob Drummond]

I thought the V1u did on-the-fly down-conversion from HDV to DV via firewire?

[John Bosco Jr.]

Originally Posted by Bob Drummond

I thought the V1u did on-the-fly down-conversion from HDV to DV via firewire?

That is correct. The V1U, like all the Sony HDV cameras can down-convert HDV as DV via the I-Link Conversion in the menu. The editor captures it as DV.

A note about 24p: Most editors do not support the 2:3 pulldown necessary for the V1U's 24p. There are third party solutions, but they are expensive. Thus, unless you have an editor that supports 2:3 pulldown like Apple's Latest FCP 5 update or a third party solution, it's best to shoot in 1080i.

[Lee Berger]

One issue on the down convert is that via FireWire you only get squeezed anamorphic. Letterbox or crop are available via analog output (component or composite).

[Ray Bell]

If you'd like to experiment before you get the camera just download some of the original footage that some folks are showing here and then download the
tryout for cineform.

Then just injest the video footage into the cineform intermediate
and then edit the file with your choice of editor. At this stage the footage is treated just like any other SD file. Then just output the result to a DVD and play it on your display....

I've done it many times to see the benefit of shooting in HD and outputing to
SD... works very well and I'm impressed how it all turns out..a

I don't have a BD or HD writer to play with so can't comment on that....


Another thing I thought worked better with the HD matterial was taking the footage into the editor and creating slow motion work... the results are very nice slowing down the original footage at the editor....