HDV archive/ SD delivery

[James Klatt]

I have my first weddings with my XH-A1/HV20 coming up next week, and am hoping someone would be generous and share their workflow from capture to final export.
I am editing on FCS 2, with the intention of editing in HDV downconverting to SD for DVD delivery, and archiving the HD for future use(clients, web, etc.)
I realize the rendering/encoding times are the biggest hurdle and so I am trying to find the quickest procedure without sacrificing image quality.I have been experimenting and researching, but there are so many variables that I am a little dizzy. -James

[Ian Broadbent]

Hi James

I was kinda worried about this too. Heres my take on it adn I have only just finished editing my first wedding in HD too, so take it with a pinch of salt if you want to.

I use Avid Liquid to edit but intend to keep the HD edit on hard drive and provide the customer with a SD DVD currently. The HD edit will allow me to author a HD version in the future when I have the equipment to do so.

I am accomplishing this by having a SATA drive mounted in a removeable tray, when that drive is full I can replace it with a new one. I reckon that I can fit about 5 jobs on a 250Gb drive so including a fifth of the £70 drive in my price per wedding was not an issue.

For me its easier to capture and edit in HD then render SD for delivery on DVD. I shoot 720p. I intend to mix with 1080i on a 720p timeline to further complicate things soon, so I may have a different idea then hehe.

Who said it was easy lol

Ian

[Bruce S. Yarock]

It took us a couple of months to figure it out, but it finally is working.Here' sour workflow:
1-Capture with Cineform Aspect HD into Adobe Premiere Pro.
2- Do edit in hdv.
3- When done, create Cineform HD avi (final hdv master),an M2T file (to be able to export to tape), and a WMV9 (to be able to view on PC in windows media player #10 and up).
4-Take the HD avi and open it in a standrd Adobe project. (You can do all types of cropping,etc with no pixelization).
5- Make an sd mpeg for dvd production.
6-Try to figure out why we're doing so much work for so little money...
Bruce S. Yarock
www.yarock.com

[Richard Wakefield]

Bruce, that is a great reply..

i've been trying to sort this out in my head (as a PPro2 user) for ages now using various forums, but u've helped to summarise it for me!

How much is Cineform Aspect HD? Will this be a lot easier in PPro CS3 do u know??

This is one of the only things I dislike about PPro, and jealous of Vegas/FCP users in that respect!

[Bruce S. Yarock]

Check with Cineform -www.cineform.com.
I think it was $500. Also another great resource is Steven Gotz, who helped us a lot. www.stevengotz.com.
Bruce S. Yarock
www.yarock.com

[Richard Wakefield]

thanks Bruce...although i'm not sure $500 is something i wanna spend in a hurry...i'll try the trial download or look into PPro CS3 first :)

[Geoff Dills]

don't know why so many answered James' questions with how to do it with a different editing platform....but here's how I would suggest you do it:

Capture HDV in FCP, edit HDV, export a QT movie (uncheck 'make self contained' to make it a reference file), import file into Compressor, select appropriate preset depending on length of video to make a DVD, bring it into DVD studio pro and make your dvd. To archive, export your timeline as HDV to tape.

[Mark Goldberg]

I shoot and edit in HD using Vegas 7. I issue the regular widescreen DVD along with a Windows Media Video HD version of the video. The client gets choice of 1080 or 720p format for the WMV. I also instruct the client on making the PC to HDTV connection to be able to watch the video in HD.

I archive in HDV back to tape.

If we produce in HD, I think we should release in HD now, and not wait for Blu ray or HD DVD to become standard.

[Drew Curran]

Originally Posted by Geoff Dills

To archive, export your timeline as HDV to tape.

Originally Posted by Mark Goldberg

I archive in HDV back to tape.

Geoff/Mark

When u say you archive back to tape, do you mean the 60min HDV variety? If so you would have 3 or 4 tapes per wedding?

Is there a longer HDV tape on the market?

Drew

[Bruce S. Yarock]

Drew,
When we export back to tape, we're exporting the final finished hdv edit.I don't know about the other nle's, but in Premiere Pro/Cineform, you create an M2t file, which is the file for exporting back to tape. What you export back to tape is just the length of the finished edit, in our case usually 1 hour or less.
We get the client to buy a 500 gig drive ( if they want us to archive everything), and in addition, we do an export to tape for us. we'd also like to keep a copy of the wmv 9, and hdv master,but don't wnt to pay so much for storage...
Btw, the storage space necessary for backing up everything (project,clips,hd master,wmv,mt2) is around 300 gigs per wedding edit.
Bruce S. Yarock
www.yarock.com

[Drew Curran]

Bruce

Thanks for the info.

I use FCP but haven't tried printing to tape yet.

The reason I asked about the 60min tapes, is that most wedding films here tend to be around 2 to 3 hours long by the time the ceremony and reception, etc, is included. I suspect I'll have to split the film in to hour long segments for archival back to tape.

I filmed a ceremony recently which alone lasted nearly 90mins!!

Thanks

Drew

[Michael Liebergot]

Originally Posted by Drew Curran

Bruce

Thanks for the info.

I use FCP but haven't tried printing to tape yet.

The reason I asked about the 60min tapes, is that most wedding films here tend to be around 2 to 3 hours long by the time the ceremony and reception, etc, is included. I suspect I'll have to split the film in to hour long segments for archival back to tape.

I filmed a ceremony recently which alone lasted nearly 90mins!!

Thanks

Drew

Drew sounds like you need to try some short form editing as opposed to long documentary form.

I had a 90 minute Catholic Mass that was edited down to 20 minutes (setup shots, guests arriving, processional, readings, (candle lighting, presentation of gits, communion were all mixed down into one song with the blessing of the marriage as voiceover), resessional. The total DVD with ceremony, reception, and bonus features (highlight video, bouquet/garter/cake cutting in it's entirety (cut down for actual edit) was 1 hour.

BTW, they thanked me for editing down the ceremony and actually sat through it all again.