View Full Version : Any free way to edit realtime HD?


Zac Crosby
January 18th, 2008, 03:46 PM
Ok so im stuck in a pit of wanting to find a free... or cheap way.... to edit realtime HDV in Premiere Pro Cs3.... cause i just don't want to shuffle out the 400-500 in aspect HD

So anyone have any idea of anything coming out?

Graham Hickling
January 18th, 2008, 11:54 PM
As I'm sure you realize, when you use Cineform you aren't editing HDV, you've transcoded HDV to cineform-codec avi (or mov) and edit that.

So, you could for example transcode to an mjpeg codec and edit that. You can buy a good mjpeg codec for $20 from Morgan Multimedia (and you can probably find a free one on the web somewhere.)

Not as slick as Cineform of course - no transcoding on the fly, no effects acceleration, and so on.

Ray Bell
January 19th, 2008, 09:31 AM
There's Black Magic Intensity at a pretty good price... it uses mjpeg, but
you better have a super super fast computer if your going to be doing real time....

the card is HDMI interface.... so if you got the card and the camera, your
gathering uncompressed footage real time

Harm Millaard
January 20th, 2008, 04:04 AM
the card is HDMI interface.... so if you got the card and the camera, your gathering uncompressed footage real time

Only if recording live. If capturing from tape you have the compressed HDV signal in 4:2:0 colorspace without timecode.

Roger Averdahl
January 20th, 2008, 04:26 AM
If capturing from tape you have the compressed HDV signal in 4:2:0 colorspace without timecode.
Just connect the FireWire cable, camera > computer, and the TC is there when you capture via HDMI from the Intensity card. The same goes when capturing Component signal from camera/deck to the Intensity Pro card.

And yes, you can capture uncompressed footage from a HDV camera via HDMI. Yes, you want gain any quality, but for CC its better than the compresed native HDV signal or BMD's MJPEG codec.

Ray Bell
January 20th, 2008, 01:03 PM
Only if recording live. If capturing from tape you have the compressed HDV signal in 4:2:0 colorspace without timecode.

Don't use the Firewire output for tape capturing.... use the HDMI port for capturing from the tape.... at least it works great with the canon hv20

Mike McCarthy
January 20th, 2008, 02:10 PM
Use both, Firewire for device control and HDMI for AV data.

Harm Millaard
January 21st, 2008, 03:27 PM
Guys,

There is a common misconception about HDMI versus Firewire.
HDMI is a video transfer, no meta data are transferred, just video data.
Firewire is a digital transfer, including metadata, timecode, exposure settings and date and time or recording.

Both transfer 4:2:0 color signal and compressed MPEG2 if transferring from tape.

HDMI only has value if you capture live, before compression, and even then it may be 4:2:0 color space, instead of 4:2:2, depending on the location of the DSP and the HDMI chips in the camera.

Thomas Smet
January 21st, 2008, 08:50 PM
You can download the Intensity drivers for free. What this will give you is the nice mjpeg codec designed for easy HD editing.

You can capture as HDV and convert to the Blackmagic mjpeg codec which should help speed up editing and reduce the load on your cpu. The Intensity card itself doesn't help speed up the codec so you will be able to edit the mjpeg files just as fast as if you captured them from the Intensity card.

If you do use the Intensity card you can save the conversion step by capturing live.

Of course you will not gain anything quality wise. That isn't the point here however. The point is to get a file that is easier to edit with Premiere and converting or capturing to mjpeg will help a lot. Quality wise it will look exactly the same but a decent system should be able to fly through in RT.

If you want free and do not mind spending the extra time to convert then just download the Intensity drivers for free and capture as normal HDV and then convert. Once it is finished you should be set to go.

Ervin Farkas
January 22nd, 2008, 11:53 AM
Thomas,

What exactly needs to be downloaded? I suppose the page is this: http://www.blackmagic-design.com/support/software/ but it has so much stuff on there... you say download drivers, and you will have the codec... confusing... there is a link to codecs on the right, is that the one?

Also, would the QT mjpeg codec work the same way, same quality? You can convert HDV to QT/mjpeg using MPEG Streamclip.

One last question: what is the difference between mjpeg A and B?

Thanks,