If I am a beginner and need to shoot video for people who only have a regular dvd player do I shot in dv or hdv. I use pinnacle studio 12 and plain old dv edits much quicker than hdv on my pc. BUT, what is the best way to get the best quality for older dvd plays (non HD type).

hi Frank
As you've said in-camera down conversion is the easiest and fastest method, and one I've used on my Z1 for many clips and DVD's.. Your quality will be just fine...

But if you search this site you'll see that common wisdom will attest to the fact that for optimum qualtiy, you're better off editing HDV files... Now I use Premiere Pro 2.0 on a Sony laptop and have no issues editing it native and saving out an uncompressed HD.avi file..

Then you'll need to down convert to SD using anyone of the various methods.. for your MPEG render....again run a search as there is a long ongoing thread on this.

There are 3 methods I've found satisfactory in terms of quality and render times.
1) Adobe After Effects. Import HD clip, create an SD project and drag the clip to size, and render out..
2) Virtualdub resize and render to SD.avi.
3) Use Avisynth and this method : Downscaling HD footage using Avisynth | Fohdeesha Media (http://fohdeesha.com/oldpal/node/123)

Generally I prefer After Effects.. as I can grade pictures, add titles and get the whole project together and do just one render... ok depending on your pc it will be pretty long...hence my first point if you're in a hurry use the camera..

this my 2 Euros worth...
Cheers
Gareth

hi Frank, if you're making a SD dvd and want to avoid editing HDV, you'd have two basic choices, either record in SD and capture it that way, or record in HDV and downconvert it to SD in the A1. Either will work fine.

If you think for some reason that somone later would value having a HD tape source, then you can film it in HDV and downconvert and you'll have the HD tape for later. If you're not worried about later, shooting it in SD would come out well, and if you're starting out, is an easier way to go rather than dealing with the downconversion (or editing HDV).

How do you downconvert from HD to SD in the A1 for editing?

What you do may depend on whether or not your customer wants a wide screen image.

If you shoot HDV, from the menu you can set the A1 to export SD via firewire to your NLE. You can export it as 16x9 Wide screen SD or letterboxed 4x3. Make the menu setting while NOT connected to the PC.

How do you downconvert from HD to SD in the A1 for editing?

page 99 of the manual:

• If necessary, turn on the DV conversion and select whether to convert a tape recorded in HD to SD with the following procedure.

Open the menu and select [SIGNAL SETUP]. Select [HD DOWN-CONV], select a setting
option and close the menu.

At that point, the signal coming out of the firewire port should be SD even if your tape was in HD (e.g. it should capture just like a SD signal)

hi Frank
There are 3 methods I've found satisfactory in terms of quality and render times.
1) Adobe After Effects. Import HD clip, create an SD project and drag the clip to size, and render out..
Gareth

hmm maybe i've been doing this wrong. Are you saying that you capture the hdv file into AE, create a sd project, and then shrink the footage to fit the frame?

hmm maybe i've been doing this wrong. Are you saying that you capture the hdv file into AE, create a sd project, and then shrink the footage to fit the frame?

You can, but I'm not sure that's the way I'd do it. If you're project is SD and will always be SD (meaning that you'll never want to go back and make an HD version), I'd downconvert to SD in the camera and use your standard SD workflow. If you think you might want to output in HD at some point, go HD all the way and render out SD for your current SD project.

Your idea is really putting one foot in the SD realm and the other in HD. There's no benefit and will likely cause you problems.

Most of my projects are output as SD DVD however I shoot and edit in HDV in FCP and then export out as a sd dvd from compressor.

That way you have the original footage as HDV, you can offer to supply the client a HDV version on miniDV tape, you can up sell for Blu Ray depending on your capabilities.

I find editing in Dv isn't that much harder than HDV if you have a reasonable fast pc or mac.

If you think you might want to output in HD at some point, go HD all the way and render out SD for your current SD project.

do you mean render out SD from my current HD project?

Your idea is really putting one foot in the SD realm and the other in HD. There's no benefit and will likely cause you problems.
Wouldn't you just start with the footage at say, 50% scale? And then increase the percentage to give the effect of a "zoom." Retaining all resolution?



That way you have the original footage as HDV, you can offer to supply the client a HDV version on miniDV tape, you can up sell for Blu Ray depending on your capabilities.


So in essence, if your client wants the HDV or Blu Ray version, you will not have to create a new project, right? You just export the HDV project through compressor to create SD DVD after you finish editing?


Running some tests now to see what I get. Sheesh, just when I thought I had this all figured out : /

JS