I'm shooting in HDV with my Canon XH-A1, then I use Premiere CS4 for editing.

Let's say that the I want the final result in DV-format (PAL) 720x576 with a faked letterbox... to use for YouTube (for example).



I have assumed that if I edit my HDV-shots in DV-format - then I can scale the shots to whatever part I want to show and even make zooming and pan digitally at editing.



BUT!

1. This seem to slow down the computer quite a bit if I have 5-6 clips on the timeline. Is this because of the scale-down (which might be processor demanding)? Of course this make the editing hard, especially when I intend to sync video with audio.



2. I also think that the exported file (preferrable H.264) is not as crisp and sharp as I wish it shout be.



Is this workflow totally wrong? Or is there any other way to use the benefits of my HDV-material in the DV-format?

Of course I can; (A) choose to output to DV direct from camera - or (B) edit in HD(V) and then export to DV. But in both there cases I'll not be able to make zoom/pan in edit.



I'm quite sure my editing computer is strong enough: Dual Xeon 2.66 Quad, 16 GB RAM and plenty of hard drives. Running on Vista 64-bit.



Would really appriciate some tips!

At this stage I am wondering if your HDV content is suffering from going through a "DV bottleneck" in your workflow. Would suggest producing this in a HDV project and then downconverting to SD resolution at the last stage.

Note: Compared to shooting natively in SD, you will suffer some sort of softening when converting down to standard definition from High Def. Cameras are known to be poor at this function as it's more of an add-on feature. Try using a HDV deck to do your live downconversion instead.

Andrew

I would suggest editing in HDV then down-converting only if you need to for the final output.

I can only talk for using Vegas, but I am able to pan and zoon in-picture with HDV on the timeline without any problems, and as it's high-res, it looks better than if I were to do the same thing on standard DV. Your PC sounds more powerful than mine, and HDV and DV are the same bitrate (if I recall correctly), so I don't really see any benifit to editing in DV, while editing in HDV will allow you to keep the high resolution of your original files.

Anyway, that's my 2 (euro) cents, hope you get things working how you want soon.

and HDV and DV are the same bitrate (if I recall correctly), so I don't really see any benifit to editing in DV

Actually, DV is intraframe compressed (all compression is in EACH frame) while HDV is interframe MPEG-2 compressed (compression takes place over a Group Of Pictures - GOP - of 15 or so frames, depending on frame rate) and requires the GOP to be "opened" to get access to individual DECODED frames. HDV requires MUCH more horsepower than DV, despite having the same bitrate.

If posting to youtube, your only worry is what format you'd like use for final delivery, and keep in mind youtube is going to transcode the video anyway. I've been using 720p MP4 encoded at 2Mps.

Edit in whatever resolution performs best for editing.