hello,

I have been shooting all of my weddings in SD so far and finally decided to shoot an outdoor wedding in HD. I will be using a Sony fx7, XH A1 canon, and HV20 for a 3rd back cam. I will also be shooting to sony SD tapes. Just looking for any pointers that may help in my first HD shoot ?

Thanks,
Troy

You already have experience shooting weddings, why do you think shooting in "HD" will make any difference? I convert all my hd footage, no matter what format/codec it is, to Canopus HQ AVI files and edit those as easily as back in the SD days. (and that on a 3 year old pc)

edit: well, just thought about the framedrops that might be a concern since they cause much bigger problems then a framedrop when filming in SD. To prevent just that you should use more expensive tapes or like I do, use an external recorder like the Sony hvr-dr60 and film simultaneously to cassette and ext drive. I use cheap sony premium cassettes now without any issue, but ofcourse any drop-out that might occur is less problem since I use tape only as back up and ext drive as main recording medium. (I never import tape, just when I need to) Helps a lot in securing your footage. But since you use several camera's you are minimizing dropout problems as well as you can switch to another camera if necessary.

The biggest issue outdoors is usually audio. Make sure you have good (and close) audio capture that is shielded from the wind!

Also, plan on wet weather, then if it's fine it's a bonus!

Hi Troy

Shooting styles will be exactly the same of course but although you say it's your "first HD shoot", are you planning to deliver the final product on BluRay???

When I replaced my cams about 18 months ago I couldn't find an SD camera so I went to HD...like Noa I simply transcode back to AVI and edit my weddings as if they were SD and they are outputted onto DVD. Although 99% of my brides own a HD TV I have yet to come across one that actually has a BD player!!

You can. of course, render direct from your HDV files to SD but personally I have found the resolution difference between HDV to SD and AVI to DVD is so small that it's hadly worth it with the much longer rendering times!!!

Chris

Troy

I think Noa's put his finger on the only matter of concern, dropouts. You'll find as many different recommendations as there are readers when it comes to stock; some swear by the most expensive HD tapes, others stick with what they've always used. With that in mind, and not having any technical expertise to fall back on, we took the advice of a BBC engineer at a London trade show which was to buy decent quality Panasonic DV tapes (which we bought for about UKL1.50 each in 50's). Their advice was that any tests they'd done were inconclusive except that the best advice was not to change brands but to stick with your chosen one so that lubricants didn't get mixed.

In the long term I'd encourage you to move to tapeless recording as soon as you can afford to do it. We took the advice of a Sony engineer and went with the MRC1-Ks. We did one job with tape as backup and then dumped the tape almost completely.

The exception was to keep a cassette in the machine so that if an event overruns the card capacity we can simply press record and the tape starts. There is the usual loss of sync as the tape starts but that's a small loss. In the long term we're switching to EX1Rs with S+S cards which can be hot-swapped.

Finally in terms of workflow we record and edit in HD then output a DVD-compliant MPEG stream using a modified codec in Avid but also archive an uncompressed HD file as well. We recently upgraded to a beefy computer which, with Avid Liquid's background rendering, means we rarely have to consider rendering time.

Hope this helps but remember it's just one opinion.

Thanks to everyone. So if I understand you all correctly, I can shoot to my Sony mini dv tapes as if I were shooting in SD. I would then load the video from the cam to my NLE (Sony Vegas 8) as a HD format and then render as MPEG format? Anyone know what a good codec is to achieve the best quality for online HD viewing in Vegas? If not I can always check the Vegas forum.

Are you putting it on blu-ray? If not, be prepared for the hell that is getting good looking 'HD' footage onto DVD.

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/what-happens-vegas/271329-maximizing-hd-sd-quality.html

No. The HD recording for this particular event will simply be used to display HD online (i.e. Vimeo or Youtube).

Hi Troy

Just import into the timeline and render to Sony AVC MP4 and use the 1280x720 preset and then upload the MP4 file to Vimeo or YouTube...easy as that!!

Once to get to where you want footage back to DVD you will jump thru hoops as Jonathon has already said. I personally transcode my HD footage back to SD and then go the SD route. You don't need any special intermediate codecs to create MP4 files for online clips but depending on your decided workflow you might need one for HD to DVD.

Chris

@ Chris

I see the Sony AVC MP4 but knot the 1280x720 preset. I do see 1440 x 1080 and 1920 x 1080. Btw, I'm using Vegas Pro 8. Do I have to make this a custom setting?

Troy

It seems to me that there are two elements to the opinions Troy seeks; firstly is whether there's any point in shooting/editing at a higher quality level than you want to deliver and secondly how it's best done.

I have two takes on the first element - one is an unscientific one which is that the higher quality you work with the higher quality your eventual product is likely to be and more persuasively, if you're making a product with a long future life it's simply good sense to record and edit HD.

The second element is simply NLE dependent. I happen to use Avid Liquid which has a decent and simple path from HDV timeline to DVD compliant MPEG stream - which, with small adjustments and considerable processing by TMPGEnc, produces the best quality DVDs I've ever seen even if I do say so myself.

Just a thought....Does the OP need to worry about lighting more so with HD shooting as opposed to SD shooting? I myself have only ever filmed weddings in HD so I wouldn't know the difference (if there is one), but I could swear I've read that HD requires more light to get an equally lit picture.

Like Phillip, I too use Avid Liquid, and there is NO hell in going from HDV to DVD. It works great. So well, in fact, that although I took advantage of the Avid Media Composer upgrade offer, I'm still using Liquid because it is SO EASY for me to shoot in HDV and output to DVD. It saves hours and hours of work and frustration.

And it's just as easy in Liquid to export a WMV 720P file that uploads directly to Vimeo or YouTube with no re-encoding on their end. Then you can embed video from either to another web site. It's been working for me for several years. Of course, it's pretty hard to buy Liquid anymore, but the very inexpensive Pinnacle Studio is built on the Liquid engine and it can export nearly the same way. Time is money when you are in business, so saving time is profitable.

Of course, your mileage may vary.

And it's just as easy in Liquid to export a WMV 720P file that uploads directly to Vimeo or YouTube with no re-encoding on their end.You are mistaken if you think that your WMV files are untouched. Both Vimeo & YouTube re-encode all uploaded video files to H.264 compliant MPEG4.

Dont know how true this is, but I read online that if you render to f4v 640x360 it will go straight through without re encoding. I tried a few and that initial period where your vid looks like rubbish b4 it gets better didnt seem to be there.

Thanks for all the suggestions. I initially tried WMV 9.2, but the audio was out of sync. This may not happen with WMV 11, but I don't have the codec for that and not sure how to add it in Vegas. If anyone knows feel free to share:-) I eventually ended up using the Sony AVC (.mp4) with video size set to 1280 x 720. When I uploaded to Youtube the video looks clean and the audio is in sync. Now my goal is to try to retain the HD quality as much as possible rendering to SD DVD.

I happen to use Avid Liquid which has a decent and simple path from HDV timeline to DVD compliant MPEG stream - which, with small adjustments and considerable processing by TMPGEnc, produces the best quality DVDs I've ever seen even if I do say so myself.

Philip:-

Could you tell me your workflow from Liquid to DVD?

I also shoot in HDV - if you are going outside of Liquid to make DVDs, are you fusing the timeline to .M2V for importing into TMPGenc? And are you using the standard codec, or one of Smetvid's intra codecs?

I've thought about using TMPGenc, and an authoring program to make menus etc, but I'm not sure about maintaining optimum quality if first fusing from Liquid, then encoding again in TMPGenc...

Rob

1 Import HDV files from MRC1-K using supplied Sony software using firewire CF card reader.

2 Copy files to onboard mirror RAID

3 Copy files to outboard HDD

4 Edit at HDV

5 Export as DVD-compatible MPEG-2 (using modified version of supplied codec)

6 Encode to elementary streams in TPMGEnc Express, max 8000Kbps, average video 7750Kbps

7 Import to DVD-Lab for menu creation and authoring.

8 Check with DVD player software

9 Burn and verify to DVD using Nero 9


I’m experimenting with TMPGEnc Authoring Workshop 4 because as of January 1st we’re including BD in our package and I want to use a single authoring platform. The quality of the DVD is comparable to DVD-Lab but the TMPGEnc burning software doesn’t have any verification so we might simply create ISO images and burn them using Nero. I noted that TAW doesn' re-encode MPG files merely the tricksy bits.

Unfortunately nothing is as sophisticated and flexible as DVD-Lab but equally as yet nobody at DVD-Lab can be persuaded to offer a high quality BD kit.

Thanks Philip -

Step 5: 'Export as DVD-compatible MPEG-2 (using modified version of supplied codec)'

Do you mean you are selecting EXPORT TO FILE / MPEG 2 / DVD COMPATIBLE in Liquid, or EXPORT TO FILE / FUSE to create an .M2V file (.M2V being MPG without audio)?

I'm trying to understand the reasoning for using an MPEG encoder like TMPGenc when you are creating an MPEG already from inside Liquid from your HDV material. Seems like you are encoding your timeline to MPEG-2 in Liquid, and then re-encoding again in TMPGenc? I may be understanding this wrong - could you clarify?

I was hoping to import an .M2V created in Liquid into TMPGenc for encoding to MPEG-2, but TMPGenc doesn't seem to recognise the .M2V file format.

Also, could you clarify 'using modified version of supplied codec' - if you are using EXPORT TO FILE / MPEG 2 / DVD COMPATIBLE then I can't see any encoding adjustments to be made apart from bitrate. When you say modified supplied codecs, are you referring to Smetvid's HD codecs? I've been thinking of trying these, but there are several to choose from - for HDV material, are you going with 50mbps, 160mbps or even 300mbps here?

Thanks for any further info, I'm not quite clear on a few aspects of exporting out of Liquid and achieving best quality (uncompressed HD is too space consuming).

Rob,

1 The former - the codec was modified by our computer guru so I don't know exactly what was changed - it certainly wasn't one of Smetvid's - that's not criticism, we simply haven't tried them .

2 You're raising questions that we are looking at ourselves - our computer man's away at present on a police case. I think it may be that DVD-lab requires elementary streams, but the way TAW behaved started us asking.

3 Since we're planning to move to XDCAMS next year we're not spending overlong on HDV.

I'll keep you advised via PM if anything interesting comes up - the field is very competitive and we don't want to give away a competitive advantage. I'm sure you understand. Nor, in fairness do I want to post anything that might bore those here who are beginning their careers and are happy to use their gear's native settings. It can easily sound like showing off.

I was able to get good HD video for Youtube/Vimeo using Sony Vegas 8 Pro AVC codec (1280 x 720).
Now, I need to send the same HD output that was recorded in HD 1440 x 1280 to SD DVD. I would like to do this and retain as much of the HD quality as possible. Chris I saw your response, but wasn't sure of the exact steps you used? I also tried creating a 720x480 mpegs, but the TMPGEnc program wouldn't import. It looks like it's looking for a different format (i.e. AVI).

Thanks,
Troy