DNxHD or Not for HDV?
 

I am working with 60i and 24P HV-20 footage in Xpress Pro.

I am wondering if there is any benefit to transcoding to DHxHD?

My computer is fairly underpowered: 3.0 P4, 2 Gig RAM, nVidia Quadro FX 1100 AGP 8x, WD raptor HD's.

FWIW, I have to say Avid seems to work with HDV MUCH better than does Vegas.

Thanks for the insights!

Peter,

My experience is limited to only two DVD productions, but I found DNxHD the best way to go. I believe it is easier for the computer to manage than HDV. (I can manage multi cam groups in DNxHD on a AMD X2 4400). Also, you can export as a quicktime reference with DNxHD, but not HDV.

I did a lot of tests, and found the best quality results by capturing the HDV, transcoding to DN145HD, editing, output as Quicktime Reference (i.e. fast), and then to Sorrenson to transcode to SD for DVD authoring.

Lucky you guys have the option, Us people over in PAL land are still awaiting the ability to cut native HDV footage. We convert to quicktimes using the DNxHD codec and have no problems with workflow, from exports to AE back into Avid and Authoring. Seems to be rock solid

I would agree with Terry.

You also have the option of transcoding to DV, which is much easier to edit with if your computer is underpowered, and takes up much less space.

When you are finished your edit, relink your sequence to the original HDV media for your output. You won't be able to use Quicktime reference though. You'll have to output a full video.

The easiest way to do this, I find, is to choose "Clip/Export to device/HDV." (Ignore the device error at the end. It's just looking for a deck to export to.) This wil give you a transport stream that you can import into your mpeg2 encoder.