Updated HDV Workflow
 

Hi everyone,

This will be a really basic question and I have searched the archives but the replies are pretty much a few years old and I was wondering whether there will be any updated methods of bringing HDV into FCP 5.1.4?

Right now, what I am doing is use DVHSCap to capture the entire tape as a m2t file. Then proceed to MPEG streamclip and convert the m2t file to a QT AIC movie. The QT movie average 30 over gigs and is a really slow process.

I tried digitizing the entire tape in FCP and it worked fine though I do not like to deal with so many clips. It is however way way faster.

Thus, will capturing using Log and Capture in FCP be disadvantageous in any way? Does the AIC codec improve my image quality in any way? I do not intend to go FCP 6 just for ProRes.

Would appreciate any opinions and advice. I sure hope I am doing things wrongly here as it's tiring to wait a few hours for a single tape to get digitized to an editable format.

Cheers

WeeHan

Capturing as HDV with FCP 5.1.4 log and capture is the only way I've ever done it. I can't imagine that it hurts the video quality at all. I tried AIC once and couldn't see any difference, and found that I actually had less flexibility when capturing with AIC. So I just capture straight as HDV. Also takes up much less room on the hard drive that way.

If you don't want a lot of clips, you can unselect the "create new clip on start/stop" feature in the clip settings tab.

Thanks alot Dave! Looking forward to more opinions.

Cheers

WeeHan

AIC or pros res wont 'imprive your footage. Its already been compressed into hdv, so uncomnoressing it, or transcoding it, wont improve the qaulity. However, it would be advatangeous to use prores is mixing with other recording formats, or if your applying graphics and colour correction- the wider colour space will mean your not compressing down your graphics. Which you would be if putting grpahics on a HDV timeline.

Capturing via log and capture has no disadvantage- the same ones and zeros that are on the tape, are transfered into the computer. On tape, its hdv, on computer, it will be hdv. So you can always log and capture in hdv, then transcode it to something else if you need to.

We've done a lot of testing where i work, and we just capture and edit in hdv. Its quicker and easier.

(If doing heavy colour correction or grading on a project, we than transcode it to Prores once the edit is locked)

Hi Peter,

This is very clear, thanks for the outline. Do you think than there's a difference in using FCP 5.1.4 an FCS 2.0 when only using the HDV native codec and not pro-res? Which means of export (in FCP5.1.4 / compressor) do you use to get the highest videoquality for clips to be used on the web?

Best regards,

RW

Canon XH A1 / FCP 5.1.4 / G5+ MBP / OS 10.4.11