Editing HDV in Final Cut
 

I'm sure that I'm probably not going about posting the right way but I have a question about HDV editing in FCP.

I have been capturing HDV footage with a new sony cam. I drop it right into a DV sequence in FCP and edit, render and then export as DV using compressor. The reason I am using this workflow is a) I have been told it would result in higher quality video and b) I want the video letterboxed so I can put text in the empty areas.

Can anyone tell me if there is something inherantly wrong with this workflow? Ultimatly the video I produce is for local broadcast.

Thanks in advance for your help and I hope this is the right way to pose a question.

With Sony Z1 footage, I have compared HDV downsampled in the camera to DV, and HDV footage edited in HDV then exported to DV. Other than a 1 scan line jump, there was no technical difference I could see on an "almost grade 2" monitor. So if you're outputting to DV, then you may as well downconvert using the Sony's Letterbox setting and edit DV.

However, if your footage contains shots with intense colour (e.g. chromakey, stage lighting, motion graphics) you're better off editing HDV, then converting to DVCPRO-50 and using a video facility to dub to DigiBeta.

Shooting HDV for SD helps the lens quality and levels of detail, but at the expense of motion artifacts on fast pans, fast action and so on. Purists may also have issues with the sound, but most will be fine with good mics and technique.

Just IMHO of course. :-)

Oops - seems to have been posted twice. Not sure how that happened.

Thanks for the information!!

HDV downconversion
 

I have found that for my TV spots downconverting in camera or in Final Cut (with the 1 pixel shift) is pretty similar. However if I need to rotate a long clip in final cut (to counteract an unintentional dutch angle or to zoom past something with SD or HD footage) I've found that it works best to do it in SHAKE or Possibly COMBUSTION. Overall as you would expect the downconversion accuracy is noticeably better in Shake than in FCP.

HDVxDV
 

Is it still necessary to use this software to get HDV footage into FCP? Even in FCP 5?

Then what does Native HDV mean in FCP 5?
Dan

If you have one of the Sony HDV cameras then you can capture and edit exactly the same as you would with regular DV footage. However the Canon and JVC cameras have some limitations; not all of their shooting modes are supported in the current version of FCP.