Converting Standard DV to HDV Project Workflow Question

[Keith Moreau]

Hello All;

I'm producing a documentary. We have about 50 hours of Standard definition mini-dv footage shot with a DVX100. I have dozens of hours of B-Roll as well shot on HDV with a Sony HC1 and now a Sony V1U and plan to shoot many more.

The picture quality on both HDV cams is quite remarkable especially when compared to the standard definition. However since the standard Def stuff that we are going to use are talking heads and don't necessarily need the detail of HD we are thinking of producing the entire project in HD (or HDV to be specific). The reason we think we can get away with uprezing the standard-def material is that HD can be detrimental for interviews as it reveals too much detail of the subject's faces. From then on we plan to try to keep it in HDV until final output (onto a good HD codec or other mastering formats.)

So this is going to require an up-rezing of the standard-dev DV video. Of course we want this upsampling to be of the highest quality possible. I suppose we could just have FCP render it or even use compressor on the DV clips prior to use in FCP, but I don't know if this will result in the best quality or smoothest workflow.

Does anybody have a recommendation of the Mac based product and workflow you think is best for this situation?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

-Keith

[Cliff Etzel]

I would look into RedGiant Software's InstantHD - I just did a review of the plug in on UWDV.COM and it's pretty slick - might be exactly what you're looking for.

HTH,