Question for Tim D. on HDVxDV
 

Hey Tim,

Can you post the procedure you use for capturing footage from HD100U to FCP using HDVxDV. Maybe a step by step guide so folks like myself can do it the right way.

I found that yu have to export the Mt2 files to quicktime in order to use it in FCP. I am probably wrong and doing it the incorrect way.
Please help. =0)

Also, maybe you can answer a stupid question. Obviosly whenI shoot on the HD100U I am capturing full resolution, but it seems that once that it is transferred to FCP it has lost a lot of resolution. How do I keep the full resolution or is there another way to have the final cut after editing be in full resolution when you go to either DVD, film transfer etc?

Thanks
Duke

Hi Brian,

It is true that FCP won't let you actually work with m2t streams, even if you have purchased and installed the quicktime mpeg component plug-in.
I'm not sure exactly how FCP digitizes 720P30 HDV and maintains native "HDV" but it certainly isn't in a normal mpeg2 transport stream. It creates new I frames for editing.

So here's my current detailed workflow that you have probably already figured out.

1. Switch HD100 1394 switch to HDV
2. Connect HD100 to Mac firwire
3. Turn on HD100, switch to VTR mode
4. Launch the HDVxDV application
5. Cue tape to first shot
6. Click "Playback and Capture"
7. Name the first clip (for example "Scene01A-01")
8. If it is not already playing, hit the play button on the camera
9. Click the SAVE button or hit return to begin capturing
10. Press ESC when you want to finish the capture
11. Repeat steps 6 to 10 for additional clips
12. Select "Export - BATCH ENCODE MOVIES..." or hit CMD+"B"
13. Select "EXPERT SETTINGS" for formats
14. Click Export or hit the RETURN key
15. Select "APPLE INTERMEDIATE CODEC" as your compression type
16. Select "HDV 720P" for compressor preset
17. Click 'OK'
18. Select a folder to save your converted quicktimes to.
19. HDVxDV will now encode into AIC
20. Quit HDVxDV
21. Launch Cinema Tools
22. Hit "cancel" if it asks you for a database file
23. Select "Batch Conform" from the file menu
24. Find your folder with the .mov files and choose one of them.
25. Set frame rate to 23.98 (hopefully a future version of HDVxDV will export the files at 23.98 instead of 24 and then steps 21 to 25 won't be necessary)
26. Quit Cinema Tools
27. Launch FCP
28. Drag the folder of .mov files into FCP
29. Create a new sequence using the 720P30 HDV sequence preset
30. Select "Sequence - Settings"
31. Change the frame rate to 23.98
32. Change the compressor to Apple Intermediate Codec - and set the compression options to 720P
    

I made a new sequence preset for 720P24 AIC so that I can quickly create new sequences.

Thanks Tim.

So how is anyone actually editing and then outputting High Definition Resolution if FCP5 doesn't allow the best resolution to be editing or imported? Maybe this is a stupid question. What if I want to transfer to film one day. How do I get the HD on to film without losing anything?

It seems to me after you're done editing you are left with watered down resolution, probably not close to what was actually caputred in the camera. Correct me if I am wrong.

No that's not true. The resolution stays exactly the same.
Besides, I wouldn't consider HDV to be the "best" for any post workflow, but it works well for aquisition.
If you drop a CT "conformed" file into After Effects, it may show up as half the resolution, but this is because AE doesn't look at the true res, it just looks at the playback scaling. This can easily be fixed by opening in QT player, setting to "actual size" and re-saving. FCP doesn't have this problem, it always checks the true dimensions.

If you want to edit for 35mm blowup, use the same workflow above transcoding to AIC codec. The AIC codec is compressed (not as much as HDV) but considered "lossless" because it doesn't seem to make the image any worse than it was before.

When you have finished your offline, you can free up lots of space on your hard drive, re-convert the needed m2t files to new .mov files using an "uncompressed" 8-bit or 10-bit codec, upsample the colour to 4:2:2 or even 4:4:4 and then do your digital intermediate with those files, always rendering back to uncompressed.

For most purposes, the layman is not going to see the difference between AIC or uncompressed, but once in uncompressed there is no generation loss at all.

2 more questions for the master.

1. It seems like wqhen i impoted audio into FCP5 to play with my 24p footage that it didn't play right. There were ton of little poos on the audio. Is there adifference with audio when you work in 24p? Should I import it at a different rate or some other way? Or is it a completely different problem?

2. What harddrive do you use to capture and edit your HDV footage? I am buying one now and I want to get an external hardrive that can handle HDV and a large quantity. Trying to stay under $1000 if possible. First I was gettinga Hitachi 500 GB Deskstar 7K500 ATA, but I was told it won't work for HDV.

Any suggestions?

HDVxDV crashes
 

Trying to work with HDVxDV, it always crashes. No way. Tried all settings. But Export to Quicktime in different formats: crashes. There is no way mailing to HDVxDV's site.
Thank you.
Edwin

But there is a email: support@dvdxdv.com

I have not had any problems with them as of yet, but I didn't download the full version. You should probably have downloaded the trial version first. And if you did, then I woudln't buy it.

What's your system configuration? OS version? RAM? HDD space? Are you using version 1.024?

I'm surprised because HDVxDV seems very solid to me for a small
I've never had a crash with HDVxDV, but LumiereHD constantly "unexpectedly quits" or has some other buggy things happen like "grayed out" buttons that require me to reboot it.

Tim, assuming that HD space is not a concern, wouldn't be easier to export from HDVxDV directly to uncompressed and edit the clips in FCP using that encoding?
Would it be too heavy for editing? I did some testing and FCP barfed on the uncompressed clips while it worked just fine with the same files exported to AIC.
Don't know if it was just my system or a general issue...

TIA.

Hi Tim,

What external harddrive do you use to edit and store HDV? A Raid? Any recommendations.

Thanks Duke

Tim, this seems more complicated than using Lumiere. I tried it, but there seems to be so many steps that has to be done. Maybe I am just not good at this =)

It probably strips the transport header and makes it a program stream instead (ie m2v) and then handles it as MPEG2.

HDVxDV
 

My system: G5 2DP, 2.5GB RAM, several SATA-HD's, OS 10.4.3, HDVxDV 1.024. - I made some mistake - it didn't capture at all - there are the named files, but no content - although the clips have been played out through the JVC's firewire using HDVxDV's deck controller and playback/capture button...
I try again after this weekend. Thank you all
Edwin

Uncompressed playback requires a fast system, but more importantly a fast RAID array for the data transfer. The transfer rate is 20Mb/sec minimum. AIC is only 7Mb/sec - similar in size to DVCPRO50 codec.

I'm not sure what the audio problems are other than maybe dropping frames on playback. Try encoding out to DV and see if the audio glitches are still there. If they are, then something else is going on like 44Khz being played in 48Khz with realtime transcoding and your system can't handle it.

I've been using firewire harddrives just the way I did with DV. DV is 25Mbits/sec and HDV 720P is only 19.2mbits/sec so it is actually easier on the drive.

It isn't even close to being as complicated as Lumiere. It only looks like alot of steps in my post because I literally put every little minute step that would become intuitive after you did it the first time.

The actual steps are:

1. Capture clips from HD100 via HDVxDV.
2. Export clips to Quicktime using AIC codec
3. Batch Conform the clips to 23.98 using Cinema Tools
4. Drag clips into FCP and edit

Hey, I fixed the audio problems. Just changing from 44kHz MPG to 48 kHz AIFF.

Hey I am able to edit using the original clips in 24p without a problem. Maybe I am doing it wrong. I actually like HDVXDC better since you can mark the clip and also preview before impoirting it. Do I HAVE To use 23.98? I have picked 24p each time without any problems, but I am not sure if I have any consequences as a result.

I hope FCP will make the capture available soon for the HD100U 24P HDV!!

thanks

Using 24fps will work fine (so you can skip the Cinema Tools step and set your sequence to 24fps) but just realize that since NTSC video is 29.97fps, and 60P is actually 59.94fps, that 24P in a pulldown pattern of 2:3 is always 23.98 - even if you were to do a teleciné transfer of film to video.

So what does this mean to you? Nothing, until you are ready to output back to tape. You could maintain 24fps throughout your post process if you are going to blowup to 35mm film print and do your mix at 24fps. Otherwise, just keep in mind that when you create a DVD, the DVD player will play out at 23.98, therfore your film will be 0.1% longer, and play at 99.9% speed. Sync will be maintained.

Thanks Tim. Makes me feel better. When I am ready to g to DVD I will contatc the master again. I just need to get used to FCP5 and do some practicing.

HDVxDV timecode issues
 

I've also had good luck capturing with HDVxDV, it even takes in timecode - but when exporting to Quicktime, the timecode changes. It's not even in the ballpark. I am doing something wrong? If not, am I correct in assuming there is now no relation between what I digitized into HDVxDV and the exported Quicktime file? If the file were ever corrupted or a drive went bad, would there be no way to recreate that from the master tape? It seems like the Quicktime is now the new "master tape".

This isn't a dealbreaker. I've got the drive space to handle it; but it does seem like it eliminates any possibility of recreating the project from an edl in the future.

Thanks,

Brett

It seems this is a bug in 1.024. I hope they repair it soon. I have so many tapes ready to digitize!
At least they are trying to deal with this 24P timecode! None of the other 3rd party applications have bothered.