Editing Systems and the ProHD

[Brett Ward]

Now that I'm partially through my shooting of a doc which editors are available (with little to no problems) for the JVC ProHD camera? I'd like to go Avid Pro HD but I'm not sure that you can capture easily in this. I know they have the Liquid Pro HD version too. From what I hear that is the system to go with for the least amount of problems.

I'm open to other systems too so I'd like to see some peoples' opinions. I'd really like to have the ability to edit on a laptop with an external drive while I'm on the road but I'm not sure how much a pipe dream that is. If I have to go with a Mac then well maybe I'll do it but I've been a PC guy (with Premiere 6.5) for a long time. Please, let me hear from you.

Thanks for your help and I enjoy all the informative information on here.

[Jiri Bakala]

I have edited a 30p HDV project on a Mac-based AXP 5.5.3 and these are the results:

1. Capture: only capture on-the-fly available, pain in the neck but once you accept it, you get the footage in and are ready to edit. I used both the HD50 deck and the camera with the deck template and it worked.

2. Edit: same as with DV, it just cannot play multilayer effects in RT - need to be rendered. Also, there is no client monitor support (with 720p material) regardless of Mojo presence.

3. CC, EFX, etc: once the edit is finished it's a good idea to transcode to DNxHD codec for further manipulation. This is an easy task.

4. Export: PIN, HDV doesn't allow for QT REF so it has to be exported as uncompressed QT and then burn DVD. Export back to tape is also PIN because Avid has to re-encode everything back to an m2t transport file and then send to deck/camera. There is no way of getting it recorded to a particular TC. Also, you need to add black at the head and tail because the camera/deck needs preroll and post-roll. 10 seconds seems enough. Since the need to re-render everything, count with a lot of time for this; my little 9-minute project takes about 30 minutes to get to tape.

Notes:
-my deck (original firmware) is unable to record the material without hiccups. Camera is better at this. Also, I found that Panasonic tapes didn't perform very well, so I am back with SONY PHDVM-63DM.
-mastering probably works quite well if you can go to a DVCPRO HD (it's one of the available transcode codecs). I understand that with that there is a full machine control and TC accuracy.

[Antony Michael Wilson]

In short, Avid AXPro, MC and Symphony are not at all HD100-friendly at the moment. In particular, there is no support whatsoever for HDV1 at 24 or 25fps. The official line from Avid is 'Q4 2006'. Repeated failure to deliver since first commitments were made over a year ago would suggest that you shouldn't hold your breath but FCP's recent HDV1 support improvement strongly suggests a similar move from Avid soon.

Liquid and Edius work just fine with 'ProHD'. FCP seems to be almost there and is probably the best choice for all-round capability and flexibility at this point - that's IMHO, of course. There are some pretty dedicated Liquid and Edius users on this board who'd take issue with that, I'm sure.

[Phillip Palacios]

If I have to go with a Mac then well maybe I'll do it but I've been a PC guy (with Premiere 6.5) for a long time. Please, let me hear from you.

It may be time to swith if you need it ASAP, FCP (5.1.2) now fully supports the ProHD (native 24p) cameras.

I am doing a doc starting in oct, and plan to use a powerbook and macbook pro running FCP, the HD110 (friends cam) and a Sony FX1 (mix formats).

As for the pipe dream? well it depends if you don't mind waiting. On my powerbook, editing HDV 1080i I will do a cuts only edit during the day and then near the end of the day will do some colorizing, and let it sit overnight rendering the results. My stuff is faily basic though, and we will see how the Macbook Pro and the 24P goes (my buddies cam and laptop)

Good luck in whichever system you choose.

[John Vincent]

I use Premiere Pro 2, although I have not done anything of great length yet.

It will handle 24p HDV natively, although apparently it does not actually use all the information possible - Paolo has written about this on another thread, and has more knowlege of this than I do, but somehow reduces automatically the total quality of the image.

Also, apparently PP2 has difficultly exporting long times lines - again, not sure if this is true or not. I'm doing a feature, so this scares me...

It does interact well w/ other Adobe products, which is a plus.

In the negitive, it does feel like an immature product at this point, and is not very intuative (ie - not at all).

Honestly, I'm waiting to see exactly what shakes loose with final cut pro. If and when it's up to speed for 24p HDV, I'm going to think long and hard about using it. Not only because of my own projects, but because it seems like it is/will be the most popular editing app.

GOOD LUCK.

john
evilgeniusentertainment.com

[Burk Webb]

You might want to give Vegas a try - I've been using it with the JVC and it works great. m2t, Cineform, 24p - just slop it on the timeline and Vegas handles it great. It's worth downloading the demo to check out.

[Jon Jaschob]

I'm using PPro 2 and AspectHD for a project right now. It's a short and a couple bugs aside has worked fine, footage looks good, some RT fx, but I don't use much.
Capture just like DV, sept watch out for the "end" of the time code, or make sure you leave a long tail. I had to grab the last cut by hand, no biggy.

Editing is a little clunky on my older system (3.06 p4 ht 2gb ram) and previewing is always a crap shoot, sometimes it's smooth(rt), sometimes it jurky as hell (dropped frames?)

Output had a bug, Aspect worked it out with me, good support, although it took a week of my spare (yeah right) time to get good output for DVD widescreen. The final result looks pretty damn good for a home made DVD, better than the built-in transcoder in PPRo2.

I would like to try FCP on a mac intel laptop, I really would. I made a 45 minute SD film last year and PPro1.5 really wasn't up to the task. I had to do a lot of "pre-rendering" or PPro1.5 would come to a halt. This was on a amd 1700+ based system.

Don't know why anyone would "want" to use avid...yuck...(imh and limited o)

[Stephen L. Noe]

Wasn't this covered pretty well in

This thread?

[Luis Ventura]

Hi there you all,

i also use APP1.5, i'm addicted to PP for many many years, not bad till now, but also always used Matrox, now RTX100, and has been a good combination, as i already bought an HD100 it's time to change, and as Paolo said it's not a good idea to edit in native HDV, so my question is, anyone knows how it works Matrox RTX2 capturing, i heard somehere that Axio works with uncompressed HDV, does RTX100 do it also, or still i need something like CineForm, and if so will Matrox acept the CineForm file? About NX from Canopus does it has the same problem with native HDV since it works with Edius? If not using hardware, how in PP2 for example will you create a template with 10 or 15 layers with a lot of effects in each? Using After Efects? Will it be so esier has using the DVE editing filter of Matrox? Finally, exporting and redering projects with so many layers will it be so faster without Matrox using a good grafic card and software only?

Thank you and sorry for so many questions.

Luís Ventura santos

[Stephen L. Noe]

Originally Posted by Luis Ventura

....it's not a good idea to edit in native HDV...

Completely disagree with this statement. Editing HDV is the most efficient way to edit HDV on off the shelf hardware. I'd agree it's not a good idea to render in HDV. It is far better to render in 2vuy. But editing in HDV is the way to go if you're building complex timelines.

[Luis Ventura]

Hi Stephen, thank you for your opinion, but when you edit do you use any video card? Buy the way, when you for example cut an m2t file, don't you think it could be better to edit with uncompressed HD?
I might be making a lot of confussion, but it's a lot of information at the same time, and to get the best from the system i intent to buy.

Thank you for your help.

Luís Ventura Santos

[Ben Brainerd]

Originally Posted by Luis Ventura

Hi Stephen, thank you for your opinion, but when you edit do you use any video card? Buy the way, when you for example cut an m2t file, don't you think it could be better to edit with uncompressed HD?
I might be making a lot of confussion, but it's a lot of information at the same time, and to get the best from the system i intent to buy.

I think part of the confusion is the difference between editing "Native HDV" and editing a m2t file.

Editing Native means capturing the data, and converting it to something your NLE can read without any kind of recompression.

Editing a m2t involves taking the data stream directly off the tape, and trying to edit that. Not every NLE can even read a m2t, and those that can usually have a very hard time working with it.

For example, I use FCP, with no add-on cards or anything, and I edit most of my work in Native HDV. I'm not using the m2t files, but I'm not recompressing anything either.

Working with HDV is pretty much the same as working with DV. When you hook a DV camera up to the computer, you're not just copying the data off the tape. You're copying the *information* in the data, if that makes sense.

Working with uncompressed HD, at least during the editing stages, doesn't make any sense. It takes up a LOT of space, and offers no real benefits for editing.

Now, once you get done editing, and are ready to deliver, you might want to output to an uncompressed format. But you don't have to do that until the very end of your workflow.

[Stephen L. Noe]

Originally Posted by Ben Brainerd

Editing Native means capturing the data, and converting it to something your NLE can read without any kind of recompression.

...and those (NLE's) that can usually have a very hard time working with it.

Sorry but this is completely untrue. Unfortunately, somebody fed you a line. Trancoding is for one thing and that's to make the native datastream accomodate the NLE. "Native" editing is editing the camera's actual captured codec. NLE's which are designed to work natively do just that, work natively (smoothly).

S.Noe

[Stephen L. Noe]

Originally Posted by Luis Ventura

Hi Stephen, thank you for your opinion, but when you edit do you use any video card? Buy the way, when you for example cut an m2t file, don't you think it could be better to edit with uncompressed HD?
I might be making a lot of confussion, but it's a lot of information at the same time, and to get the best from the system i intent to buy.

Thank you for your help.

Luís Ventura Santos

When you cut an M2T file you have the choice of render codecs. Why would you take a generation loss just to edit the entire project uncompressed? Why not just render your FX/Titles/CC uncompress and leave the rest of your file in it's pristine state? You only suffer only one gereration loss to 2vuy on your actual edits. With your proposed way your on 4th generation by the time you get your TGA sequence out of your editor. No thanks. Saving 2 generations in a native edit is far better. This only applies to tape captures. If your sourcing off of the component into an NLE or external device then, once again, I recommend blackmagic's 2vuy (10 bit) codec.

I think I read you're on PPro? Are you locked into a cineform codec anyway? You'll have to transcode won't you?

S.Noe

[Luis Ventura]

Thank you guys, i think i got it, but still if you went the first time to HDV editing, now a days that NLE are very powerfull redering, would you choise only fast and good software as APP or FCP, or would you go for a video card as RTX2 or NX from Canopus.

Sorry for insisting

Luis Ventura Santos