HDV to Beta SP
 

So in my last few days of learning I have a question. My footage is all HDV and edit so in vegas. Now the specs for submitting to cable company they need it on Beta SP which is analog, correct? So what is the best way for this to happen? Do I render edit down to SD 16:9 back to tape or produce Quicktime HD file, just really lost on work flow here. I haven't asked anyone except here, and thought maybe somone has or is currently using this work flow.

Thanks,
John

I render it out to HDV tape and take it to my local post house, who dub it to Beta SP for me.

HDV to Beta Sp
 

Adam,

Do you notice much loss in color from the dub house that does this for you? Also how do you handle closed captioning?

Thanks,
John

It comes out perfect. I've never used captioning so I don't know how that would be affected.

Adam, so you render it back onto a minidv tape or what file format do you use before you take it to get put on betasp. I am personally using sony vegas, what would you recommend?
Thanks.

Andy:

You're in for a headache no matter what you do - as you are natively shooting/editing in digital HD but you need to get to BetaSP (analog/SD) with closed captioning.

I used to shoot/edit/deliver a national TV show on satellite that had to be closed captioned. But I shot/edited/exported BetaSP to begin with.

So here's what you need to do:

You should contact a closed captioning provider and see what formats they accept. I dealt with a company called CaptionMax (Homepage | CaptionMax). I would sent them an edited BetaSP master, and they would make a BetaSP dub with CC and then mail it out to the station for me.

The problem for your case is they didn't accept HDV tape (then, it may be different now) and they did not accept DVD as a movieDVD or dataDVD. They accepted MiniDV/DVCAM or Beta.

So I would call them and also Google similar services. If they can handle HDV tapes and do a down-convert for you to SD while adding the captioning in the dub, then that is your easiest and cleanest route (it may be more expensive AND remember BetaSP for stations is generally regarded as 4:3 ONLY, so you would have to shoot/edit your show to protect for the edge crop in the downconversion - stations generally will not accept letterboxed.)

If they will not work with HDV or if it is a lot more money to downconvert, then I suggest you copy/paste your HD timeline into a DV SD 4:3 timeline and re-size the shots yourself. Then you can print to tape using your camera as a MiniDV deck . This is not the best idea as you are creating in essence 3 generations of information loss: MPEG-2 compression at capture, 5:1/4:1:1 compression to MiniDV, and then digital to analog to BetaSP. Your show will start to look muddy.

At least HDV to Beta skips one generation loss.

Or, if you want best quality for your show, get a AJA/Blackmagic card and a Beta deck and then export right from your timeline to BetaSP. It would still get copied to another Beta in the CC process, but then you could edit/render/export your timeline in uncompressed 4:2:2 SD.

That's why the FCC requiring small local programming to CC everything is such a hastle and waste!