Recording HDV or DV on FX-1
 

Thanks Ron and Boyd for the info. Yes, for now, I'm afraid I'll have to continue to record in DV due to the fixed aspect ration of the FX-1 HDV settings ...and so goes the HD benefit for me...for the moment.

I have kind of dumb question though but I have to ask...if you both of you record in HDV on your cams what do you ultimately output it to: HD or SD?
If it's in HD using Edius or FCP, then do you have the option to choose what to burn to, ie: HD or BD? I'm still looking for a "user-friendly" NLE that doesn't require me to take a course to utilize it and I hope to someday be able to burn to HD, whatever the format that wins out in the end! Thanks for listening.

Anthony

Why don't you download the free trial versions of Premiere Elements or Vegas Platinum and see which you like? Either can be had for around $100 if you choose to go that route, and either will do HDV...

For almost everything I do I shoot HDV then capture as widescreen DV using the camera to downconvert. This gives me better quality than shooting in DV mode and saves the considerable time which it would take to downconvert with software. The only time I tried that, it took about 3 hours to downconvert a 1 hour project on my dual G5/2.5ghz.

Recording HDV or DV on FX-1?
 

ADam...I will try that route of downloading a trial program. Not sure if my FX-1 can change on playback to 4:3 widescreen (as opposed to recording) but I'll look into that Boyd. Thanks!

Anthony

I shoot most multicam with friends in SD 4x3, and then make a SD DVD. For my own use ( family stuff) I shoot HDV, edit in Edius and output to wide screen SD DVD ( it is then letterboxed on a 4x3 TV and full screen on a 16x9 TV). You can't change the output from the FX1 to a normal full screen 4x3 like the Z1 is able to do it will always be widescreen in some way. The editing programs will allow you to crop the image to 4x3 form factor and unlike the Z1 crop which I believe is fixed center crop, the NLE will allow you to change the crop position over time keeping the subject in the picture. To a limited extent it is possible to pan and zoom a 4x3 output from the HDV master. I have done this a few times where I shot an event in HDV with the camera fixed then pan and zoom in editing to give the effect of more than one camera. I used Vegas for this as the controls are easy to see what one is doing. Converting in NLE as Boyd says does take longer on my AMD X2 4200 it takes about 3 to 4 times realtime to encode output from timeline to SD with some effects and pan and zoom . Depends on software Vegas is the slowest but not by much with the latest release.

Ron Evans

It can't. When it down-converts it will be to DV Widescreen (16:9). Only the Z1 can downconvert HDV 16:9 to DV 4:3 edge crop.

Your only choices are to edge-crop in post or to shoot 4:3 DV.