Anyone shooting DV?
 

Is anyone actually shooting in DV? I saw where Stelios did that comparison, I've read all the posts but was wondering who’s shooting that way. If there is really not much difference and you know it’s never going to HD, why bother. It takes longer to render out to DVD and when complex transitions and FX are used. I have an event tonight and am seriously thing about trying it. Strong opinions are welcome either way.

I shoot DV most of the time as my clients only require SD DVD or SD web, my computer isn't powerful enough to edit and render HD easily. I only shot HDV when a project is for fun and have the spare time for the rendering.

At the end of the day a down converted DVD from HDV may look better but its not worth all the extra rendering time and increased risk of dropouts.

I shot in HDV & DV tonight. I guess it's time to experiment. If the quality is only slightly better via the HDV, I would agree, it's not worth the additional effort.

On another note, which is off topic, I hate 16:9. It just doesn't fit the way I like to shoot. I've only shot a dozen or so events with it but everytime I think to myself, this sucks. Invariably there is a father dancing with his little girl and you really can't get a tight shot. That little bit of vertical real estate really makes a difference. You have to go for a wide shot or shoot from above and it's really impersonal. I also shoot a lot of bar/bat mitzvahs and they always have candle lighting ceremonies. You can't get a tight shot and include the candles. I can put a wide lens on my PD-170 and get a better wide shot and still have my vertical room. OK, i'm done bitching. Thanks for listening.

Rob, if you are going to deliver SD DVD shoot the event in DV, you, and especially your clients, will not noticed any difference whether you shoot it in HDV or in DV. As you said I have actually tested this and now I only shoot in DV (because all of my clients want SD DVD), unless as Jonathan says, is for fan and to play around with. If in the future any of my clients wants the end product on blu-ray then I can shoot in HDV as my camera is capable to do so, for now the HDV logo on it is just a show off.

Stelios

All depends on the output. I'm not working for hire, but a lot of what I do is short pieces that I share via .wmv or MPEG4. Definitely a difference over DV on any screen at or over 1280 x 720.

For internet posting, even with great sites like Vimeo and Exposure Room the differences aren't as profound. A lot of the pieces end up being embedded in small play windows and there is almost no difference. The SD pieces seem to flow much more naturally whereas sometimes movement on HD is rather clunky and artifacting can get pretty nasty. But even there, it's nice to allow someone to download the piece in high quality to view on their system with less compression.

Yeah I agree that the SD web plays smoother than the HD. Most people dont have computers which will play HD web smoothly. I feel that SD looks fine on the web, especially when its from the Z5.

You can also shoot in HDV and later downconvert to SD while capturing the tapes - that's what I do and it gives me nice progressive image. It leaves me also an option to go back to that footage and reedit in HD if necessary (ie. when upgrading my offer with full HD support, I'll need a HD demo reel).

Lukas, that is true but if I know I will never convert it, what's the point. Unless I'm getting a much higher quality output with the HD I would rather not go through the hassle..

Rob did you shoot this event in DV after all?
As I said before if you are not going to deliver in Blu-Ray don't bother shooting in HDV.

Stelios

I do shoot HDV and use the extra size to digitally zoom and pan in frame, then render to SD. Looks like a million dollar tripod.

I have an event this weekend and I think I'll shoot in DV. If not this weekend, I'll definitely shoot it in DV the following week. I'll let you know how it goes.

How do you key frame it to keep it so straight. Do you use a motion tracker?

I prodce lots of sd but shoot as hdv and then slig it into the editor
 

If it is HDV then I can pan crop it in Vegas.. Also I like the bigger frame sizes as I pull stills to use for news stuff from it. Better stills when the res is higher.... when all is said and done it renders out to sd fornat.

I tend to agree. A lot of my clients are only ever going to get a DVD so I shoot in 16:9 SD. It's easy to edit and the danger of having disfiguring dropouts all but vanishes - important for a one-off, one camera shoot.

Once upscaled by the DVD player into a big 1080p TV it can look impressively good.

tom.

I use Vegas 8 Pro and just use keyframes, usually with smooth starts and finishes. I have CS4 and could use motion trackers, but haven't gotten into that and it is incredibly slow when rendering. Usually using the digital zoom and pan in post is best kept to small refinements (breathing zoom, slow pan...) but I have shot very wide and shown an interview of 2 people panning left and right, and jump cuts back and forth. It worked for an internet presentation, but I had to zoom below 720 x 480, so it wouldn't have passed for high quality output. Much better than a single, stationary wide shot or probably better than most camera could do with a single camera given the discussion was spontaneous and the back and forth was unpredictable.

Regarding zooming in on HD footage for SD delivery - this produces a beautiful image in Vegas, but with Premiere, there is a definite quality loss. So, while I am a Premiere editor (using Matrox RT.X2 hardware), I jump over to Vegas just to zoom certain clips then export them out for use in Premiere.

Adobe just can't get some things right - HDV to DVD still doesn't work well and users have to do workarounds

Jeff

Maybe you can consider getting the MRC1K. This way you have best of both worlds. Shoot DV on MRC1k and HDV on tape. You can edit faster because less time wasted importing video, and you can still go closer if needed and import that shot from HDV tape.

I guess I have to pull out the manual. I tried to do that the last time I shot and it didn't work. Somehow both were recorded in HDV. That is what I wanted though, DV on card, HDV on tape. I'm catching up on work right now and will be a little slower for the next 2 months so I'll try to experiment.

I got the opportunity to shoot some sideline video of high school football games. The first night I shot in HDV and noticed some blurring effect which seemed like it could have been a codec issue. Too much changing too fast, frame to frame. The second weekend, I recorded in DV widescreen and all of the blurring issues were gone. And the footage looked really good in either format.

Greg
The moral of the story: Shoot in DV widescreen!

Stelios