Editing native HDV ?

[macmithos]

Dear Fellows ......
I'm on a cross road. I've been reading many things in internet but I have not reached or got a solution.
I will shoot on next sunday some receipies videos. We will use 2 cameras.; HVR-Z1 and HVR-A1U. The final product will be a SD DVD, since the bluerays are not yet popular and spread over the market, but we thought in shoot on HDV and capture with ProRes 422 HQ to have the best quality of our Master material for a future HD DVD / Blueray DVD. But some issues come to my mind:
I've just read an article from Philip Hodgetts in Ken Stone's website where he says about HDV: " Stay native when outputting to HDV, DVD, HD DVD or to the web, otherwise convert to ProRes 422 after initial capture (via FireWire), or convert during."
If this is true, I guess I should not convert the HDV material to ProRes, since I'm going, for a while, to make just SD DVDs or should I shoot in DV or DVCam ?
How about the color sampling / quality, between HDV 4:2:0 and ProRes 4:2:2 ?
But should I shoot in HDV, as both cameras can do, for a future conversion to ProRes to author a Blueray DVD ?
Also, will it save me a lot of space in my external HDs ?
How is the best way to output my HDV timeline to Compressor ?
Please, give me some light in this dark night ....

[zoobie]

always shoot HDV and process later
then you won't be kicking yourself in the groin

[edDV]

Dear Fellows ......
I'm on a cross road. I've been reading many things in internet but I have not reached or got a solution.
I will shoot on next sunday some receipies videos. We will use 2 cameras.; HVR-Z1 and HVR-A1U. The final product will be a SD DVD, since the bluerays are not yet popular and spread over the market, but we thought in shoot on HDV and capture with ProRes 422 HQ to have the best quality of our Master material for a future HD DVD / Blueray DVD. But some issues come to my mind:
I've just read an article from Philip Hodgetts in Ken Stone's website where he says about HDV: " Stay native when outputting to HDV, DVD, HD DVD or to the web, otherwise convert to ProRes 422 after initial capture (via FireWire), or convert during."

ProRes 4:2:2 is a digital intermediate codec intended as a working compression format for uncompressed 8 or 10bit 4:2:2 HD source. It allows HD editing with slower computers and single hard drives with some loss vs. uncompressed.

FCP is capable of native 8bit 4:2:0 HDV or DVCProHD editing also with minimal loss. There would normally be no point in using ProRes 4:2:2 unless one wanted to "upconvert" to 4:2:2 to intercut with high end film transfers or HDCAM material. Since this conversion would be lossy vs. native HDV editing, you wouldn't do this for an all HDV project so long as your computer had adequate speed to handle HDV.

A second reason to convert to ProRes 4:2:2 would be to increase editing responsivenesson for a slower system like a notebook. This would be more lossy vs. native HDV editing. A third reason to convert may be for specific filtering/compositing reasons.

So normally you would edit two HDV source cams in native HDV FCP project format. You could always convert to 4:2:2 later if needed but remember Blu-Ray is 8bit 4:2:0 not 10bit 4:2:2.

If this is true, I guess I should not convert the HDV material to ProRes, since I'm going, for a while, to make just SD DVDs or should I shoot in DV or DVCam ?
How about the color sampling / quality, between HDV 4:2:0 and ProRes 4:2:2 ?
But should I shoot in HDV, as both cameras can do, for a future conversion to ProRes to author a Blueray DVD ?

Once you shoot in 4:2:0, you get no chroma quality benefit from up conversion to 4:2:2. The missing chroma pixels are interpolated.

If you intend a future HD release, you must shoot HD. Shooting DV eliminates the option for HD later. Just edit in HDV to an HD edit master then downconvert to SD MPeg2 for DVD at the end, or convert source HD to DV and edit in 720x480. There may be advantage to the latter if you intend to use detailed graphic elements. Experiment both ways.

Also, will it save me a lot of space in my external HDs ?
How is the best way to output my HDV timeline to Compressor ?
Please, give me some light in this dark night ....

Converting 25 Mb/s HDV to 147 Mb/s or 220 Mb/s ProRes 4:2:2 increases HDD space 6 to 10 times (~110 GB/hr).

You can save your timeline to an HDV format master. Then resize and encode for SD release.

[macmithos]

Let me try to explain what the job is ...…
Three months ago I started doing editing jobs for a company of a friend of mine. You probably know how difficult is working for a friend, specially if he is that kind of a childhood friendship that is following you since you are a little person. But we are doing very good in our business relationship. That's what friends are for ... and he likes my editing jobs.
Usually his company sells training videos for many kind of companies. Selling it on DVDs and offering it over the internet on his "Training TV".
Now we are working on a new segment . We are making cuisine recipes videos, which will also be offered in the same way. I've already edited 200 videos for the website. My friend asked me to be on the set since the day one to help him. When I've got there they were about to shoot in DVCam - 4:3 . Since, by that time, I had no clues about HDV, I let it go and said nothing about the codec used by them (DVCAM), but I advised him to shoot anamorphic 16:9 since the widescreen TVs are spreading like fire in the forest ... and they did it so.
Tomorrow we gonna start shooting a group of recipes specially for a DVD Edition. We will be using those two cameras I've mentioned before and I've advised him to shoot in HDV ( poor of me ... :-) ).
So I've been working on my Macbook Pro 2.5 Intel core 2 Duo with 4GB on RAM and FCS 2 and I have 4 external HDD, 2 USB Western Digital 7200 rpm of 500 GB and 2 LaCie - 7200 rpm (USB, Firewire 400 and 800) of 500 GB.
We are planning to shoot around 12 different recipes . Many Scenes and Takes and 2 Angles (cameras). Most of the time we do dry cuts ( I don't know if this is a right english expression ) and some transitions. Some filters here and there and some white balance and color correction on FCP because I haven't started working with Color yet.
Would you advised me to go to ProRes on those recipes with transitions, effects and filters used ? Or could I stay with HDV ?
Would I have any issue putting together on the same DVD sequences edited in HDV and ProRes ( If you say Yes for the first answer ) ?
Thanks a lot ...

[edDV]

I haven't used ProRes so I can't talk from experience using a MacPro Notebook. You should repeat what you said above and ask for advice in a FCP forum.

My experience with FCP for HD is with uncompressed editing on a server connected MacPro tower and native DV/HDV editing with two drives on a Mac Tower. The latter worked fine. A notebook may not.

My advice is to do tests with your notebook in HDV project mode and see if the responsiveness is adequate. As said above, you wouldn't go to a digital intermediate format for quality but to increase responsiveness of your notebook. Investigate Apple Intermediate Codec which may be more appropriate to your situation.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2704

[terryj]

Mithos,
I agree with Ed. While I too do not have experience with HDV on a
MacBook Pro, AIC ( Apple Intermediate Codec), based upon your
computer's specs, will probably make the most sense, as your
"bottlenecks" will come from the trying to scrub through the HDV footage
through either your USB 2 or FW 400 External Drives
( I assume you are dumping to the external drives)
as you perform your edits,
and your render files generate back to the Main Internal Disc?

Shoot a small segment in HDV to test, about 15 minutes or so, and see
as Ed advised if the notebook stumbles or "pinwheels" constantly.
If so, then you know you'll need to use AIC when capturing your footage.

In any eventuality, you'll still be able to author an SD DVD using DVDSP
from your HDV footage. But from Mixed footage, I do believe cannot
be in the same timeline in FCP, so if you have one sequence using HDV footage
and one Sequence using Pro Res, you could in DVDSP place the footage
on separate tracks and then edit to an SD DVD.

But within FCP,
I would imagine FCP would ask that all footage on the same timeline,
same sequence, be rendered to one format before export.

[macmithos]

My FWs have 800 conection. Should I reformate them as RAID as most people says that you need it to minimize bottlenecks ...
And, I will not mix HDV and PRORES in the same timeline. I asked because, again, most people says that if you intend to use effects, many different transitions and color correction, you probably should consider the PRORES. In the same DVD I could have movie with those extras and other with nothing but a single transition. That way I would mix these timelines in compressor and then in DVDSP.

[DereX888]

both your sources come from non-pro 4:2:0 HDV cameras which matches SD DVD's 4:2:0 colorspace for your advantage here.
I see no point in going for 4:2:2 during editing, you'll achieve nothing in this.

Since your target is SD DVD, you might as well resize and recode all needed source materials, and do editing on that (if your machine is really too slow to work with HDV files directly).

[edDV]

macmithos,

Your friends have expensive tastes that exceed your Mac Book hardware. Apple recommends MacBook Pro only as a possible playback platform for HD ProRes 4:2:2 screening but not for editing or filtering. For that you need the new Quad or dual Quad Mac Pro towers. Again, HDV upscale would have little benefit and create many problems. If you can get access to a Mac Pro, you can try it.

Your MacBook may struggle with native HDV editing. Try that first. Then try the Apple Intermediate Codec (AIC) which converts HDV MPeg2 (15 frame GOP) to individual frames for editing, filtering or effects editing. The sustained data rate goes up from 25 Mb/s (~3 MB/s) to approximately 112 Mb/s (14 MB/s) which still can be handled by your Firewire 800 external drives* although there will be fewer glitches if you preview composites (overlay graphics) from the faster internal drive. A RAID is not needed.

AIC matches what you are doing. ProRes 4:2:2 is intended for uncompressed 4:2:2 source.

If you want to drop back to SD resolution, it should be possible to edit in ProRes 4:2:2 from a MacBook. Your choice.


* The drive sustained rate is sufficient for 1x playback but you will hit limits if scanning or scrubbing during preview. The Firewire 800 drive might handle a 4x scrub for one layer.