HELP - HDV To SD Conversion
 

Sorta in a quandry here...Sold my XH-A1 and other video related stuff early last year as the cost to really get into it was taking me to the cleaners.

I have some vacation clips that I captured in HDV and never got around to editing before selling my Aspect HD license. I no longer have a a cam that I can use to re-capture and down convert to edit in an SD project.

Is there a program that I can pass this HDV captured video through to convert it to SD so I can edit it in PPro CS3?

Thanks

Doesn't PPro CS3 support HDV as a source - i.e., put HDV files on the timeline and then export as DV?

It does, but no matter if I import a clip into an HDV or SD project, all I see in the preview windows is "green". Audio is good, but can't see the video.

Cineform have a free decoder that should let you transcode any Cineform footage you have. It might actually work inside Premier, but I don't know that for sure.

If you want to capture from an HDV tape, you'll need an HDV cam. If you want to capture XH A1 footage recorded at 24f, you'll need a Canon XH, XL or HV30. I don't think anything else will do it.

Wait, are you saying you originally captured using either HDLink or a Cineform preset in Premiere, rather than regular Premiere (m2t)? And now you've uninstalled Aspect so they won't play?

I think you need Aspect or Prospect installed. Download and install the Prospect HD trial and if they play, at least you could then re-encode to something else you can edit in Premiere without Cineform.

Unless I'm completely misunderstanding... it wouldn't be the first time... What's the extension on the captured files?

Yes...originally captured with Cineform (Aspect) preset so files are Cineform AVI. I'll try using the Prospect trial.

If all you need to do is decode, for conversion to another format, you can use Cineform's freeware, non-expiring Neo Player: CineForm NEO Player

Thanks Graham.....Exactly what I need!

I did DL the Prospect trial and, of course, it works also but there is the 15 day limit.

Assume I can uninstall Prospect now and just import my clips into a Widescreen SD PPro project? The Neo Player will still be in place?

You know, I should just read the other posts more thoroughly before I chime in....

Previous version of this post completely redundant.

Actually, I just checked this out the other day. I did not have any Cineform program on a system. I brought some Cineform .avi files in on a USB drive, and they would not edit on Premiere. So I downloaded NeoPlayer, and now I can actually edit the files, but have to render to another format, as I can't render to a second generation Cineform file.

Dearl, To be on the safe side, I would suggest you uninstall Prospect first, then install (or reinstall) Neoplayer. Just in case the uninstall removes a necessary component.

But hey ... it may work fine without doing that. No harm in trying.

I have uninstalled both Prospect and Neo-Player, then re-installed Neo-Player and opened a DV-NTSC widescreen project and the Cineform files will import and I can now edit this footage. Rendering to non-Cineform isn't a problem, as I just want to get this (vacation) footage onto a DVD.

Thanks to all for the replies.