Hello everyone,

I own a small video company mainly to shoot weddings. I recently upgraded my cameras to Sony Z1u and I'm all new to this HD world and I did research on this forum but cannot seem to find what I need. I used sony vx2100 dv before this and exported the footage through a firewire cable and captured it through premiere pro cs3.

Now I have a few question about HD and this camera:

1) HD and HDV is there a differance?
2) How do I upload HDV footage onto the computer? before I'd use a firewire cable but its not working with the z1u (unless I'm doing something wrong)?
3) I'm shooting a video this Saturday and I need to know if I can use the cinema mode (24p) to film it either on DV or HDV (the z1u will film in either format) and will i be able to edit the footage and export it with no problems ahead?
4) do I need a deck? video card? extra ram... what other equipment?

Thats the important questions I have for now.

please help anything appreciated.
David

Hey Dave,

I can't answer all of your questions but I'll try and answer a couple of them.

1- HDV is a highly compressed form of HD. Yes, it's HD, but compressed. For practical purposes (like what you say to clients), it's HD.

2- You still use the firewire cable for capture. However, unlike dv footage, the camera won't appear as an item in the tray and you won't hear a sound when you make the connection. I don't use PP so someone else will need to tell you the specifics of the capture process within the program. But rest easy, it's connected, just not like before.

3- No input, sorry.

4- Extra ram would be a huge help to any system. Seems like you can never have enough. But wait and see how your system handles the footage first and then see if you need more. You may be ok.

Hope that helps some, or at least keeps you calm until someone has the specifics for your situation.

Ben

David,

Regarding #2, to capture your HDV footage, the first step is to check that the camera is set to output HDV, rather than downscaling to SD. In your camera menu your VCR output setting should be HDV and your iLink conversion setting should be OFF.

Next step, with the camera powered off, connect the camera firewire to the computer firewire. Turn the camera on ... the first time you do this on a Windows machine you should see an AVC device driver installing and a message saying your device is ready.

Next step is to run PPro3 and set up a new project. Select the HDV preset 1080i30 (60i). Now go \File\Capture ... at the top of the box that opens look to see if your capture device is online or offline.

If its online, you should be able to capture - be aware though that you won't see a preview of the footage during capture - you need to monitor capture by watching the LCD screen of the camera itself.

The order of these steps is important - first set your camera, then connect it, then power it on, then run CS3.

Hope that helps.....