View Full Version : Avchd & hdv


James Bishop
June 21st, 2010, 05:25 PM
I am shooting a wedding soon, where I'll be using an AVCHD camera (Sony SR-5E) and an HDV camera (Sony Z1)

I'm very confused as to how I should edit both these file types together in the best way. What frame size should they be converted too? Should I convert them both to Prores files or should I leave the HDV, and convert the AVCHD stuff to HDV?

I need all the file types to be the same, as I'll be doing a multicam edit in FCP.

I did a test run and tried converting everything to prores. I burned it onto DVD and the quality doesnt seem to be too good- plus the HDV stuff has come out very interlaced.

If anyone has any advice on editing these two formats together it would be greatly appreciated! thanks!

Mike Burgess
June 21st, 2010, 08:00 PM
I have an FX7 (HDV) and an SR11 (AVCHD). I use Pinnacle 12 or Nero 9, and even sometimes have tried Corel Pro X3. No problem combining the two formats with these inexpensive editing programs. I have produced final product as AVCHD, making both AVCHD DVDs and regular SD DVDs from AVCHD/HDV.

Robert Young
June 22nd, 2010, 11:28 PM
I am a Cineform user, so I'm used to editing in a Digital Intermediate format.
Lots of different workflows to get where you want to go, but what I would do is to convert all footage to Prores 1920x1080- probably you shot in 60i, so I would stay 60i through the editing.
Some advantages:
1) Prores is a high quality, low loss, lightly compressed codec. It will be less demanding of your system for editing & rendering- thus, faster, fewer problems with crashes, lock-ups, failure to compile, etc.
2) Once converted to Prores, it won't matter what the original acquisition codec was.
3) When you finish the edit & render out to your final delivery formats, you can depend on the image quality being excellent.

Robin Davies-Rollinson
June 23rd, 2010, 01:17 AM
James,
I shoot some events with the Z1 and the Canon HFS100.
I set the Canon the match the HDV setting of the Z1(1440 x 1080)
I either convert via Cineform and edit with Premiere, or, more recently, I'm not converting at all but opening up the files from both cameras as HDV files with Sony Vegas Platinum 10 and editing straight away!
I'm turning into a bit of an evangelist for Sony Vegas at the moment...