I just got a Canon A1, and my current computer cannot handle editing HD footage. I can't afford to spend $500 on Aspect HD, so until I buy a new computer or the software, there isn't much I can do in HD. Is it possible to film in HD, import the footage into an SD project using the camera's downres, edit and export as SD, but later "convert" the project to HD? Like say later down the line I get a new computer. Will I be able to take a project file that I edited in SD, but re-import the footage as HD for a final HD export? That would be ideal, since I don't need HD anytime soon and I'll be doing the final export as SD anyway, but it would be nice to be able to re-export a project as HD later down the line with minimal effort required.

I figured this had to do specifically with Premiere, but if it belongs elsewhere, feel free to move it.

If your computer is powerful enough to CAPTURE the HDV footage, then I think you have some options.

Briefly, you could then make proxy copies of those initial files in an SD version of your format, do all your editing with those, and export the final version as SD.

Then later you could swop out the SD proxies for the original HD ones, and export in HD.

To do all of this read up on "proxy files" in Premier help.

Now, wiser folks than I MAY be able to tell you a way to do that by batch capture/recapture of the files from the camera itself (i.e. letting the camera do the HD > SD conversion). That MAY be possible, but I have never attempted it.

See here: http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=80103

Here: http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=83658

And Here: http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=76754

Hey, thanks everyone for the suggestions. My laptop wasn't able to handle HD footage, but I found out my desktop is more than able to (I had assumed it wouldn't), so this is actually no longer a problem to me. I can finish the project in HD, and then do an SD export at the end.

For those who are wondering, the specs are an athlon X2 3800+ processor (not even overclocked), 1 GB RAM, and an X800GTO2 graphics card. I notice no difference in rendering time from SD, except when I'm applying a magic bullet preset, twixtor, steadymove, or something correction-intensive like that, but I haven't done any comparison to SD to see how much longer it takes (it takes a long time in SD, too). From the way everyone was talking about needing computer upgrades for HD, I thought my current machine wouldn't be able to handle it, but it does seemlessly... And I built it over a year ago for $1000. That should be reassuring to someone who's just getting started but doesn't have a lot of money.