I know the A1 will capture HD and SD. In the menus you can configure the camera to downconvert to SD. If this is the case then does it make sense to always capture HD?
Also, how is the down conversion compared to capturing SD?

Thanks
Jim

The basic idea is if you want SD then its best to shoot SD. You can convert HD to SD but the downconvert in camera is never as good as with a high quality piece of software IMO. If SD is what you'll need then shoot SD with the cam, downconverting incamera is easy but from what I have seen the results are sub-par. If you have the time and computer power to convert all your footage to SD after capture then fine but its gonna be a time eater on every project you do.

- Kyle

I shoot, capture and edit in HDV, 24p. It goes to SD only when I'm through with a project. Render times seems to be about 2:1, not too bad. Using FCP.

Being new to HDV, I too had this question when I purchased my camera (as many others have). There are several threads about this if you want to search for them.

I respectfully disagree with Kyle though. The first thing I did was to test shoot some footage in HDV, then shot the same footage in SD. I tested in light and dark areas, as well as in 60i and 24f.

After capturing all of my footage and comparing the down converted HDV with the SD, I just didn't see any significant difference that would make me want to shoot in SD from here on out.

With that being said... I don't own a system capable of capturing HDV, so I can't compare the two after down converting using software.

My personal experience with this camera is that the downconverted HDV looks very good and I am ok with it. So I have decided to shoot everything in HDV, and that way if (when) the day comes that I have a system capable of capturing HDV I will always be able to go back to it.

Of course the best thing would be to do your own test. I'd be interested to know if your findings are different.

Stacy

I've got a PAL A1. One of the issues - there's a thread about in DVI - is that a blinking black line appears on top of the image during downconvert. I've tested myself 2 A1's, they both had it. And others also experienced the same issue, it even exists in the HV10. Discussions with Canon about this don't lead to any result.

What doesn't want to say the A1 is a bad camera: it's one of the best experiences I've ever had in playing 10 years around with camera's. Delivers without any doubt excellent footage.

But if you want SD, shoot SD, but even better is to shoot in HD, and downconvert it to SD after your edit (...the inconvenience of buying an HD cam: the competences of your editing solution have to follow as well)

All the rest is nothing more that a compromise.

The basic idea is if you want SD then its best to shoot SD. You can convert HD to SD but the downconvert in camera is never as good as with a high quality piece of software IMO. If SD is what you'll need then shoot SD with the cam, downconverting incamera is easy but from what I have seen the results are sub-par. If you have the time and computer power to convert all your footage to SD after capture then fine but its gonna be a time eater on every project you do.

- Kyle

I strongly disagree Kyle. I own an FX1 and for every project, have always shot HD exclusively and then downconverted in post. It does NOT take a long time at all to downres and you are losing lots of quality in just shooting SD.

VirtualDub is FREE and comes with a downres filter (use lanczos3) that you can use on any type of video. It takes about 10 minutes for every 7 minutes of video. NOT a "time eater" at all considering the results and effective gain in sharpness.

Have you recently acquired an HD cam that I did not know about? I thought you had an XL1?

I have the Vasst traning video : Inside the Canon XHA1 & XHG1.

There was a part in the DVD that shows two shoots . One being capture in SD and one being capture in HD and later down converted.

When the clip was blow up to 3 times. you could see that the HD down converted clip really stands out. It reatains still a sharper and cleaner image.

"and one being capture in HD and later down converted."

David,

Do you mean downconverted from the camera during capture, or downrez'd after editing in HD?

The fact is I really want to capture HD. However, my editing system (2.8 Ghz Dell with 1.5GB RAM) will take a very long time during rendering. I like having the archival of HD, but at this point only need SD.
If I can downconvert to SD during capture it would save a lot of time during editing.

I will have to run a few test of my own.
Tape SD
Tape HD and capture SD
Tape HD, capture HD, and render SD.

I have a wedding in a few weeks and I want the best quality. I would of course make an SD DVD, but when equipment becomes available (at a reasonable price) offer them an HD video.

David - I also purchased the VASST DVD on the A1 - looking forward to viewing it.

Thanks for the help
Jim

I always shoot and edit in HD, then when I burn a SD DVD it looks amazing. There is no reason not to shoot in the highest resolution you can, it will turn out better. Look at digital cinema cameras, they shoot at 4k pixels and are down converted from there.

Guy it sound like lots of you have found the proper way to shoot in HDV and then convert it to SD for delivery. My question is how is it done? At what stage are you doing it? I to want to shoot in HDV, for the reason of buying the A1. It sounds like I am not the only one that would like a example of the work flow. I use FCP and really would like the best way to work with the HDV to SD workflow. Please can some one give a step by step way to do it. I have heard about HDVXDV, is that an answer?
Thanks,
Dave

For FCS I capture HDV into FCP, edit everything in HDV, send to compressor and from there downconvert to SD, build my DVD project in SD, and deliver SD. It's worked great so far.

I have always stayed away from compressor because of old versions being buggy but I know Compressor 2.3 is better then 1. What are the settings you use in Compressor?

Does any one not use Compressor and get there result they want in SD?

Hey David, this might help.

Heres my workflow...

Shoot HDV..capture HDV..edit HDV..bring final clip into SD project, resize and make DVD, or export Quicktime.

Heres my video tutes..HOWEVER, I'm using PP2.0...I'm pretty sure you could do this in most NLE apps.

http://www.esnips.com/web/Premiere-Pro-2-Video-Tutes

"and one being capture in HD and later down converted."

David,

Do you mean downconverted from the camera during capture, or downrez'd after editing in HD?

The DVD said that the image was captured and edited in HD and later output as SD. It states that the intial image is better to begin with because it is HD then one would get intial in SD.

When you applied a 3X zoom. the SD image startes to fall apart while the HD down converted SD image stays together.

Thanks David.

So I captured some HD footage and SD footage to compare.
I was able to capture using HDVSplit - it created .m2t files that my editor (Avid Liquid 7.2) could read. With these files the editor seemed to work better - playback was still choppy but not as bad as with the MPEG2 files that Liquid created. So, capturing HDV for me seems to be doable.

I then moved both the HD and SD clips to an SD timeline and rendered out .avis, and encoded with CCE Basic at 8MBPS. I had to resize the HD clips to fit the SD frame so I lost some resolution.

The HD looked very nice converted to SD. Compared to the SD footage the HD seemed cleaner - maybe a little smoother than the SD footage which seemed sharper but seemed to have more noise.

I used the default presets.

All in all I am impressed with this camera. Once I get into the custom presets it should help.

Thanks for your help.
Jim

Thanks Ivan for the useful tute link.
Just looking at converting from Ulead MSP7 to Premiere Pro 2
Quite a learning curve, but MSP7 doesn't handle HDV and XH A1
although I did some SD work already shot on A1.

Intend to shoot HDV for future proofing but most clients need SD versions

I bought the VASST video Inside the Canon XH-A1. This is a great video for showing the camera functionality - I've learned a lot already and will continuously reference it until I get a firm grasp of the camera.

In the HDV section on editing Douglas talks about the HDI or HD intermediary format. It supposed to help with editing the HDV footage and since my pc is not very good for HDV maybe this will help.

Does anyone use this format and if so which one?


Thanks
Jim

I've got a PAL A1. One of the issues - there's a thread about in DVI - is that a blinking black line appears on top of the image during downconvert. I've tested myself 2 A1's, they both had it. And others also experienced the same issue, it even exists in the HV10. Discussions with Canon about this don't lead to any result.Any news on this error? I've just got my PAL XH-A1 and was shocked that those features i learned to love from the FX1 are completely worthless. There seems to be no conversion during the shoot (for live recording to a laptop etc.) and the flickering black bar makes the camera-converted footage unuseable. It also seems that the converted material is way worse than a PC based HD->SD conversion.

I'm producing a lot for web-based magazines which want me to have the material available in HDV for later use, the current clips in SD resolution as it doesn't make any sense to provide HD on the web right now.

The main problem for me is: we work directly on location with laptops. And these systems simply don't handle live previews with HD material and Magic Bullet video filters applied...

This in mind, also producing with a attached firestore simply won't work as there's no live SD/DV feed via Firewire during the shoot.

Any ideas on that? :( Thanks.

and btw: my first post! I'm happy to join this community!

I have done several weddings and other events shooting in HD and downconverting to SD after I edit in HD. I also tried with the same material output from camcorder in SD and edited in SD. The HD footage downconverted using the Prem Pro 2 (matrox accelerated) software was definitely superior quality. In a project where I mixed the two you can see the resolution increase every time.

I could be wrong, but I think the reason is that miniDV is 500-550 lines of resolution and the HD is 1440x1080 (shown as 1920x1080) and when you save as a NTSC Standard Definition mpeg for your DVD from an HD timieline it down converts in software so you get the full SD 700 lines your TV can display. Not the more limited miniDV standard of 500-550 lines.

Bill in Ohio

here are a few shots for comparison:

http://img384.imageshack.us/my.php?image=01hu7.jpg
Native SD PAL 16:9 in Camera - Output with deinterlacing

http://img519.imageshack.us/my.php?image=01wodkx5.jpg
Native SD PAL 16:9 in Camera - Output without deinterlacing

http://img530.imageshack.us/my.php?image=02mv3.jpg
HDV 16:9 with in-Camera Conversion to SD - Output with deinterlacing

http://img461.imageshack.us/my.php?image=02wodws9.jpg
HDV 16:9 with in-Camera Conversion to SD - Output without deinterlacing

http://img377.imageshack.us/my.php?image=03zl8.jpg
HDV 16:9 set to 'resize to fit' in SD- Project within Premiere - Output with deinterlacing

http://img352.imageshack.us/my.php?image=03woduv1.jpg
HDV 16:9 set to 'resize to fit' in SD- Project within Premiere - Output without deinterlacing

what do you think? :)

Daniel,
It seems like the best approach is either the native DV or HD->SD conversion in post, although the native DV non-interlaced had better resolution.

I like the idea of an HDV master tape, but I wonder if it's worth the hassle this early - I will be doing my first wedding and I want to make sure that I don't mess it up by capturing HDV and then having problems in post.

Jim

I will be doing my first weddingThe poor bride... if you know already that it's not going to be your last... :(

^^

yep seems like this. have to test 25f modes btw - i have high hopes that the internal deinterlacer does a better job than premiere does. having the stupid deinterlace thingy done in-camera would be sweet!

The best quality downconversion I've found thus far (I'm in PAL land and a Premier Pro2 Windows XP user) is:

1. Capture m2t.
2. Import into Canon 25f HDV Adobe preset.
3. Export Microsoft AVI (select compression NONE) @ 1920*1080 square pixels.
4. Import into a DV PAL project and scale by 53.4%
5. Export Microsoft AVI (select compression NONE) @ 720*576 square pixels.

It's a total drama doing this, but for shots that I just have to have the most premium downconvert for, I've found that it is my best quality workflow so far.

The best quality downconversion I've found thus far (I'm in PAL land and a Premier Pro2 Windows XP user) is:

1. Capture m2t.
2. Import into Canon 25f HDV Adobe preset.
3. Export Microsoft AVI (select compression NONE) @ 1920*1080 square pixels.
4. Import into a DV PAL project and scale by 53.4%
5. Export Microsoft AVI (select compression NONE) @ 720*576 square pixels.

It's a total drama doing this, but for shots that I just have to have the most premium downconvert for, I've found that it is my best quality workflow so far.
uhm how do you handle the ENRMOUS! amout of space that's required? why don't you skip step 3 and import directly into the DV project in the m2t format? Simply saving the m2t in uncompressed format won't increase quality in my opinion as saving the video that way will only save 'whats there' anyhow.

uhm how do you handle the ENRMOUS! amout of space that's required? why don't you skip step 3 and import directly into the DV project in the m2t format? Simply saving the m2t in uncompressed format won't increase quality in my opinion as saving the video that way will only save 'whats there' anyhow.


Yeah it's killer on size allright. I only use this workflow with footage that I desperately want to be a pretty as possible.
I don't skip step 3 because I edit/colour etc the 1920*1080 footage in the .avi format. I tried the trial of cineform but didn't find it as clean or crisp an image as the uncompressed .avi.
I've been doing some green screen work (novice/experimental stuff), and found I pulled better keys with the 1920*1080 size than the downconverted PAL size.

What about the issue of capturing HDV at 16:9 and converting it to SD 4:3? Does the software automatically crop the image or do you get a squeezed SD output?

I've been using the A1 for several months now and love it. But now I have my first project where the output will only be SD 4:3.

I'm using Adobe Production Studio CS2.

Stuart

What about the issue of capturing HDV at 16:9 and converting it to SD 4:3? Does the software automatically crop the image or do you get a squeezed SD output?

I've been using the A1 for several months now and love it. But now I have my first project where the output will only be SD 4:3.

I'm using Adobe Production Studio CS2.

Stuart



Im wondering the same thing about the aspect ratio......

I'm using FCP, and if I drop HDV clips into a 4:3 timeline, they automatically come in in the correct aspect ratio, but letterboxed. It's quick and easy to resize them and then apply that to all the clips. I'd assume most NLEs would have something similar.

I shot this video in HDV format using HV20. Captured both in DV-Lock within the camera, and, HDV then downsize to DV in Premiere Pro. Check out the difference yourself.

I'm using FCP, and if I drop HDV clips into a 4:3 timeline, they automatically come in in the correct aspect ratio, but letterboxed. It's quick and easy to resize them and then apply that to all the clips. I'd assume most NLEs would have something similar.

Bill

I'm also using FCP. Just getting my feet wet in HDV with an XH A1. Just tried down rezing some 60i footage using Quicktime conversion. Looked pretty awful. I'm assuming Compressor will do a better job but being unfamiliar with the program I thought I would check around and see what the best approach would be.

Can't say I've found anything yet that is clear and concise. (Any links much appreciated)

Are you saying that you simply drop the hdv footage into a 4:3 timeline, render, and presto you've got letterboxed 16:9 SD or is there more to it than that, as in what process of resizing do you apply as you refer to above.

Thanks for any help

Jase

You drop it into a 4:3 timeline and it sizes to the correct aspect ratio, but you have to then use the motion tab to blow it up and move around to resize properly to fill the screen. I just did that one time to see what would happen; usually I go the other way, from SD to HDV. I'll check it out again and be more precise in the procedure but can't do that for a day or so. For exports, I export as a regular QT, then go from that to whatever is needed in Compressor or Sorensen 3.

Thanks Bill.

I'll look forward to hearing more. I initially tried exporting to Quicktime (thinking I wouldn't need to go to Compressor or Sorensen) and that didn't seem to work, always got a vertically stretched image.

I'm going to try compressor today, but wondering why you first go to Quicktime export and then Compressor when it seems you can go directly to it.

Another question. When I send my this HDV footage converted to letterboxed 4:3, out to my 4:3 TV the size etc looks correct, just letterboxed. I also have an older Sony broadcast monitor that is aspect ratio switchable. If I have it on 4:3, it looks correct. If I set it to 16:9 it looks squashed. This makes sense, I think?

My question. When I burn a DVD from this timeline it should look correct on on a 4:3 TV. But will a 16:9 TV handle it correctly or treat it as my switchable monitor. I guess it comes down to such a TV being able to sense the aspect ratio of the DVD and adjust itself accordingly. Do they do that?

Thanks

I went through the same thing with Compresson. You need to make the regular QT first. It's very good--when you see it you'll like it, especially if you shot 24p, no deinterlace artifacts; it'll be an HD type QT and will spread across both your monitors (go up and click "fill screen" to view it smaller on one monitor).

Re: Letterboxed and squished. Yeah, if you make a 4:3 letterbox version, it will look stretched on a 16:9 TV. What you do is when you author your DVD, just do a normal 16:9 version, making sure the settings are correct (I'm not sure what they are off the top of my head) and the DVD player will detect whether it's hooked to a 4:3 or 16:9 TV and will automatically output letterboxed if it's a 4:3 TV. Although, there are some video projectors and some older DVD players, I understand, that have to be set for that. So far it's worked right for me; maybe somebody else can shed some more light on that.

If the final output is to DVD you don't have to downconvert. All you have to do is create an SD DVD. That way you can see it in letterbox on 4:3 tvs and full screen on 16:9 tvs.

This is true--once you've exported the full res QT, DVD Studio pro will import it and convert it to the m2t file automatically, but I think you do have to have the setting right for wide screen and all.

All you have to do is setup your track to either Pan & Scan for a side trimmed full 4:3 or letterbox for the black top & bottom lines.

Yeah, that's the setting I was referring to--couldn't think of it offhand. I leave it in letterbox.

I own New Tek's VT 4 and do not yet have the VT5 ungrade with Speed Edit.

Question. If I shoot in HD how do I down convert correctly to SD 4:3 (no letterbox) Is that possible? Basically, I heard from the WEVA convention that I should never shoot in SD with my HD camera. But my problem is, most of my clients don't want to watch their video on a normal SD TV with black bars on the top and bottom.

Is it possible to shoot in HD and down convert to SD and burn a DVD without the black bars?

I own New Tek's VT 4 and do not yet have the VT5 ungrade with Speed Edit.

Question. If I shoot in HD how do I down convert correctly to SD 4:3 (no letterbox) Is that possible? Basically, I heard from the WEVA convention that I should never shoot in SD with my HD camera. But my problem is, most of my clients don't want to watch their video on a normal SD TV with black bars on the top and bottom.

Is it possible to shoot in HD and down convert to SD and burn a DVD without the black bars?