I want to edit HDV in a SD project (CS3)

[Brandon Hammonds]

Forgive me if this post is dripping with ignorance. I just learned of Cineform's offerings recently. I'm using the CS3 suite.

I downloaded the Prospect HD trial. I converted my already captured HDV footage to cineform avi using HD link. When I try to edit in the "HD NTSC (720x486)" cineform preset I'm getting a red bar and playback is worse than dealing with the original format. When I edit in the 1280x720 preset everything is fine with no render bar.

I want to edit HDV in the SD project to give myself more options than I would have if I downconverted first (e.g. pan, re-position, etc).

Is there anyway to do this? Am I overlooking something obvious?

[David Newman]

Edit in a HD preset that matchs you footage, not an SD one, then crop and resize as needed as if you are doing an SD export. If you doing 4x3 SD, set you safe regions appropriately. Then export to SD. This will be the best workflow for speed and quality.

[Lloyd Coleman]

David,

I purchased Aspect HD shortly after my first HD camera (over I year ago). I quickly found that I loved editing HD material on an SD timeline. Since I am not delivering my final product in HD I love the freedom I have in editing on an SD timeline because I have a much larger frame to work with and can pan and zoom, reframe, crop, rotate, etc. the material and make all those decision as I edit, not while I shoot.

I have not been successfull in using Aspect on an SD timeline with custom project settings or other methods I have tried (I get funky inverted colors, strobing, etc) and so have not been using Aspect, but just editing HD material captured straight from my cameras.

Is there a way to use Aspect on HD material in an SD timeline using Premiere Pro CS3?

[David Newman]

Editing on an SD timeline and size and crop HD down, is almost the same as editing on an HD time scaling and cropping and exporting to SD. Any real difference, HD the timeline just works better -- the results are the same.

[Lloyd Coleman]

Here are examples of the scaling and cropping I am doing:

-Shoot a football play fairly wide in HD, no zooming - on an SD timeline (not in the camera) zoom in on the quarterback throwing the ball, then follow the ball to the receiver and then zoom out to full frame.

-Use an unmanned camera in the back of the church for a wedding. While editing, zoom in on the bride and groom, pan across the congregation, follow the flower girl up the aisle, etc.

These require me to use HD material on an SD timeline so I can move around on the larger frame size.

[David Newman]

Works in HD just well (in fact much better.) You just need to get you head around timeline does not specify you output resolution, you get to choose that during the export movie process.

[Lloyd Coleman]

Thanks David,

I'm glad you helped me re-think this. I'm used to not being able to zoom in on SD material because it gets so soft. I guess I can zoom to about 200% on an HD timeline and even thought it would fall apart if I was going to deliver in HD, by the time I down rez to SD there are still enough pixels left to give me full SD resolution.

I'm excited to use my Cineform again, which should speed up my process and give me better quality.

[David Newman]

That is exactly the idea.

[Brandon Hammonds]

Thanks so much, David. (And to you Lloyd, I didn't think of operating like this until I saw your hd post in the wedding forum a while back).

What should I set the safe margins to exactly if I want to export to SD?

[David Newman]

See action safe to be your 4x3 frame, 25% and 0%
Then your Title safe area is, 40% and 20%.

You you are doing 16x9 SD you defaults are fine.