hdv-mini dv transfer questions

[Mick Doyle]

Hi,
I'm using finalcut pro 5 to edit a project(50i codec dv-pal)but now i want to import some footage I shot on jvc hdv 25p. Can I down convert the hdv footage live into finalcut? or if not do I have to transfer the hdv footage to mini dv via 2 cameras and a firewire? what will work best?
Thanks

[Tim Dashwood]

You can easily downconvert HDV from within FCP.

There are two ways to do it.
1. You can either downconvert all or some of your source HDV using the media manager (takes a long time and lots of hard drive space)

2. You can simply insert your HDV footage into a DV timeline. FCP will automatically scale your HDV footage down to fit in the DV timeline, maintaining the aspect ratio (16x9 letterbox if a 4x3 timeline, or full 16x9 if a DV anamorphic 16x9 timeline.) FCP5 requires rendering, FCP6 does not (if you have the horsepower.)
You will get the best results if the frame rates match. 25P and 50i are both 25fps so you will have no problems there.

[Mick Doyle]

ok thanks tim will try that.

[Boyd Ostroff]

Originally Posted by Tim Dashwood

2. You can simply insert your HDV footage into a DV timeline. FCP will automatically scale your HDV footage down to fit in the DV timeline

You know, this is an interesting topic for me Tim. I always shoot HDV on my Z1 but almost always use the camera to downconvert so I can capture as 16:9 DV. However awhile ago I wanted to edit a little personal project in full HDV. When I was done I dropped the sequence into a 16:9 DV timeline and rendered it. It looked terrible! I tried messing around with things like field order, dropping individual clips into a DV sequence and various other things but they were all equally bad. I finally exported with Quicktime conversion (which took about 5 hours for a 1 hour sequence on a dual G5/2.5 IIRC) and that looked OK but probably not as good as having the camera downconvert. I didn't have the patience to experiment any further.

I was using FCP5. I know that earlier versions of FCP did a really poor job of scaling images so I figured this was still the case in version 5. Maybe the JVC 1280x720 gives better results with this technique than Sony's 1440x1080? Based on what I've read around here I guess Compressor does a better job. If I can ever figure out how that program works maybe I'll give it a try ;-)

[Tim Dashwood]

Originally Posted by Boyd Ostroff

You know, this is an interesting topic for me Tim. I always shoot HDV on my Z1 but almost always use the camera to downconvert so I can capture as 16:9 DV. However awhile ago I wanted to edit a little personal project in full HDV. When I was done I dropped the sequence into a 16:9 DV timeline and rendered it. It looked terrible! I tried messing around with things like field order, dropping individual clips into a DV sequence and various other things but they were all equally bad. I finally exported with Quicktime conversion (which took about 5 hours for a 1 hour sequence on a dual G5/2.5 IIRC) and that looked OK but probably not as good as having the camera downconvert. I didn't have the patience to experiment any further.

I was using FCP5. I know that earlier versions of FCP did a really poor job of scaling images so I figured this was still the case in version 5. Maybe the JVC 1280x720 gives better results with this technique than Sony's 1440x1080? Based on what I've read around here I guess Compressor does a better job. If I can ever figure out how that program works maybe I'll give it a try ;-)

Yes... well scaling interlace is never easy. I'm sometimes provided 1080i transport streams for insertion into a NTSC timeline. I usually end up applying the de-interlace filter before pasting the clip or sequence into the NTSC timeline. I have fewer interlace issues when using any codec (like the Blackmagic presets) other than DV.
The big problem with field order is that DV codecs use lower field (even) first and almost everything else, including 1080i HDV uses upper field first.
I downconvert 720P all the time as part of my normal workflow and it always works flawlessly because you don't have to worry about field order.

With the new FCP6 a lot of these issues go away because you can truly mix different sources in real-time.