HDV and ProRes

Henrik Reach · May 8th, 2008, 12:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Raymond Toussaint

Is making independent subclips in HDV materal an action that loses quality? I know it makes an I-frame on the editpoint, but do the original clip and the independent subclip differ in quality? Is it just a copy, or is it recompressing and so losing image q.?

I know I lose quality when I export a subclip as a movie (To the same HDV 1080p25 format as the original file) with my HDV material. Discovered this yesterday, as I suddenly got a lot of artifacts in my footage, and turns out final cut made it in the export. So, I converted all the material I needed to process to ProRes (I saved it directly to ProRes from Final Cut, maybe it's better to do it with compressor, but these were pretty small clips, and the quality seemed to be fine, at least tons better than HDV.), and now everything works fine..

Dylan Pank · May 8th, 2008, 04:27 AM

Your certainly can log and capture HDV in FCP6, and I've done it on a three year old G5 iMac.

Direct capture to IAC will do what you say above.

Henrik Reach · May 8th, 2008, 04:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dylan Pank

Your certainly can log and capture HDV in FCP6, and I've done it on a three year old G5 iMac.

Direct capture to IAC will do what you say above.

Log and capture works very poorly with my XHA1, I was forced to start "Capture now" and take it from there instead.

What equipment do you use if you think "Log and capture" works as well for HDV as say it used to do for DV?

Dylan Pank · May 8th, 2008, 07:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Henrik Reach

What equipment do you use if you think "Log and capture" works as well for HDV as say it used to do for DV?

I don't think, I know it worked fine with a G5 iMac and a Sony Z1E, HDV native capture.

Did this once from an EDL generated by Avid. No problems at all (other than the editor didn't enter separate reel names for the half dozen tapes used.)

Did you use 24f mode on the XH A1? Compatibility with that and FCP is cranky I think (maybe it's fixed now) so maybe that's your problem.

Dylan

Henrik Reach · May 8th, 2008, 07:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dylan Pank

I don't think, I know it worked fine with a G5 iMac and a Sony Z1E, HDV native capture.

Did this once from an EDL generated by Avid. No problems at all (other than the editor didn't enter separate reel names for the half dozen tapes used.)

Did you use 24f mode on the XH A1? Compatibility with that and FCP is cranky I think (maybe it's fixed now) so maybe that's your problem.

Dylan

25f, maybe that's it. :) Either way, I'm fine with importing the whole thing now that I've gotten used to it, guess it's more gentle on my camera too, as I use that as my deck. (I do miss how well organized/labeled my clips were when I used DV and Log and Capture though..)

Floris van Eck · May 8th, 2008, 12:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Floris van Eck

So what are the right settings for scenario c?

Audio/video settings

Timeline: HDV (or should this be Apple ProRes 422?)

Capture: HDV

User preferences

Render control, render codec: Apple ProRes 422

Can anyone confirm that these are the right settings?

Jo Potts · May 9th, 2008, 10:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dylan Pank

I don't think, I know it worked fine with a G5 iMac and a Sony Z1E, HDV native capture.

Did this once from an EDL generated by Avid. No problems at all (other than the editor didn't enter separate reel names for the half dozen tapes used.)

Did you use 24f mode on the XH A1? Compatibility with that and FCP is cranky I think (maybe it's fixed now) so maybe that's your problem.

Dylan

Works fine for me too. 1080i50 with an XH-A1. Managed to use log and capture absolutely fine - works better than capture now IMO as when you click capture now it takes a couple of seconds to starting capturing properly, meanwhile the tape is rolling. It may be my computer (MacBook Pro 2.6Ghz, 4GB Ram) but i'm not convinced by that! I wanna get a firestore as soon as a) i can afford one! b) they seem to sort out reliability issues with the QT format, then i won't have to worry about capturing from tape and can just use it as an archive!

Floris van Eck · May 9th, 2008, 02:16 PM

Log and capture will wear out your camera tape heads a little bit faster. I think that when you capture the whole tape and create subclips, it will be easier on your camera tape heads and maybe a bit faster. But when you have multiple items on one tape, log and capture is the way to go. I have a Canon XL-H1 and have looked at the firestore but I am not sure how reliable it is. I have read many complaints about failing harddisks inside it and also about the timecode on the firestore being different from the timecode on tape. Those things can make things very complicated. Maybe the new model fixes all of this.

May 8th, 2008, 04:27 AM	#17
Dylan Pank Major Player Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Portsmouth, UK Posts: 611	Your certainly can log and capture HDV in FCP6, and I've done it on a three year old G5 iMac. Direct capture to IAC will do what you say above.

May 9th, 2008, 02:16 PM	#23
Floris van Eck Major Player Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: The Netherlands Posts: 993	Log and capture will wear out your camera tape heads a little bit faster. I think that when you capture the whole tape and create subclips, it will be easier on your camera tape heads and maybe a bit faster. But when you have multiple items on one tape, log and capture is the way to go. I have a Canon XL-H1 and have looked at the firestore but I am not sure how reliable it is. I have read many complaints about failing harddisks inside it and also about the timecode on the firestore being different from the timecode on tape. Those things can make things very complicated. Maybe the new model fixes all of this.