Best HDV workflow.

[Jeff Turkali]

Originally Posted by Jason Livingston

The way to minimize loss is to keep the unchanged HDV segments in HDV so that they have zero loss on the timeline compared to the original.

I think you are pointing out a benefit of not using Prores on all clips, but just the ones that will be affected by rerendering due to what ever effect applied. I'm deep into some kind of effect on everything I edit, being as simple as a cross-desolve, wireframe/size reset, or color correction, it's pretty bad.

Changing them into another codec, no matter how quickly, will only cause unnecessary loss (unless you're talking lossless or uncompressed codecs, which ProRes is not).

I hear it is minimal loss (with Prores) comparatively speaking, compared to rerendering.

For rendered/changed segments, you want to minimize the number of lossy codec cycles the video has to go through. Using an all-ProRes workflow adds an additional lossy cycle which in most cases is unnecessary.

I agree that there is good reason to avoid the number of cycles the video (HDV) should go through. But I can't get much good work done with simple cuts and joins as my first comment in this post mentions. In "most cases" one will need to do some real work with the footage. It does indeed depend on the editor and what they hope to accomplish. The more advanced, the more need for Prores.

I am glad to hear others comments that Prores adds an "additional" lossy cycle. It makes sense, but I consider it the first and only rather than an additional. The HDV stream is what it is, and there is no getting around that we all know, it still is better than SD.

[Robert Bec]

Originally Posted by Jason Livingston

--- Bottom Line ---

The mixed HDV/ProRes workflow gives you the best possible quality (outside of resorting to uncompressed), with only a minor decrease in real-time editing speed and minor increase in disk usage.

So i capture in the HDV codec and change my settings within my sequence to prores and edit that way

Originally Posted by Jason Livingston

The pure ProRes workflow gives you an increase in real-time editing speed, at the cost of slightly decreased quality and greatly increased disk usage.

Do you think the decrease in qualty is noticable to the point it looks like SD

Because i shoot weddings i need the fastest possible render and realtime preview. I like going back and checking my work as i go along. I Use alot of slow-mo and speeding up the clips and colour correction weather it's natress effects or colour grading with the 3 way wheel. I would have to say Using prorez from the beginning to end will probably suite me best.

[Mike Barber]

In the "HDV+ProRes render" paradigm, how does colour correction come in to play? I can't tell you when the last time I had a project that had any part that was "cuts only". At the very least there is always some colour correction on each and every clip.

Now that I am working with FCS2 and have Color, I am using that instead of the 3-Way CC filter which will render out to ProRes anyway. Maybe I am answering my own question here... I suppose the workflow would be to do the editing on an HDV timeline, then send to Color and have my ProRes output as a result.

But let me throw this into the mix: what if you are doing some retiming/deinterlacing? Would AIC be a suitable alternative anywhere (for example when pulling 25p footage down to 24p for editing at 24p) or is ProRes still the way to go?

[Mike Barber]

Originally Posted by Robert Bec

Do you think the decrease in qualty is noticable to the point it looks like SD

I can't imagine that would be the case. I have yet to actually work with any HDV. I am just about to start playing with some test shots Vito was kind enough to shoot for me and I will be looking at this stuff on a nice 24" HD broadcast monitor and really compare to see what the real deal is. Is the loss in quality even perceptible to the human eye? I don't know... I'll be looking for it...

[Jeff Turkali]

Originally Posted by Mike Barber

I can't imagine that would be the case. I have yet to actually work with any HDV. I am just about to start playing with some test shots Vito was kind enough to shoot for me and I will be looking at this stuff on a nice 24" HD broadcast monitor and really compare to see what the real deal is. Is the loss in quality even perceptible to the human eye? I don't know... I'll be looking for it...

Yes it is even worse than SD. The decline in quality of HDV footage when rerendered is heartbreaking and depressing to the degree that you were originally proud of your footage.

It comes out looking like a DVD encoded for the longest running times, like a 2 hour single layer DVD I kid you not.

[Don Ward]

I'm a relative noobe to HDV but after trying all kinds of solutions to get my HDV timelines to output decent quality (mostly going to sd DVD) I tried ProRes 422 HQ today (QT converted an edited HDV timeline) and the results were a big improvement. I'm now trying one captured in ProRes.

I used Ken Stones guidelines. There's also an older HDV to SD DVD one on his site that is pretty basic and does not use Pro Res. It works, but the quality is not as good.

Exporting HDV Video from the Timeline to Standard Definition DVD

[William Hohauser]

Originally Posted by Jeff Turkali

Then why are you going on about cameras? And your tone is insulting.

My apologies.

[William Hohauser]

Originally Posted by Robert Bec

Do you think the decrease in qualty is noticable to the point it looks like SD

Because i shoot weddings i need the fastest possible render and realtime preview. I like going back and checking my work as i go along. I Use alot of slow-mo and speeding up the clips and colour correction weather it's natress effects or colour grading with the 3 way wheel. I would have to say Using prorez from the beginning to end will probably suite me best.

Transcoding to ProRes drops the quality a very small notch but it's still HD and looks it. Most people will not see a problem.

An example of whether or not to capture in ProRes or stay in HDV. I do several multi-cam concert events a year which I switch in the edit room. I try to use the same model of camera to minimize color-correction issues in the edit. One concert I captured in HDV but edited with the HDV/ProRes render sequence set-up described earlier. After all was finished, about 3/4 of the sequence was rendered due to dissolves and color correction. That ends up being about 1 hour of ProRes size files. The last concert I did, I was worried that the cameras were not balanced properly at the shoot (I did the balancing) so I captured entirely in ProRes. I had to buy an extra drive for the five hours of ProRes size footage. It turned out that I could have stayed in HDV, only one camera needed some work, but.....

It turns out that FCP puts out a real time preview of ProRes sequences over FireWire in standard def which you can send to a standard def monitor. It doesn't look great but it's good enough for the client and for color correction. You can also get a real-time preview of HDV if you edit it in a ProRes sequence but the quality is lower.

Did the concert look any worse for being edited in ProRes? I don't think so.

[Robert Bec]

My Canon XH-A1 shoots 1440 x 1080 when i export from the timeline as a quicktime file it comes up as 1920 x 1080 WHY?

I was showing a friend that uses edius how compressor works and the time it takes to encode HDV it took 2 and a times the normal length of the clip but he insists i am doing something wrong because it took him 15hours to encode a 2hour clip.

I haven't burnt anything on DVD to play it so i can see but from what i can notice i am not doing anything wrong apple is just a dominant species

[Luke Oliver]

robert have u tried looking at the setting that you are exporting at. click the drop down where it says same as sequence and choose 1440x1280

see if that works??

[Battle Vaughan]

The xha1 shoots 1440x1080 with a non-square pixel which, expanded to hdv output in Quicktime with square pixels, becomes 1920x1080. Just the way it's made..../ Battle Vaughan/miamiherald.com video team

[Robert Bec]

what about the length of time its taking me to encode HDV 2.5 times the original length of the clip

It looks great

[Brett Sherman]

I used to capture as HDV, set my sequence as HDV with ProRes renders. Quality-wise it works well. However, exports take forever. Why? Because Final Cut is not smart enough to know that it already rendered clips to a non-GOP format when you apply effects. It has to rerender every single clip into a non-GOP format and rerender the effects. Exports usually take 5X the length of the sequence.

The method I've now settled on is capturing HDV to retain smaller file sizes for whole tapes. Then I set my sequence as ProRes422 1440x1080. This way when I render effects Final Cut knows that they are non-GOP and I can export a Quicktime Reference file in a matter of seconds. I can still insert HDV clips on the sequence and get pretty good playback quality without rendering. It's not full-res but it is good enough until I can do a render.

[Mike Barber]

Originally Posted by Brett Sherman

exports take forever. Why? Because Final Cut is not smart enough to know that it already rendered clips to a non-GOP format when you apply effects. It has to rerender every single clip into a non-GOP format and rerender the effects. Exports usually take 5X the length of the sequence.

In this scenario, to what are you exporting? What are the settings?

[Mike Barber]

Here's a brief article on HDV workflow: HDV Workflow Tips | ECG Editorial

Quick summary:

#1) If It’s All HDV, Always Edit Native
#2) If It’s A Mixture Of HD and HDV, Convert (to ProRes) ASAP
#3) If You Can, Use Two-System Audio
#4) Know The Limits Of The Format In Advance