HDV and DV together at DVinfo.net

Carl Ny · December 17th, 2005, 03:36 AM

HDV and DV together in FCP 5.03

Ok if I want to use both HDV and DV in the same project;
what is the "smartest" way to do this?

I still want to have as high resolution as possible but at the same time
find a nice workflow between the formats.
The end product is going to be a SD-DVD.

Looking forward to a smart workflow.

Thanks.

Carl

Boyd Ostroff · December 17th, 2005, 09:01 AM

What kind of camera did you use? If it was one of the Sony's then the simplest approach would be to set i.Link downconvert and just capture the HDV footage as regular DV.

I haven't yet tried scaling HDV down to 720x480 with FCP 5, but have read that it doesn't do any better job than the in-camera downsampling. Maybe there's some other Mac software that can do this better?

Carl Ny · January 8th, 2006, 03:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Boyd Ostroff

What kind of camera did you use? If it was one of the Sony's then the simplest approach would be to set i.Link downconvert and just capture the HDV footage as regular DV.

I haven't yet tried scaling HDV down to 720x480 with FCP 5, but have read that it doesn't do any better job than the in-camera downsampling. Maybe there's some other Mac software that can do this better?

Thanks,

Yes maybe a simple way is to let the cams downcovert everything to DV,
but listening to comments around; that it should be better to stay HDV
in Final Cut all the way through Master; and then downconvert the final film
to SD/DVD for better and cleaner result...?

Questions;
1.) Is it best to stay HDV all the way and let the NLE do the downcoversion to SD for the way for best looking result?

2.) If I have some DV that I want to ad in the HDV sequence before downconverting to SD in the end; should I resize the DV for the HDV project, and when final film is done, downconvert the whole film to SD for DVD distribution? ( the DV material is only 5-10% of the film )

Looking forward to hear from some smart workflow.

All the best

Carl

HDV cams; CANON XLHD1 and Sony HC-1
SD/DV cam; Sony one chip helmetcamera.

Final cut 5.04
Apple G5 dual 2,7

R.P. Cuenco · January 8th, 2006, 04:20 AM

i recently had to intermix DV 480i footage with HDV 1080i in FCP5. I just upressed the DV to HDV size in FCP, then used compressor to downres for DVD output straight from the timeline.

works really well, i couldnt tell that the DV footage was screwed around with.

Carl Ny · January 8th, 2006, 04:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by R.P. Cuenco

i recently had to intermix DV 480i footage with HDV 1080i in FCP5. I just upressed the DV to HDV size in FCP, then used compressor to downres for DVD output straight from the timeline.

works really well, i couldnt tell that the DV footage was screwed around with.

Thanks for your quick answer,
Did you just drag/resize the DV 480i material in the FCP Sequence window to match the HDV 1080i size?
Which Compressor way did you go?

Thanks

Carl Ny · January 8th, 2006, 04:29 AM

Thanks for your quick answer,

R.P. Cuenco · January 8th, 2006, 05:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carl Ny

Thanks for your quick answer,
Did you just drag/resize the DV 480i material in the FCP Sequence window to match the HDV 1080i size?
Which Compressor way did you go?

Thanks

yep. typed in the resize amounts manually instead of using the wireframes.
as for compressor, i had a 10 minute film, so i just outputed "DVD: Best Quality 90 min".

i'm sure i could have gone at a higher bit rate but i havent tested any other settings other than the included presets for fear of incompatiblities. DV looks untouched, and HDV looks amazing (in SD of course).

Carl Ny · January 8th, 2006, 06:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by R.P. Cuenco

yep. typed in the resize amounts manually instead of using the wireframes.
as for compressor, i had a 10 minute film, so i just outputed "DVD: Best Quality 90 min".

i'm sure i could have gone at a higher bit rate but i havent tested any other settings other than the included presets for fear of incompatiblities. DV looks untouched, and HDV looks amazing (in SD of course).

Thanks! Looking forward to try that!

All the best

Carl

Laurence Kingston · January 11th, 2006, 08:48 PM

Theoretically an HDV project downrezzed to SD at the end looks better than an SD project made from HDV footage downrezzed in the camera upon capture, but my experience shows me that there is very little difference between the end results of work done these two ways. Either way looks better than shooting SD.

On the other hand there is one real advantage to working with HDV footage on an SD project and that is that you can zoom all the way in to 1/4 of the screen without loosing resolution! Now that is cool!

Another advantage is you can render a number of formats quite well from 60i HDV: 30p, PAL, 4:3 & 16:9. As far as getting better 16:9 NTSC 16:9 goes, it's a whole lot more space, CPU and rendering time requirement for a miniscule difference that you are lucky if you can see!

December 17th, 2005, 03:36 AM	#1
Carl Ny Regular Crew Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: World wide Posts: 77	HDV and DV together in the same project... HDV and DV together in FCP 5.03 Ok if I want to use both HDV and DV in the same project; what is the "smartest" way to do this? I still want to have as high resolution as possible but at the same time find a nice workflow between the formats. The end product is going to be a SD-DVD. Looking forward to a smart workflow. Thanks. Carl Last edited by Carl Ny; December 17th, 2005 at 07:43 AM.

January 8th, 2006, 04:29 AM	#6
Carl Ny Regular Crew Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: World wide Posts: 77	Thanks for your quick answer, Last edited by Carl Ny; January 8th, 2006 at 05:19 AM.

December 17th, 2005, 09:01 AM	#2
Boyd Ostroff Wrangler Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Mays Landing, NJ Posts: 11,801	What kind of camera did you use? If it was one of the Sony's then the simplest approach would be to set i.Link downconvert and just capture the HDV footage as regular DV. I haven't yet tried scaling HDV down to 720x480 with FCP 5, but have read that it doesn't do any better job than the in-camera downsampling. Maybe there's some other Mac software that can do this better?

January 8th, 2006, 04:20 AM	#4
R.P. Cuenco Regular Crew Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Concord, CA Posts: 118	i recently had to intermix DV 480i footage with HDV 1080i in FCP5. I just upressed the DV to HDV size in FCP, then used compressor to downres for DVD output straight from the timeline. works really well, i couldnt tell that the DV footage was screwed around with.

January 11th, 2006, 08:48 PM	#9
Laurence Kingston Major Player Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Clermont, FL. Posts: 941	Theoretically an HDV project downrezzed to SD at the end looks better than an SD project made from HDV footage downrezzed in the camera upon capture, but my experience shows me that there is very little difference between the end results of work done these two ways. Either way looks better than shooting SD. On the other hand there is one real advantage to working with HDV footage on an SD project and that is that you can zoom all the way in to 1/4 of the screen without loosing resolution! Now that is cool! Another advantage is you can render a number of formats quite well from 60i HDV: 30p, PAL, 4:3 & 16:9. As far as getting better 16:9 NTSC 16:9 goes, it's a whole lot more space, CPU and rendering time requirement for a miniscule difference that you are lucky if you can see!