HDV format matrix?

[Steve Crisdale]

I'm sure there'll be plenty of the - "but you can use this function of this NLE to get DVCPro Hd to MPEG2 ts for broadcast, after you've installed an AJA Kona or Blackmagic HD SDI card into your system" posts in response to my prior response.

I'm sure there's plenty of ways to convert the optimum HD streams that the XL-H1 and HVX200 pump out, but the fact remains that you have to buy extra hardware, and hope that your NLE will have the support and grunt for the data stream presented to it.

The HDV format on the other hand - given the short period of time HDV has been in the market place - is supported now by every major NLE, and the exploitation of it's improved handling in software is moving faster than I've seen for any product in ages... That's rare for a technology that originated totally outside the computer industry, but the potential seen by anyone who could add 2 HDV to 2 HTPC has meant the market has been shook up at last!!

The pundits of High Tech, have been trumpeting the convergence of computing and entertainment for quite a while - almost to the point where many folks just got used to ignoring it... And now it's here. Early form of it maybe; but not only is that changing fast, but those who are only just waking up to how caught out they've been - are having to compete with feature sets and capabilities that they may not have originally intended to release at the price-point they are forced to by the success of their competition.

It's interesting times ahead, and it'll be even more interesting once the X-Box 360 and the PS3 have hit the market place...

[Tim White]

Thanks Steve - your point about where the students would eventually see themselves was particularly well made. I declare myself guilty of using this forum to think aloud about which way to jump regarding HDV and thanks to those who've shaped those thoughts into something more concrete. It's interesting that the HDV contenders have all emerged as very different beasts (or perhaps belatedly have pushed themselves as such to corner a particular niche) and only by looking at the whole production cycle is it possible to determine what best suits one's requirements.
Barry, thanks for the info - WMV HD sounds like the most cost-effective output option. I think I'm going to go away and worry some more good people about projection options for 1080i on a budget (and if anyone here wants to chip in I've been looking at the Panasonic PT AE700 but hopefully I'll find another section here to raise that one).

[John McGinley]

Originally Posted by Steve Crisdale

It's interesting times ahead, and it'll be even more interesting once the X-Box 360 and the PS3 have hit the market place...

Unfortunately the X-Box 360 is shipping with a DVD Drive instead of an HD-DVD drive. That's kind of disappointing.

[Ken Hodson]

I don't think MS had much choice as the HD-DVD (whatever fromat) has not been released yet.

[John McGinley]

They could choose to wait until next year, instead of the promise Christmas sales driving their decision, the bandwidth limitations of just using a DVD drive will hurt XBox 360 in the long run. Unless they repackage it with an HD-DVD drive and call it the 360 extreme or something. But that hasn't worked in the past. One of the exciting things about the nextgen systems was the promise of an HDTV media center, in Microsofts case it has become a half-promise. While Sony will ship with Blu-Ray. Bigger disc, more bandwidth to stream data off the disc.

[Steve Crisdale]

Originally Posted by John McGinley

Unfortunately the X-Box 360 is shipping with a DVD Drive instead of an HD-DVD drive. That's kind of disappointing.

And that's a problem how?

It's DVD drive will play any WMV9 1080i HD files you want to write to a standard single or dual layer DVD. So either 4.3Gig or 8.7Gig of HD... Even at bit-rates of around 19.3Mbit, that's quite a bit of HD material.

So for HD distribution, the X-Box 360 has a currently available and eminently affordable option. So I won't be able to play Blu-ray or HD-DVD material, which'll all be either re-mastered, re-digitised and re-released material from the commercial studios.

I'm not that upset about not towing the corporate line... of not allowing my desire to constantly have "the best", get in the way of my ability to see beyond the glitz and the glam of each new technological development.

The Network capability of the X-Box 360 is of more importance to me. Editing clips, and reviewing them as individual HD rendered segments is all well and good on a PC or editing monitor screen, but it always falls short of how the material looks when seen on a nice BIG HDTV!! So, how to get those "rushes" style renders to the big screen? You can write back to the camera - good, but very time consuming...

Or, you can use a HD Network Media Player. While the Avel linkplayer is the most likely contender (yeah there's the Buffalo...) it shares the Achilles' heel of the Roku HD1000 Photobridge - Unacceptable PAL HD playback. As I'm in a PAL zone, it's rather important that any HD device can handle PAL.

What would dissapoint about the X-Box 360 from my perspective, would be to find out that it suffers from the same PAL Achilles' heel. That's where I'm making a quantum leap in judgement about the "Cell" processors ability to carry out the necessary operations, above and beyond those carried out by the Sigma chipsets that seem to be universally used in every other HD Network Media Player.

PS3 might be plausible for the same purpose, but I've a sneaking suspicion it's gonna be expensive, and limited by it's HDMI only connections.

[Sean McHenry]

Just to throw a monkey wrench on the fire (I love mixed metaphores), In playing with the JVC HD100 and my updated Avid software, I find out after shooting some test footage this weekend that Xpress Pro HD does not in fact fully support the GY-HD100 formats yet. I cannot get 720p24 footage into the Avid.

Vegas on the other hand was able to do it. You cannot import m2t streams into Avid either so my option of grabbing it in Vegas and using the grabbed files in Avid don't work either.

Avid is a bit behind on this one so far. Just FYI stuff for the future Matrix.

We need two matricies (sp?) One for cameras and decks and one for NLEs and their supported formats. Might help people buy into a complete working HDV path.

Sean McHenry

[Kevin Shaw]

Originally Posted by Sean McHenry

We need two matricies (sp?) One for cameras and decks and one for NLEs and their supported formats.

While we're on that subject, if someone's compiling such a list for editing software, be sure to include whether the software can re-edit M2T, WMV-HD and/or H.264 files. I just saw someone pull a WMV file into Vegas this weekend and wasn't aware that was an option in any editing software, so now I'm curious who else can handle the sort of HD output files we'll be burning to disc next year.

[Steve Crisdale]

Originally Posted by Kevin Shaw

While we're on that subject, if someone's compiling such a list for editing software, be sure to include whether the software can re-edit M2T, WMV-HD and/or H.264 files. I just saw someone pull a WMV file into Vegas this weekend and wasn't aware that was an option in any editing software, so now I'm curious who else can handle the sort of HD output files we'll be burning to disc next year.

There's quite a number of PC video editors/utilities/NLEs that can work with WMV9 - either loading or encoding wise. H.264 isn't in the such the same situation, but there's constant format support updates being made to all the major NLEs... Surprisingly freeware is often the first to add new HD capable codecs such as MPEG4 and H.264 - you'll need to keep an eye out: just like the rest of us.

To try and organise a list of the file handling capabilities of them all would be somewhat counter-productive however.

The list would need to be changed on such a regular basis - almost flamin' daily!!... that it's easier to just watch for posts regarding each new file handling attribute that's been added to a particular piece of software.

While a list of editing software with all current HD/HDV capabilities noted would indeed be a wonderful resource - I doubt that anyone in their right mind would seriously wish to undertake the task.

So many categories - so many appz - so many utilities. Many of us are still coming to grips with the most effective workflow for maintaining HD quality through the entire editing process.

The only truly 'Universal' proviso for editing HD on PC/Mac is to keep the number of encodes between that done in camera and that done at final render time, to an absolute minimum. So: for complex editing situations, there's proxy based editing appz, or appz that utilize an "Intermediate HD Uncompressed format".

It boils down too: on PC, going with Cineform CFHD avi based editing, or NLE's that use a similar uncompressed intermediate, or any that provide proxy file support... Nearly every piece of video editing software can load *.avi, which is why there's so many Cineform advocates in the PC HDV ranks.

LumiereHD allows similar capabilities on Mac - or so I believe from reading the posts in the Mac editing forum...

As a personal appraisal of HDV support on the two major computing platforms - I believe PC is more mature and better supported with a greater variety of programs (from expensive to free) that allow greater flexibility through the whole editing process.