Can I have a HDV editing for Dummies? Please? at DVinfo.net

Zac Crosby · November 30th, 2007, 08:37 AM

Alright, i may have poked my head in to far... i thought jumping from dv to hdv would be a walk in the park, no harm... but now talk of Cineform and Files sizes and whosemerwhatsit's... i get so confused... so ill ask some question... i hope someone can answer

Im using the Canon HV20 and i may want to shoot straight into the computer... so what ill know i need is.... BlackMagic capture through computer then to a ext HDD... right? but now the file size is huge... so i need a codec? Cineform? why so expensive? and do i need it? How much space am i going to need? i got a 320gb for all raw footage right now... am i going to need more?...

And then editing, should i downconvert the footage t SD edit it there so it won't degrade... or does it not? and then in AFX put in the HD footage where the sd footage was?

and if i don't go HDMI is there a simpler way of importing HDV footage and 24p-ing it?

When i import off the camera using HDMI... AFTER filming, has in cnverted to 29.97 on the tape or does capturing sing HDMI make it 24p... cause im on a PC and the 24pulldown is the only thing i can use?

and how much is this going to cost me?

I know Blackmagic -$237

thanks guys...

Z

Carl Middleton · November 30th, 2007, 11:33 AM

As far as Cineform goes, it's an excellent codec. It's designed to be visually lossless, and easy on your processor.

Due to that fact, it integrates with Premiere Pro, allowing Cineform effects that do not require a render to preview.... real time HD color correction and pan/zoom/rotates, transitions, and the like. Greatly speeds up workflow, not just a good codec.

Carl

Ray Bell · November 30th, 2007, 11:44 AM

Lots of questions there... I'll try to answer the best I can, If you have further questions then fire away....

The HV20 for video work has two outputs... you can caputure to tape and output the footage from the firewire port (1440x1080) or output the footage from the HDMI port (1920x1080) also from tape.

You can also output HDMI non compressed footage live (1920x1080)
to get live footage from the HDMI ,you will need the BM Intenisity card.

You will have to have a very, very, very fast computer and very fast HD drive setups for it to work capturing live... not a cheap setup...

But, you can still use the Intensity card on a slower setup for offloading the footage from the tape and it comes out as 1920x1080 vs 1440x1080 from the firewire....

The Intensity card is supported by BM codec in MJPEG format.. thats what comes with the card... not bad but Cineform is a wavelet codec and offers a better quality to the HV20 as the Prospect product will support the Native
resolution of 1920x1080 chips and the I/O is 10bit.... but its not necessary if you don't want to lay out the cash for it... and it can be added at any time later...

The footage that comes off of the camera is M2T compressed GOP....

Again, its best to have a pretty fast computer if your going to ingest the M2T files into your editor... or, again, use Cineform to uncompress the footage and convert it to non-compressed AVI .... its faster and easier
on either slower computers or fast computers... it just makes the editing process that much better...

You should edit your footage in HD mode and then if you want export out of the editor in SD footage or HD...

Disk space??? 320gb should work for a small project in HD.... but then the
disk will be full...... for me I use several 320gb drives and it seems to be a good size and pretty cheap...

Your question about converting to SD for editing... for this discussion I'll
say SD is downconverted to a resolution of 480... HD is 1080...

When Cineform converts to AVI it only de-compresses the M2T file... the
footage still stays at 1080... thats what you want for editing... then after
the edit, you can either stay at 1080 or down convert for SD at 480...

As to 24P.... The HV20 shoots the 24P footage but it keeps it in a 60i container... if you want the 24P footage you will need to have to pull down
the footage.... again Cineform does this real time during the ingest...

The footage from the HV20 is very nice.... and it does seem to be crazy that you end up spending more on the editing software than what the camera cost in the first place....

Mike McCarthy · November 30th, 2007, 03:06 PM

Assuming you aren't recording directly to a computer (you are on location recording to tape) then you should definitely capture native HDV files over Firewire. This can be done in Premiere, other NLEs, or a variety of utilities. With a modern multicore system, these files can be edited in realtime.
The 24p throws a wrench in the system, and I don't know for certain that there are easy ways to extract the 24p picture from the 60i file without using Cineform. Their HDLink utility converts your 60i HDV file to a 24p Cineform AVI file, to edit with.

The other benefits of Cineform come into play later down the pipe. What is your deliverable, will you be handling assets in AE, etc. Having you HDV files as source is great, but you don't want to use HDV anytime past that point, because every time you re-encode to HDV you lose lots of data, or detail and quality. Cineform allows you to make high quality copies and conversions, export a segment to work on in AE, export it back, save a master HD sized file, etc.

November 30th, 2007, 08:37 AM	#1
Zac Crosby Regular Crew Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Mills, MA Posts: 52	Can I have a HDV editing for Dummies? Please? Alright, i may have poked my head in to far... i thought jumping from dv to hdv would be a walk in the park, no harm... but now talk of Cineform and Files sizes and whosemerwhatsit's... i get so confused... so ill ask some question... i hope someone can answer Im using the Canon HV20 and i may want to shoot straight into the computer... so what ill know i need is.... BlackMagic capture through computer then to a ext HDD... right? but now the file size is huge... so i need a codec? Cineform? why so expensive? and do i need it? How much space am i going to need? i got a 320gb for all raw footage right now... am i going to need more?... And then editing, should i downconvert the footage t SD edit it there so it won't degrade... or does it not? and then in AFX put in the HD footage where the sd footage was? and if i don't go HDMI is there a simpler way of importing HDV footage and 24p-ing it? When i import off the camera using HDMI... AFTER filming, has in cnverted to 29.97 on the tape or does capturing sing HDMI make it 24p... cause im on a PC and the 24pulldown is the only thing i can use? and how much is this going to cost me? I know Blackmagic -$237 thanks guys... Z

November 30th, 2007, 03:06 PM	#4
Mike McCarthy Major Player Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Northern California Posts: 517	Assuming you aren't recording directly to a computer (you are on location recording to tape) then you should definitely capture native HDV files over Firewire. This can be done in Premiere, other NLEs, or a variety of utilities. With a modern multicore system, these files can be edited in realtime. The 24p throws a wrench in the system, and I don't know for certain that there are easy ways to extract the 24p picture from the 60i file without using Cineform. Their HDLink utility converts your 60i HDV file to a 24p Cineform AVI file, to edit with. The other benefits of Cineform come into play later down the pipe. What is your deliverable, will you be handling assets in AE, etc. Having you HDV files as source is great, but you don't want to use HDV anytime past that point, because every time you re-encode to HDV you lose lots of data, or detail and quality. Cineform allows you to make high quality copies and conversions, export a segment to work on in AE, export it back, save a master HD sized file, etc. __________________ For more information on these topics, check out my tech website at www.hd4pc.com

November 30th, 2007, 11:33 AM	#2
Carl Middleton Major Player Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: Fernandina Beach, FL Posts: 562	As far as Cineform goes, it's an excellent codec. It's designed to be visually lossless, and easy on your processor. Due to that fact, it integrates with Premiere Pro, allowing Cineform effects that do not require a render to preview.... real time HD color correction and pan/zoom/rotates, transitions, and the like. Greatly speeds up workflow, not just a good codec. Carl

November 30th, 2007, 11:44 AM	#3
Ray Bell Regular Crew Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 1,414	Lots of questions there... I'll try to answer the best I can, If you have further questions then fire away.... The HV20 for video work has two outputs... you can caputure to tape and output the footage from the firewire port (1440x1080) or output the footage from the HDMI port (1920x1080) also from tape. You can also output HDMI non compressed footage live (1920x1080) to get live footage from the HDMI ,you will need the BM Intenisity card. You will have to have a very, very, very fast computer and very fast HD drive setups for it to work capturing live... not a cheap setup... But, you can still use the Intensity card on a slower setup for offloading the footage from the tape and it comes out as 1920x1080 vs 1440x1080 from the firewire.... The Intensity card is supported by BM codec in MJPEG format.. thats what comes with the card... not bad but Cineform is a wavelet codec and offers a better quality to the HV20 as the Prospect product will support the Native resolution of 1920x1080 chips and the I/O is 10bit.... but its not necessary if you don't want to lay out the cash for it... and it can be added at any time later... The footage that comes off of the camera is M2T compressed GOP.... Again, its best to have a pretty fast computer if your going to ingest the M2T files into your editor... or, again, use Cineform to uncompress the footage and convert it to non-compressed AVI .... its faster and easier on either slower computers or fast computers... it just makes the editing process that much better... You should edit your footage in HD mode and then if you want export out of the editor in SD footage or HD... Disk space??? 320gb should work for a small project in HD.... but then the disk will be full...... for me I use several 320gb drives and it seems to be a good size and pretty cheap... Your question about converting to SD for editing... for this discussion I'll say SD is downconverted to a resolution of 480... HD is 1080... When Cineform converts to AVI it only de-compresses the M2T file... the footage still stays at 1080... thats what you want for editing... then after the edit, you can either stay at 1080 or down convert for SD at 480... As to 24P.... The HV20 shoots the 24P footage but it keeps it in a 60i container... if you want the 24P footage you will need to have to pull down the footage.... again Cineform does this real time during the ingest... The footage from the HV20 is very nice.... and it does seem to be crazy that you end up spending more on the editing software than what the camera cost in the first place....