mix HDV & XDCam or stay all HDV?

[Mark Joseph]

I work in government with 2x HVR Z5Ps, and we're looking to expand - I thought a great opp to move up to EX-1 for corporate talking heads and the fullHD being more suitable should we provide footage to local networks.

I'm wondering how the EX-1 and Z5P would mix if I had to shoot with them? Given existing HDV for long-form conferences, looking to the EX-1 for nicer MCU corporate talking heads as there are lot of short form projects we do.

For internal use currently just DVD and very small WMV for broadcast over PC intranet. I edit in FCP.

[Alister Chapman]

You should have no problem mixing HDV and EX material in FCP. The only reason for not using the full quality EX HQ recordings would IMHO be if you wanted to backup your EX footage to HDV tape, otherwise I would want to have the extra quality the EX offers.

[Marcus Durham]

Originally Posted by Alister Chapman

You should have no problem mixing HDV and EX material in FCP. The only reason for not using the full quality EX HQ recordings would IMHO be if you wanted to backup your EX footage to HDV tape, otherwise I would want to have the extra quality the EX offers.

I've been mixing HDV footage from a Z1 and EX1 footage for a few months now. Some of them have been two camera shoots, others have been ongoing projects where I decided to change over to the EX1 when it became available to me.

It's really been a none issue. It does require some colour correction and yes the Z1 does look softer but in the main it is pretty seamless. In fact I shoot on 720p on the EX1 mainly but I've had good success in dragging the 1080i HDV from the Z1 into a 720p timeline in Final Cut. The end result is a fully progressive project that looks great for all the purposes I need.

[Damian Heffernan]

just found this with a search. I'm going to shot somethng on friday and will have to use a HDV camera and my new EX1. If I've got this right I should be able to create a 720P project in FCP and then drag in the EX1 stuff with no issues? Is that right?

I was going to shoot 1080i and hadn't even thought of 720. Do I really need to go 720p? I'm shooting for a SD DVD only release and so aren't I better off with i? or am I confusing myself??

PAL system BTW.

[Hiram Yates]

Originally Posted by Marcus Durham

I've been mixing HDV footage from a Z1 and EX1 footage for a few months now.

I second that. We have been shooting a TV show called Hot Mixology and when we first started out we didn't have much budget... We were using my EX1, someone elses Z1u, and a Canon XHA1. The EX footage and the Z footage ended up cutting together extremely well. I was actually kind of surprised how well they matched up after going through some minor color correction tweaking. The EX was definitely sharper, but overall the Z was a good second cam. Just be sure you give it plenty of light and you're solid. The canon footage, however, did not cut well at all. The colors were pretty muted and focus was soft. We nixed that camera after the first episode.

Now we've bumped up to using 3 EX1s so it's a non-issue, but at the end of the day I wouldn't hesitate to mix a Z1u with an EX1 again.

[Marcus Durham]

Originally Posted by Hiram Yates

I second that. We have been shooting a TV show called Hot Mixology and when we first started out we didn't have much budget... We were using my EX1, someone elses Z1u, and a Canon XHA1. The EX footage and the Z footage ended up cutting together extremely well. I was actually kind of surprised how well they matched up after going through some minor color correction tweaking.

I was proofing a DVD yesterday before final delivery which mixed the Z1 and EX1. When downconverted to SD you'd be very hard pushed to spot the difference. Having shot the material 4 months ago frankly I was struggling to remember what was what!

Things are going to get very interesting for me in the next couple of days. In the past I'd had success in mixing Z1 footage with PDX-10 footage. Naturally that was in SD. However I've just started a project that will require new footage (EX1) as well as older stuff shot on Z1 and PDX10. There's no way of avoiding using the PDX10 footage (a non repeatable shot from 5 years ago) so it will be very interesting to see how these 3 Sony cams cut together when viewed in SD for the finished project!

[Hiram Yates]

Originally Posted by Marcus Durham

When downconverted to SD you'd be very hard pushed to spot the difference.!

I should also note that we finished in SD as well...

However, in watching the ProRes, the only way to see any difference is the Z is a bit softer, but still not bad at all.

Let us know how that 5 year old footage matches up, I'm very curious to know how that goes!