HDV related question

blk_diesel wrote on 8/31/2006, 7:17 PM
OK, I'm waiting for my FX1 to arrive and have no experience with HDV. There's a concert coming up real soon and I want to record it in HDV. At this time, I'm going to author it to dvd (dv), but want to preserve it in HDV for later when there's more options for output, ie 1080 monitors, bluray, etc.

Is it feasible to record and downsample, will my downsampled video look good in dv?

What is a easy way to do this for someone still steeped in dv?

Comments

Spot|DSE wrote on 8/31/2006, 7:26 PM
your downsampled HDV will look great in HDV.
you might want to underexpose a touch; practice in advance.
The camera does an outstanding job of downconvert. I prefer the Vegas downconvert for the most part, but the DV downconvert from the cam is nothing to sneeze at and it's real-time.
jrazz wrote on 8/31/2006, 7:32 PM
Is it feasible to record and downsample, will my downsampled video look good in dv?

Yes to both. You have 3 options for downsampling. You can either 1- let the camera downconvert it- quickest and it looks darn good. 2. You can use Cineform as an intermediary file- which means you have to capture via HDV encode to the Cineform intermediary file (Vegas 6) and work with that on the timeline and then do your final encode to mpg-2 which will give you an even better result than the in camera downconvert- but time is a tradeoff as well as hard drive space. or 3. You can use proxies like Gearshift- which I have no experience in.

Do a search for HDV workflow or something similar. johnmeyer gave a pretty extensive workflow model as well as a tip on how to crop & pan, for best results, your widescreen footage for standard 4:3 viewing. He also has a script that will crop everything that has not already been cropped to match the 4:3 aspect ratio.

j razz
Serena wrote on 8/31/2006, 8:15 PM
Probably you've been reading the posts related to HDV and have noted the sort of problems people steeped in DV have found when changing to a higher definition format. an example post
I like to render out to mpeg2 after editing, for then you get panning and cropping options that the quality of HDV permits. Of course this might not suit your immediate post production needs. Obviously you're going to become thoroughly with the camera before the gig.
blk_diesel wrote on 8/31/2006, 9:11 PM
I did a search and I've been reading a lot of posts. Right now, I'm not ready to do any heavy HD work. But, like I said, I want the option to do some HD projects later. I'll have roughly a month to work with the camera before the concert.
DJPadre wrote on 8/31/2006, 10:28 PM
I agree with serena,
working with a higher defined image allows for more flexibility within the SD output, mainly reframing of shots. U can easily have on camera and shoot mid, then zoom pan and crop in post, without degrading quality. Doing this cleverly, allows one to imitate to cameras...
Also i find that the DV resolution (i shoudl say aspect ratio) leaves alot to be desired... so working in HDV, then outputing from THAT straight to MPG2 will offer a higher level of resolving image.. or i shoudl say different when considering aspect ratios

What i do, i sshoot 1080i with Z1's then downconvert to 720p... i have the best of both wolds this way, with as much flexibility
johnmeyer wrote on 9/1/2006, 12:11 AM
I was in the exact same place nine months ago. Here are the posts that resulted from questions I asked, many of which are identical to yours. I also posted the "workflow" I created for handling HDV from my FX1 and for mixing this with SD from my older cameras.

HDV Questions

My workflow for HDV to SD projects

Sony HDVinfo.com

High Def Forum

HDVInfo.net


blk_diesel wrote on 9/2/2006, 8:37 PM
Is it a bad thing to convert to DV without resizing to 4-3 ratio? I'm not sure I want to go through all the trouble of cropping and resizing.
fldave wrote on 9/2/2006, 8:52 PM
If you are going to DV from HDV, resizing is a given. I would go straight to DV widescreen. No cropping necessary.

If you insist on going 4x3, set the crop on the HDV timeline (HDV gives you a lot of leeway in pan/crop to 4x3), get your footage the way you want to see it, then render as DV 4x3.