OT: HDV and DVCPRO HD

farss wrote on 1/1/2005, 1:30 PM
Stay cool, no my username hasn't been hijacked, this is still Bob from down under and NO this isn't an anti Panasonic / let burn Barry at the stake post.
Reading through a lot of stuff elsewhere on HDV one thing struck me. I think (and I may well be wrong) that the FCP crowd are running HDV using the DVCPRO HD codec. Now my limited understanding of that might mean they're going from 1440x1080 to 1200x1080, in itself not much of a difference. However we are talking very high resolution where every bit really counts. I'd top that of by adding that FCP isn't that flash when it comes resizing images, test after test shows Vegas wins that competition.
So I'm just wondering if this might explain a lot, I'd imagine in that scenario anything that originated at 1200x1080 is going to look better than converted 1440x1080, all else being equal of course (which is pretty unlikely).
So perhaps, at the end of the day, not only is what you shoot but how you handle the footage that's going to have a big impact on the final result.
Bob.

Comments

Barry_Green wrote on 1/1/2005, 1:38 PM
Hmm... fascinating. I've seen other posts of people outputting using DVCPRO-HD, and they don't seem to understand that yes, even though they want 1920x1080, they're actually getting a recorded 1280x1080... Even HDCAM scales from 1920x1080 down to 1440x1080.

Vegas supports uncompressing HDV's 1440x1080 natively. I don't know if FCP-HD does... I know nothing about FCP-HD. Aren't people using Lumiere or something like that with FCP? Doesn't that do the same kind of intermediary-codec transcode that Cineform does?
farss wrote on 1/1/2005, 2:08 PM
Barry,
I really don't know for sure but I've seen a few posts where people are going out to DVCPRO HD, that's what got me thinking.
Bob.
Spot|DSE wrote on 1/1/2005, 2:39 PM
Lumiere currently doesn't do 1080i, only 720p. At some very near point, they say they'll have 1080i working for the FX1/Z1
HDV wrote on 1/1/2005, 2:52 PM
The main problem in using DVCPRO-HD to edit HDV is that it is compressed 6.7:1. Sony HDV is compressed 4.7:1 to 15.7:1. By editing in DVCPRO-HD, you degrade the Sony footage to something like 7.5:1 to 16:1 equaivalent.
Barry_Green wrote on 1/1/2005, 3:19 PM
<<Lumiere currently doesn't do 1080i, only 720p. At some very near point, they say they'll have 1080i working for the FX1/Z1>>

Ah. So what do FCP users do? Or is that getting too far off-topic, seeing this is a Vegas board? ;)
Spot|DSE wrote on 1/1/2005, 3:40 PM
HDV and Apple aren't ready for primetime yet. It's a shame, but that's the way it is. I just hope for Apple users that FCP *really* has the update at NAB, rather than promising it at NAB like they did with 24p, and then waiting for a year to actually deliver. It's not to anyone's benefit that FCP doesn't have full HDV capability. So, your choice currently is to capture HDV via the camera's component out going into an Aja box or decklink device.
TheHappyFriar wrote on 1/1/2005, 4:44 PM
Honestly, if I had to choose between a Sony HDV & a Panasonic DVCPro-HD camera I'd choose the DVCPro. That's based on previous experience with Panasonic Tech Support (when i contacted sony about a BetacamSP they treated me like a 3 year old child. All I wanted was a replacement part but they kept telling me that I didn't & that I wanted to send it in. Ends up I was right about the part thanks to an enginer who steared me in the right direction), a Panasonic DVCPro camera & DVCPro Decks. I just like them. I've put them through hell & they still worked.

I'm pretty sure that many people would make simular choices (ie a sony fan would choose sony, a panasonic fan would choose panasonic). Of course if I read many reliabale reviews that the Sony blew away the Panasonic for a simular price, i'd try the Sony.
farss wrote on 1/1/2005, 6:39 PM
A LOT of this comes down to your local support. We had serious issues getting Canon stuff services although I believe it's much better now. One thing down here that Sony excel at is their pro dealers service, I'll admit sometimes we've thrown them some real red herrings, take a 250 that doesn't record TC properly, they check the tape on a DSR 20 and it's 100% yet none of our DSR-11s can read it reliably, we persisted and so did they and it got fixed.
Conversely we've had our JVC 500 back with transport problems many, many times. Every time we'd just say 'replace the transport, we don't care what it cost' and still they'd play with it and it'd work for a while and then jam a tape in the middle of something vital. Sony would have replaced the transport at the first hint of trouble. I guess if you're short of dollars you'd prefer the JVC approach, when it HAS to work I'd go with the Sony approach.

But yes, many of the Panasonic decks are better at playing tapes with Sony recorded stuff on them than all but the DSR 2000.

Bob.
farss wrote on 1/1/2005, 6:52 PM
So OK, my assumption might be correct, quite apart from the issue of just how much compression DVCPRO HD uses, the brutal fact surely is that converting from HDV to it isn't going to do the HDV footage the world of good.
So perhaps a certain amount of some of the negative comments about HDV are right, people are reporting what they're seeing. The problem is they're going about 'seeing' it the wrong way.

Which does lead to another subtext to all this, Apple and Panasonic SEEM to have a marriage of convenience, even though FCP and 24p took a LONG while to happen. When I first started to see that trend I felt it wasn't going to be of benefit to either of them in the long term, maybe HDV is going to cause both of them a bit of heartburn.

Having said that I do agree with Barry, it'd be nice to see native DVCPRO support in Vegas (and IMX!), not that I have the slightest interest in it, just that I firmly believe it'd enhance Vegas's appeal. Consider this scenario, Vegas now offers something that FCP doesn't, say I'm a FCP user thinking about jumping ship but I've still got many clients using DVCPRO, you see a problem?
Bob.