From your message it appears as though your final distribution format will be SD (standard definition).

If NTSC then even using one field the FX1 will provide greater resolution than NTSC is capable. For PAL you would only lose a bit of overall resolution using one field.

This "one field" example is a worst case example. Deinterlacing will of course provide MUCH higher resolution than SD.

To be honest I would be more concerned with lighting as I doubt the camera's resolution will be a limiting factor in the quality of the final work and its ability to convey your artistic vision to the audience. With properly lit scenes the FX1 can provide fantastic video.

- Mark

If your final product will be SD DV, then you really can't go wrong converting 1080 60i to 480 30p or 24p. You will get excellent quality, similar to what the Panasonic DVX100 can do in its progressive modes. Vegas does a good job with converting 60i to 30p or 24p. Make sure you set you render quality to "best" and not just the standard "good". Mike Crash's free Smart Deinterlace filter reportedly does an excellent job deinterlacing 60i to 30p, better than what Vegas can do natively.

If you are staying in HD resolutions, you will still obtain excellent quality deinterlacing to 1080p or 720p. Some say it will be of similar or slightly less quality as the JVC HD100's 720p mode. I have not seen this so I cannot verify. I believe it may vary depending on the type and quality of the display device (720p vs 1080p). It will likely be better than the Panasonic DVX100 480p.

Lots of "film look" posts on this forum you might want to look at, like this one:

Film Look

Thank you so much for the quick and profound replies. It is good to have a place like this forum!

Yes, the final product shall be PAL SD (720 x 576 lines).
I want to film in HD, edit and sfx in SD and output SD as well (the main reason is that i don't want to upgrade my workstation for native HDV editing).
But for the future I want to make sure that I can render a HD version as well (therefore the FX1 as camera - besides i totally agree on the lighting issue! must not be neglected...).

as we're getting closer I would highly appreciate help on the remaining workflow questions:

1. filming is done in HD (1.080i); there will be some quicker movements to shoot - will I have an advantage with 60i then? what framerate is suggested?

2. as I wrote before I want be able to replace the DV files by HDV fildes in the near future. So what is the smartest procedure?
- Capturing with Vegas as M2T (1.440 x 1.080) and creating DV copies with Vegas?
- using the SD output of the FX1 and remember the tape-positions used for capturing?
- using intermediates?

Maybe it is good to have some M2Ts on disk because there will be greenscreen shots as well (for chroma-keying). From what I read here HDV is superior to DV when it comes to chroma-keying!?

3. Which is the preferred deinterlacing method in Vegas? I used to choose 'blend fields' for my older DV projects.



Best regards & thanks again,

Larez ;)

Remember, if you downconvert your footage in camera to SD before you edit, you will be stuck with SD resolution the whole time - unless you go back and capture and edit the HDV footage all over again.

If your goal is to have an HD master of your finished project, I personally would shoot, capture, edit and composite in 1080 HD(V) and only output to SD when you have a finished video. I would capture HDV and convert it to an intermediate codec (Cineform), unless you have a very old computer with limited hard drive space. Even on my older computer, I can get full 29.97 fps playback with the "preview" quality setting using the Cineform intermediate codec. I would not attempt to edit the native HDV TS stream as you will get a poor preview and lossy recompression with multiple renderings. This is especially important with compositing.

If you have a very old computer, you may use the Gearshift script to convert HDV to DV for intermediate editing. You then use the script to substitute the edited DV files with the original HDV footage.

You are correct that HDV chromakeying is far easier and superior to chromakeying DV, all things being equal.

Absolutely!! Convert to SD in render. All else in HD. Do not consider editing m2t. Check out threads mentioned by CourseDesign. Buying a camera is a portion of the cost of getting better results, but if you're not expecting to spend a little additional money on supporting software then perhaps give it a little more thought.

... thanks again!

Today the FX1 was delivered. Pretty nice from what I've seen so far.
Taking your advice seriously I will shoot my footage in HDV (1080i / PAL).
Then I will capture with Vegas to M2T-Files.
I plan to use intermediates for editing.

Now I need some more clarification:

- is it correct that a cineform intermediate codec comes with the latest version of vegas? if so, do i need any other software to work with intermediates in vegas?

- http://mikecrash.wz.cz/vegas/vegas.htm < this link to a deinterlacing plugin does not work for me. download can not be finished. does someone know an alternative download location?

- is this plugin really working for HDV footage? if yes, would you deinterlace the whole footage before the editing / cropping / keying process or once in the end? I'm afraid to cause conflicts with the project settings (blend / interpolate / lff).

help is really appreciated. links to other threads are welcome as well. searching the forums was unsuccessful.

thx in advance, larez.

is it correct that a cineform intermediate codec comes with the latest version of vegas? if so, do i need any other software to work with intermediates in vegas?

That is correct. Render as an AVI, and then select the HDV 1080i-60i format as the template (I assume you are in NTSC-land).

http://mikecrash.wz.cz/vegas/vegas.htm

Lots of people have reported the same problem. Do a search on "crash http" in this forum and you may find an alternative download location.

is this plugin really working for HDV footage?

Don't know. Someone else will have to answer.

Why would you want to "zoom" more than usual? The use of zooms with 24p film is spaing, and zooms are handled slowly.

I think you MAY be referring to a "rack" focus, where one part of the picture is in focus, and then it switches to another part being in focus? That's not done with a zoom.