What is the best way to work with HDV?

Sonisfear wrote on 9/12/2005, 10:08 AM

HDV files was choking, jumping around and crashing with memory errors with my dual Xeon 2.4 system. capture program is very fragile if the cam (HD100) switches to any other format (which happens if your not using fresh tape)...crash and then that file will crash/hang the system if touched by Vegas in anyway shape or form. I must recapture and stop before the bad section comes up again.

So I purchased the fastest computer you can buy right now (almost) quad (2-dualcore cpu on a asus K8N-DL MB)64bit AMD Opterons 2.0 GHZ with 2 meg cache.

With the fastest Sata II drives I could find.

Same thing...choking, jumping around and crashing. The only way I can functional work with HD is to render to and AVI 720p30 or 1080 intermediate file. Which I don't mind, but am I lossing anything? Is their a way were the edits could reference the original footage so when I render out it would render from the HDV files?

Comments

Spot|DSE wrote on 9/12/2005, 10:41 AM

You'll find that editing m2t period, is painful. Not meant to be done. That's why it's called a "transport stream."

This is what CineForm is for, and this is what GearShift is for, to help you convert. Since you've got that system, you should be able to capture and convert in realtime to CineForm codec if you purchase their full application.
You'll need to use the capture app or DVHS to capture the 24p stream if that's what you're using, until Vegas and other apps support the capture of the 24p media.
BTW, GearShift allows/encourages you to reference the original m2t on render. That's the "shift gears" part.

Wolfgang S. wrote on 9/13/2005, 12:01 AM

At the moment, Vegas 6b is not prepared to work well with the JVC HD100. Capturing workes, but Vegas tends to crash - and even if it does not crash, you will see that the transport streams show a much higher duration, compared with the real movie time.

What works fine with the HD100/101 is to capture with Connect HD, since that is updated by now for the JVC. You can capture both the m2t files but also to the Cineform intermediate, automatic scene detection is avaliable too and worked fine in my tests. But even if you capture with Connect HD, the m2t files tend to show different length in the audio and video part, after the import in Vegas 6b.

If you change the recorde mode in the camcorder - so for example from 720 30p to 720 24p, you have to reboot the Camcorder anyway. So, from that perspective, you have to stop capturing, reboot the camcorder, and then you can continue.

In addition: 720 25 p files can be played back on a P4 3.2 Ghz even without intermediates and proxy files in Vegas6, what is fine, compared with 1080i. However, at the moment there is still the capture issue in Vegas.

So, at the moment the best way seems to be to capture with Connect HD, and then edit the video with the Cineform intermediate. There are other ways too, for example to capture with Edius (but even the Canopus products are not yet prepared for the HD101 really). However, the m2t files as captured with Edius 3.5 can be imported in Vegas too.

By the way: in my tests, capDVHS did not work successfully with the JVC HD101 - so I do not recommend that. With the HD100 a separate capture tool is delivered - however, I have not tested that, and cannot state anything about how well the files behave in Vegas.

Sonisfear wrote on 9/13/2005, 10:41 PM

Thanks wolf for the reminder.. my new system is tearing through those HDavi files.