Who's cutting HDV & how is it going? Issues?

[Nick Brenner]

Just wondering if many people are cutting HDV on FCP or other and what if any issues are. Also what projects seem to use it. With the launch of new cameras from JVC and Panasonic imminent and therefore more HDV to come was wondering how it's going in Aust.
kind regards
Nick

[JWRL]

Nick, it's a bit of an underwhelming response, isn't it? The general impression that I get from the various forums that I browse is that internationally there is not much happening either. There seems to be an awful lot of "wait and see" going on.

In any case is the new Panasonic product HDV or is it DVCpro 100?

[Nick Brenner]

Great I was wondering if I was going to get any replies. The Panasonic shoots HD at 100mb sec onto their P2 cards (about 1/3 size of business card). P2 Cards house 4 high speed Secure Digital (yes, the same cards that digital still cameras use) laid out in a raid array. I saw some footage at SMPTE and it looks great. Unfortunately the cards are only 4gig right now but they expect them to go to 32gig eventually. You then grab the card throw it into a little card reader (like for stills cameras) and then transfer the data across to your disks. Import into edit suite. It's much faster than real time via USB2. When you import it into your edit suite it uses the DVCPRO-HD codec. The codec is different to HDV - it's a motion JPEG as opposed to Sony HDV which is recorded as GOP (Mpeg2). You can also play out of the cameras via firewire I think. Pretty impressive format for a camera under $10G.

The Sony is 25mb sec (same data rate as DV) yet the codec allows greater compression for less quality drop compared to the loss DV format. Anyway was just wondering cause I have a job coming in from the Territory that's being shot on HDV and i'll be cutting on FCP5. It seemed to do it pretty well at SMPTE.
cheers Nick

[rachelw]

Hey Nick it would be fantastic to hear how you go with that, as more and more editors are being asked to work on projects with these newly available technologies, and everybody's wondering what will happen.

I might add it would be especially nice to have a little feedback in such a format that perhaps it could be included in the next newsletter

Hope that it all goes splendidly

R

[tim w]

Hi Nick,
As a self confessed technophobe I have been dragged to the bleeding edge and am about to embark on an HD doco project. They are shooting on Sony HVR Z1 at 1080i and I'm yet to confirm the post path (avid or FCP) though, as an avid user of 12 years, I'm tempted to try out FCP. I've found talking with the techos about the issues as clear as mud but I'm getting there. What I have learnt is that HD is a whole new can of worms and that if you're going to go down that path do some research. I haven't started cutting yet, though they have started shooting.... Watch this space. Anybody with any experience out there all input welcome
Tim Woodhouse

[JWRL]

They've started shooting without nailing their post path yet???? Courageous!

If I were doing it under these circumstances I'd play it as safe as possible. If you haven't had time to familiarise yourself with the new technology before you jump in at the deep end do a traditional offline/online cut and finish on a Symphony or similar.

You really can't afford to have something unexpected pop up in post that blows your budget while you try to fix the problem.

[Jude]

There is an interseting BLOG just started by Shane Ross who is about to starting cutting HD TV for the History channel on his FCP system. I don't think he's doing HDV, but it's probably pertinent to all of us who need (or will need) to step up to HD soon. although .. I think they were shooting on a varicam, so ..?

Anyway - tis here
<http://homepage.mac.com/comeback/ibl...209/index.html>

[JieMing]

My understanding of HDV is that it uses Mpeg compression to fit the signal onto those little tapes. This means it is using interframe compression - which means you can't edit on any frame you like. I would be interested to know how Sony gets around this, and what the edits look like that aren't on a GOB-frame or I-frame. I've also read that if there is a dropout on tape it will last half a second!

Ben.

[JWRL]

JieMing, DVcam and DVC pro use MPEG compression too, and yet there is no problem editing those formats. Pinnacle Liquid Edition can currently cut HDV natively, and just rebuilds the material it needs to. Adobe also seem to be able to cut HDV format material on Premiere Pro 1.5.1. And of course FCP also has a workaround.

And in any case you would have to ask yourself why any manufacturer in this day and age would deliberately design a standard that you could not edit!

[Greg]

JWRL writes...

JieMing, DVcam and DVC pro use MPEG compression too, and yet there is no problem editing those formats.



DVCpro, DVCAM, DV are most definitely not MPEG.

DVCPro, DVcam etc do not use inter-frame encoding, only intraframe. Each frame is a complete entity, no dependance on the surrounding frames as in MPEG2, no GOPs etc

Adobe Premire and other systems have for a considerable time supported editing inter-frame mpeg. So it follows that FCP would need to support the SONY HDR-FX1 codec.

refer to

http://www.broadcastpapers.com/hdtv/dvcpro02.htm