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1080/50i HDV or not HDV
Hello
I’ve just started on the postproduction on a really complex documentary. The footage is a mix of formats: stills, HDV interviews, lots of 8 and 16 mm and also SD material.
We are supposed to edit on an Avid Express Pro with After Effects as support.
Should we make the project “1080/50i HDV” or just “1080/50i”? I think that I once read that to work in HDV was not recommended. But what is the difference? Will there be ugly compression on the animated stills if we use HDV alternative?
The final result is supposed to be on HD, and there is also talk of a film print.Thank you!
Yours,
Jo Eld -
5 Replies
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What I’ve done in the past, since I had the hard drive space and this was a relatively short piece, was to capture HDV into a 1080i HDV project, sort through my material picking selects from interviews and b-roll and making subclips. I then transcoded the subclips to DNxHD 145 to actually edit with. It was much easier and faster to work with the DNxHD clips on the timeline. I also had to modify a view of the interview selects to remove a reflection of a soft box light in a window behind the subject. I exported clips from Xpress pro at DNxHD and worked with them in AE then exported and imported back into Xpress Pro at DNxHD…very quick.
All the material I had (with the exception of graphics) originated on HDV, so I’m not sure what media your 8 and 16mm footage is on (beta/digi/HD/DVCpro HD/DV/etc…), Xpress Pro is only capable of capturing HDV and can’t capture any other HD formats (the Mojo is irrelevant when working with HD in Xpress Pro). So you’ll either be importing HD content captured with the Adrenaline or other apps…or capturing SD material with the Mojo.Erik
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your final product is SD right?
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he said “final result is HD…possible film print”
Erik
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Hello
Thank you very much for your reply. That was most helpfull!
Yes, there is talk of a film print as I said, but this is primarily a documentary for television. The master will be on HD (I guess that means DVCPRO HD or HDCAM).
I’ll try to edit with the HDV material for the time beeing, but do all my other elements in DNxHD. If I get any problems with this I’ll transcode the HDV to DNxHD as well. (There is quite a lot of material)
Thanks again for sharing your experience with me 🙂
Yours,
Jo Eld -
If you are going to edit native HDV, I would suggest saving, and saving often. Since HDV is “long GOP” there is a lot of extra processing overhead that Avid has to handle as it goes through the mpeg2 information trying to reassemble frames….so Avid has a tendency to get a little hung up in my experience or odd things like the source/record monitor’s not playing and other quirks.
Also, if you are working with HDV, all of your effects, transitions, imports, etc… while in an HDV project, will be created at DNxHD 145…just how it works.
The other hitch with working with HDV, is that you will need to create a MPEG2 “transport stream” or M2t file if you plan on exporting it back to HDV tape or converting it to DVD. I’d suggest once you get your edit locked down to transcode a duplicate of the sequence to DNxHD 145 as it will be easier to export to a file which can be imported to a Adrenaline or such to be sent to HDcam tape, etc…Erik
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