• Avid Media Composer

  Capturing 1:1 from Compact Flash Cards

  Posted by Dan Roland on June 26, 2009 at 9:05 am

  Hi!

  Using a Sony Z7 and shooting HDV 1080i to Compact Flash cards, and then editing using the latest AVID version 3.5 for pc, I was wondering a) whether to shoot using AVI or RAW format on the Z7’s recording unit for best quality results and b) how to choose 1:1 full resoultion in the AVID capture tool (so that I don’t have to conform afterwards). All it seems to offer is “HDV”.

  Then I need to downconvert/play out to SD – I’m sure that is straightforward, no?

  All the best,

  Dan Roland

  Dan Roland replied 17 years, 1 month ago 2 Members · 4 Replies
• 4 Replies

• 

  Dino

  June 28, 2009 at 12:27 am

  RAW only applies to DV. HDV is recorded as an MPEG-2 transport stream. I’m no familiar with this unit but I believe it appears to Media Composer as a deck would. Capturing HDV over firewire only allows the creation of HDV native files. No conversion on capture. If you really don’t want HDV, transcode after digitize.

  If there is some way to use AMA with this, it still requires a transcode. If you just want to work as NTSC then change to NTSC in the format tab after digitize (or PAL of course). You will be working as SD and MC will fit your media to the frame (as anamorphic).
• 

  Dan Roland

  June 28, 2009 at 9:13 pm

  Hey that’s great, really appreciate your help and advice there – I think I understand most of it!

  So the HDV stream in MPEG-2 that is recorded on the Compact Flash card and is then captured in Avid as HDV will be high resolution then?

  Best,

  Dan
• 

  Dino

  June 30, 2009 at 2:51 am

  The files created by the Avid will be the same exact material encoded by the camera, just packaged in an Avid friendly way. That is, the quality will be exactly the same as the tape or files written by the camera.

  A post ingest transcode to 1:1 SD will be roughly the same quality as a process that converts on capture though the only way to get downconvert on capture from an HDV source is using a deck that outputs HD-SDI and capturing through something like an AJA Kona (though not with Avid). And if you have that deck, it too will downconvert to SD-SDI, so then just capture that. The choice is cost of hardware vs. cost of time vs. the need to bother at all (HD media in an SD sequence works fine). Best of luck.
• 

  Dan Roland

  June 30, 2009 at 7:43 am

  Hi Dino,

  Thanks so much for your advice, it makes sense. As you can tell I’m a novice when it comes to Avid, so what you say is very valuable.

  Cheers (as ew say in the UK),

  Dan

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