• Avid Media Composer

  HDCAM to Digibeta/DVCAM Downconvert

  Posted by Sofi Marshall on December 18, 2009 at 7:33 pm

  Hey everyone,

  I have a film shot on 35mm and transferred SonyHDCAM (1080 24p) that I’ve edited in Avid using the DNxHD codec. I’m getting ready to submit the film to festivals and have to make a few DigiBeta and DVCAM tapes. I’m wondering if it’s better practice to transcode my HD footage to a DV resolution and then letterbox within Avid before outputting to tape or to just let the decks do the downconvert in real time? If I were to transcode, would I just be going to DV 25 resolution, or what would the best resolution be for DigiBeta and DVCAM?

  Is one method better than the other, or does it not make much of a difference as long as the deck can handle a real time downconvert? I don’t really have any information on the decks or cards being used since they are all part of my school’s post-production equipment, but I do know that it’s possible to do a real time downconvert.

  Thanks for any help!

  -Sofi

  Job Ter burg replied 16 years, 5 months ago 2 Members · 1 Reply
• 1 Reply

• 

  Job Ter burg

  December 18, 2009 at 8:48 pm

  The best downconversion is with a high end standalone converter. An HDCAM deck will do a pretty decent downconversion. Don’t know about other HD decks, I don’t ever use those.
  Avid Nitris and Nitris DX hardware based systems will do a decent downconversion as well, and I think flipping the project type to SD will give you an OK downconversion to SD on a Mojo as well, as long as you set the video quality switch to green/green. Transcoding in Avid software will look very soft.

  Avoid DV25. It has limited color information, and is compressed about 5:1. Use 1:1x or 1:1 or 2:1, or even 3:1 if you don’t have fast enough storage.

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