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Best workflow on no budget HDV shoot
Just about to shoot a short, max ten minutes on HDV. This is what I have got.
Mac G5 2.7, 4.5 gigs ram, FCP Pro 5 updated recently, ATI Radeon X800 XT Mac Edition Video Card, (unfortunately no capture card!), 2 X internal SATA 250 gig.
Shooting on a Sony HDV A1E. Might want to do effects later such as filmlook and Bleach Bypass but otherwise cuts and dissolves only. Titles style unknown yet. Render times aren’t a huge issue as the G5 is not commercially utilised though speed would be nice.
Now the question is this. Can anybody suggest what I should do to cut this film in the easiest way possible? I am willing to accept for now a lower quality version of the first polished cut as long as I can go back when more money is available so that I can produce as high a quality product later. So the order of suggestions is –
Shooting, what settings?
Capturing, is it worth having a hired G4/Macbook Pro laptop on set to capture to and if so what settings? DVCPro HD? Also is it worth burning footage to data DVD? (reason for this is my G5 logic board is having some healing done to it and wont be back in time for the end of the shoot) Also how to retain timecode when moving between formats?
Post, if I do go down the conversion to DVPro HD route is there a valid and real reason to go back to HDV format later?
Distribute, quite happy for the film to end up on DVD only for presentation at the mo but festivals might ask for some kind of high end tape delivery. What then?Loads of questions, apologies. Editor alone here looking over his crib at the big drop below.
Thanks in advance people
Story, not pixels.
Jonathon Sendall
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7 Replies
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Just capture and cut your HDV original. When you’re done make a DVD. Of course, be sure to put your credits at the end of the video. And, move on to the next project.
DRW
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[jpsendall] “Capturing, is it worth having a hired G4/Macbook Pro laptop on set to capture to and if so what settings? DVCPro HD?”
You can only convert HDV to DVCPro HD during capture using a capture card like the AJA Kona series.
[jpsendall] “Also how to retain timecode when moving between formats?”
The capture card captures with original TC during the capture.
As for all your other questions, Jerry Hofmann just did a great article on the HDV Post workflow in the latest issue of Creative Cow Magazine. Also do a search on this forum for HDV, there’s been a lot of discussion about it lately. Here we convert HDV to DVCPro HD during capture and edit in that codec.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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Walter,
Given the level of expertise of the person posting, the nature of the project (a short for festivals) and the fact he said that rendering time is not an issue, there is no need for a workflow that the rest of us might require or desire. He just needs to start cutting.
DRW
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[David Roth Weiss] “Given the level of expertise of the person posting, the nature of the project (a short for festivals) and the fact he said that rendering time is not an issue, there is no need for a workflow that the rest of us might require or desire. He just needs to start cutting.”
He mentioned capturing in DVCPro HD. I was responding that he cannot do that without a capture card.
As for workflow, he can search the forum and he can use Jerry Hofmann’s article as an excellent starting point. So yes, he does need to think about workflow before “he starts cutting.”
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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Easy answer just shoot to tape and then capture and edit HDV via firewire, no extra hardware needed and you’ll retain timecode. If you want to bump to a better format then dump your finished edit into a DVCPro HD or uncompressed timeline and everything will be re-rendered so your FX titles etc will look even better.
That’s the easiest way to work with HDV.
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I agree Steve. Just because its HDV it doesn’t mean there’s a reason to develope a new workflow. Sometimes all you need to do is just cut. After all, telling the story is what editing is really about.
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There is a general consensus that you should avoid editing in HDV and wherever possible I try to use DVCPro HD to edit, but there are times when just using the HDV codec is the easiest way to do it.
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