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Offline/Online editing, down converting or compressing
Hello,
I post this message to get some advise about offline editing possibilities that I try to understand and use. I’m planing to shoot maybe 18 to 20 hours of HDV 1080i in a 25 progressive mode. I want to capture the footage in lower resolution and/or quality to make an offline edit before I go online because on one side I will edit on my MacBook Pro and on the other I don’t have unlimited external hard drive space.
First, is down converting from HDV progressive to PAL SD interlaced possible when working with a MacBook Pro connected to the camera in FireWire or other hardware is needed ? What are the pros and cons ? And how long it takes to capture 1 hour of footage by that down conversion method ?
I was alternatively considering using AppleProRes (Proxy) because of its smaller space requirement. Is the process of converting HDV 1080i in AppleProRes smooth or is it problematic when doing it on a MacBook Pro ? How long does it typically take to capture that way ? Is it better to capture HDV and then conform the media to ApplePro Res with the media manager ?
I know its a lot of questions by I want to have a better grasp of the workflow that those methods ask for.
Thank you for reading !
motion images + storytelling = ?
-> FILMMAKING !
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4 Replies
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20 hours of HDV footage will take up less than 225GB of storage space. Down converting to DV will gain you nothing, since DV has the same data rate as HDV. ProRes Proxy will take up about 1/2 the space. “Regular” ProRes will take up a little over 1TB, BTW.
Unless you’re planning to go to a facility for your online, I wouldn’t bother doing an offline. Simply buy a couple of extra 1TB FW drives and capture everything from day 1 as “plain vanilla” ProRes.
Arnie
Post production is not an afterthought!
https://www.arniepix.com/ -
Don’t downconvert. As Arnie says the HDV files are the same size as a DV file. Any offline/online wrokflow is a pain with HDV as they can be difficult to capture and people get frustrated and capture over real timecode breaks so when it comes time to recapture, the timecode is a mess.
Beware that capture and convert to ProRes via firewire means source timecode is also lost. I work on 55 minute docos mostly and the common workflow has been to capture HDV as HDV and just edit. Big cheap external hard drives mean no reason exists to go an offline/recapture online route anymore. The cost of recapture is much greater than the cost of storage. Buy a spare backup drive as well.
When I get HDV jobs, I use Color to grade and convert the final files (with handles) to ProRes422. This workflow is fabulous and I have found it utterly reliable. ProRes422 can run off a good FW800 drive at 25 fps.
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Thanks guys !
So I should simply shoot, capture and edit HDV. I can render the effects and the color correction in ProRes. So if I capture HDV I can just have as much space than when I used to work in DV. Say, plan to use about 500 GB for the whole project (with ProRes rendering and the exporting etc) ?
Does the MacBook Pro will be ok working with HDV cause I’ve been told (and read) a few times that it’s not a format to edit with ?Thanks for your responses !
motion images + storytelling = ?
-> FILMMAKING !
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Because what I was thinking in down converting in SD is the benefit of having a easy editable format for my MacBook Pro while keeping the same time codes etc. Once that is done I go online and capture HDV that I can transform in ProRes at the end so only my edited film.
Or…If not, I have to work with ProRes 422 directly in an online process. This implicates converting to that format which will make me loose the time codes. So if I have say 18 hours of footage in 1440×1080 at 25p, I should plan to have at least 810Gb (45 Gb/hour) + an other 200 Gb or so for rendering of effects and color correction etc for the final film which will be about 20 minutes. So I working on a 1.5To hard drive with one back up hard drive seems a good option ?
motion pictures + storytelling = ?
-> FILMMAKING !
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