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HD production- in retrospect
I just wanted to pose this question to video production people in the corporate world.
Was switching to hd for acquisition, editing and output worth it?
I work for a local government media department. We are still sd.
We create programming for our local cable channel. Special projects
are either projected for groups of citizens, authored to dvd or available on our website.
I feel dumb to say this, but I do not see the need for hd in our
corporate environment. What am I missing?Kevin Ryan
Editor/Graphics
The Government Channel
City of Charlotte
Charlotte, NC -
28 Replies
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For one- the possibility of your content not having a future when HD content is made a broadcast requirement- which could be someday. If that’s not an concern don’t sweat it. If you can’t personally see the improvement in quality in HD then you are definitely not missing anything…
Noah
Unlock the secrets of 24p, HD and Final Cut Studio with Call Box Training. Featuring the Canon 5D Mark II and 7D.
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Capturing HD, outputting SD will only require more processing power for your computers, more storage space and more time to deal with it all. HD to SD won’t look any different than shooting in SD given the same factors(* see below).
However, As Noah states, it will future proof you should you explore broadcast or other mediums.
Along with HD technology comes these available benefits:
– Newer cameras with improved optics for better image quality
– Newer cameras with improved sensors for better image quality
– Tapeless acquisition! (Tapes really blow).
— Ingest footage faster than real time (no capturing necessary)
— Avoid tape errors
– HDV compresses about twice as much as DV, at higher resolution! (If you use tapes w/ HD)Cory
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Cory Petkovsek
Corporate Video
http://www.CorporateVideoSD.com -
Yes, there obviosly is a quality diference in hd vesus sd.
But;
Nobody in our corporate environment has a blu ray player.
Both our internal corporate intranet and our public internet site limit video to a size that I don’t believe viewers could tell the difference between hd and sd.
Not acquireing, editing and archiving in HD has saved us a lot of
money for now. With our fixed budget, we have been able to produce more product by not switching.We do not anticipate having to send an hd signal to our cable channel anytime soon
Kevin Ryan
Editor/Graphics
The Government Channel
City of Charlotte
Charlotte, NC -
Sounds like you’re totally convinced you don’t need HD- and that’s fine. It’s not like the SD you’re making is suddenly going to rot away. Why argue the point then?
Noah
Unlock the secrets of 24p, HD and Final Cut Studio with Call Box Training. Featuring the Canon 5D Mark II and 7D.
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It is interesting to read this thread. So much of the COW and other areas on the web are focused on new technology and new workflows, yet here is someone who makes a living using SD video and seems to have no urgent need for HD. Sony and Panasonic might not like that, but it is all about your audience. If your audience watches public access television, which even on a digital cable system is likely not HD, then HD is not a necessity.
That being said, the argument for upgrading is:
HD Video may look better depending upon the shooting situation. It might not help with the school board meeting room, but it might help with a town event, marching band or whatever public events you shoot.
HD downconverted to SD DVD may give you a better result – somewhat subjective of course.
You have future proof material for that mystical time in the mid 21st century when local access cable IS HD.
You get some editing benefits if cutting in SD – you can pan or zoom the HD video within an SD frame.
You can pull better still images from HD video than SD – this might come in handy should you need pictures of a town official or other event for which there was no stills coverage.
You mention projecting video for an audience – HD video gives you the option for HD projection from blu-ray or HDV or whatever format you have. SD video blown up on a projector does not always look great without line doublers or other scan conversion.
To answer your question – was switching worth it?
Yes, but we did it slowly. We were shooting DVCAM with our HDV camera for the first year we had it, because we needed a 2nd DVCAM unit more than we needed an HDV camera, but we were thinking of the future when we bought a new camera. You might think of doing the same. Shoot DVCAM as usual, but shoot some HDV when you get the chance – compare and contrast.
Our customers do not necessarily discern a difference – they want a video of XYZ. Most of our videos are for the web or DVD. Most of our DVD’s are likely played on a laptop.
But the benefits I listed above all come into play.
Your benefits will depend upon how you currently use video, but we have given you some things to think about.
Mike Cohen
Medical Education / Multimedia Producer
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I work in a state government media operation (I do not speak in any official capcity) Our shop is still 90 percent standard def, though we are transitioning into more HD. My personal view is that most of our customers and most of the news stations that use our footage, still use SD. Heck, I sent Nightline some footage of Obama early last year and they chose to get it in betacamSP instead of h.264 or mpeg2 DVD. We make PSA’s in high definition, but nearly all the distribution has been in standard def anyway, because that’s what the bulk of stations still ask for. Part of that I put down to the lack of a reasonable HD media distribution standard; I think BluRay will become that, potentially. But virtual distribution is coming on strong. This shipping tapes mentality is slowly changing as FTP over shipping physical dubs gets more acceptance. It would get accepted way faster if they could pick ONE standard for http://FTP….grrr….
Further, some progam materials you make for certain purposes just do not and never will benefit from higher definition, any more than they would benefit from 5.1 Dolby Surround, Omnimax, or 3-D. Bumping these kinds of jobs up to HD only creates more storage issues, expense, and time spent rendering.
I think you have to pick which things are worth that supposed “future-proofing” need, and just how many people in your market really require a particular program be HD. Local city council meetings look fine in wide-screen SD; I don’t really *need* to see a yelling alderman’s spittle-flecked face in that much detail.:-) We do a lot of training videos for state workers, and most of that would not be any better for being able to see the blemishes on the presenter’s face in more detail. The content and needs of the audience overrides the choice of format. The best money spent is usually on a good script, versus making something weak, but in high-def.
And when you are serving the widest possible audience with public information, on a budget, you want to choose the formats that are most accessible to the largest number of people, without needing everybody to do expensive upgrades. Right now that is SD video on SD DVD’s, and web streams using various codecs that are scalable to the user’s connection speeds. That’s how I look at it, anyhow.
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On the other hand- if you *have* the budget to go HD now it’s going to make you look really, really good in 2 years when some executive/manager says, “Hey can we start repurposing stuff we shot last year for our brand new HD channel?”
And you say, “Sure, no problem we’ve been shooting HD for years now. Just give us a day to re-output our projects from the HD masters and we’re all set.”
As opposed- to, “Gosh no, we’ve been shooting SD for all this time. But we can offer some really cruddy looking up-converts of all the content we’ve shot so far, a lot of which was once in a lifetime moments.”
Just playing HD Devil’s Advocate there… 🙂
Noah
Unlock the secrets of 24p, HD and Final Cut Studio with Call Box Training. Featuring the Canon 5D Mark II and 7D.
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Crap in High Def is still crap; just with more dynamic range.
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I’m not talking about content, I’m talking about resolution. If HD meant a required higher definition quality for content there would be a lot of folks out of business in this business already. 🙂
Noah
Unlock the secrets of 24p, HD and Final Cut Studio with Call Box Training. Featuring the Canon 5D Mark II and 7D.
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A talking head and powerpoints don’t need high resolution. Unless the powerpoints have some super-detailed photos in them. An interview of a WW-1 vet might, since that’s something you want to preserve for the ages. There’s a sliding scale for what content deserves what format, and part of ti has to do with how much the issue of resolutino actually contributes to the material, and how ephemeral and short-lived the material is. Just shooting literally everything in HD makes little economic or practical sense, if an SD recording does as good a job for what’s needed.
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