Best HDV workflow

[David Roth weiss]

It’s really a matter of taste. And there’s nothing terribly Earth-shattering about the decision. I always capture as ProRes, others edit native HDV. If the extra hard drive space doesn’t bother you then consider ProRes. But, don’t sweat it…

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.

[Fredy Schwerdtner]

David,
I’ve been reading your posts for a long time and I always take what you write in high consideration.
Thanks for answering me. Let me ask you one thing. Do you think that my “equipments” are good enough for ProRes ? I’m asking it because everything that I’ve been reading, despite the fact that it is my first time working with HDV, looks like the ProRes workflow is more wise, more inteligent and smooth even taking so much hard drive space ….. and moreover, if Apple released it as a solution, they probably did a lot of tests even if they were thinking in selling the new and advanced computers / processors.

[David Roth weiss]

Thanks for all those nice things you said Fredy.

ProRes is cool. I like it, especially that it’s a 10-bit codec, and thus great for graphics. It was designed by Apple to be very efficient and is vastly more so than 10-bit uncompressed. Your MacBook Pro will handle it just fine, but do stick with firewire 800 all the time.

HDV when either rendered to ProRes or captured to ProRes is equally fine, so as I said, it really is just a personal choice. However, something to keep in mind when capturing to ProRes via firewire is that capture is essentially fully automated, with all clips starting at camera starts and ending at camera stops (with pre-roll eating several seconds at the head of each shot), and the roll number does have to be entered manually in the browser on each shot too. That has not been a issue for me yet…

Good luck,
David

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.

[Fredy Schwerdtner]

Thanks David and good morning. Looks like we both are those kind of guys that love to work until late in the morning …. I’m in Brazil and here is 5:15 AM.
By the way, that thing you wrote in your website, a Albert Einstein saying, it is something that I also always say ….

[John Baughman]

I’ve been reading posts here and elsewhere to try and understand the best work flow for HDV and FCP.

I’m lost. I’ve been using FCP with standard DV for 3 years. But the switch to HDV bewilders me.
I have just purchased a VIXIA HV30 camcorder. I’m having real problems learning how to capture video shot on this camera and how to best edit and export.

I have the HV30 set to “HDV” format rather than the other choices available. I have FCP set up as follows:
Sequence Preset= “HDV-1080i50”; Capture Preset= “HDV”; Device Control Preset= “HDV 1080i50 Firewire Basic”.

When I try to capture using the capture clip feature, FCP searches back and forth on the tape and then announces that it is “unable to locate timecode”. If I try to capture “now”, after running through the tape and clicking “escape”, I get the message, “An unknown capture error has occurred”.

I want to use the camcorder to capture high quality footage and transfer it to my computer with as little loss in quality as possible. I will then edit the footage and use it in two ways. I want to export it and use it in DVDSP to provide high quality DVDs. In the future I might want to consider HD media.
I also want to convert the footage to QT movies for streaming from my web site.

My set up: Quad G5 with 8 GB RAM; both internal bays contain 750 GB drives; multiple external drives including a 500 GB FW800 drive that I have set as the scratch disk.

I really need some spoon feeding here, I’m embarrassed to say. Could someone please walk me through the actual settings I need to make in FCP to accomplish my goals. I suspect that my major problem is that I have my capture set-up wrong.
Thank you very much.
John