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“Conform to HDV” apparently means “ruin my footage”
So I shot a bunch of footage in Africa last summer on a trip with my dad with a sony HDV 1080i camcorder. I’m trying to print an edit back to tape, and the conform process jacked up the footage pretty nice.
Here’s a screenshot of the original:
https://farm3.static.flickr.com/2340/2267083462_82734d709d_b.jpg
and here’s what it did after the conform process:
https://farm3.static.flickr.com/2358/2267082652_15d3357686_b.jpg
It YouTube’d my video!
I nested a couple of sequences into a new timeline to print the footage back to tape and do some general color correction (which is obvious by the two pictures)
oh, and I just discovered an awesome part… it only did it to the first half of the hour long sequence… everything from about 31 minutes on to the end looks fine from what I’ve seen scrubbing through…
I’m really pissed. I’m supposed to give this edited overview of our trip to my dad at lunch today. The conform process took for freakin’ ever, and it ruined half my footage. I’m pretty much going to avoid HDV like the plague after this crap.
So what gives? What can I do to fix this? I’m going to run off the half that isn’t jacked up so I can have something to give to my dad this afternoon.
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8 Replies
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Jim,
HDV is definitely not like the iFrame video most of us are used to, and it requires different handling and a different workflow. Its obvious that you did everything you’re used to doing, but you received unexpected results your first time out of the gate.
Keep in mind that while going back to HDV tape is doable, its much more difficult than with any iFrame video. And, nesting can be a challenge with HDV as well. Instead of nesting for color correction, try copying CC to individual clips, I’m sure you will find that much simpler to control.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.
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thanks for the info. I’ll copy the CC to the individual clips instead, and copy the contents of the sequences into a new sequence, rather than nesting them. Hopefully that will do it.
After this experience, I’m glad I rarely work in HDV, and never deliver on tape anymore.
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I’m working on a project using the new workflow that entails capturing HDV as Pro Res via firewire. (search for Chris Poisson’s Cow tutorial) I find Pro Res a whole lot easier to work with than native HDV.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.
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Jim,
HDV can be a huge PITA, and conforming is especially gruesome, but David’s advice is all good.
I just wanted to chime in to say the title of your post is hilarious… I literally laughed out loud.
Zak -
I will definitely keep the prores thing in mind for future projects. I don’t think I’m going to be recapturing a dozen tapes of what amounts to really great vacation footage for this one, though… I really appreciate your help, David!
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Jim,
The long and short of it is, HDV is a great cheap acquisition format, but that’s where it ends. Before ProRes, I was using FireWire acquired native HDV and using it in an 8 bit or DVCPro HD timeline, all you have to do then is render, no conforming.
So you don’t have to recapture, you can change your sequence settings to 8 bit or ProRes, and just render the whole thing, should look great.
Or, just build a fresh project in one of those formats, and bring in all your footage. Don’t let FCP change the sequence settings when you drag in the first clip, and you’re set.
Have a wonderful day.
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You can also set HDV sequence to render to ProRes in the sequence itself. That way if you have CC or a filter on every shot, the timeline is basically ProRes by the end of it.
Jeremy
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Chris,
Using this method what does that do to your drive space?
I am considering doing the same now that I have read into multiple forums. I have firewire drives and no RAID system currently. So it seemed like a great benefit to continue to utilize the HDV 1080i we’ve shot and edit natively but then to render using a higher end codec. I’m just not sure that I have the drive space to handle the render in conjunction with the space my media is taking.
Any thoughts?
John V. Pappalardo
Senior Editor
Fisher’s ATV World, LTD
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