Digitizing thru Kona 2 to HDV

[Richard Jackson]

Pierson –

The HDV Codec is not fast enough to do realtime capture. You will have to capture your other sources in another format (e.g. Uncompressed 8-bit) and then render.

– Richard

[Jeremy Garchow]

I don’t have FCP5 (and have not worked with HDV yet) but I think I can help by telling you about my recent experince. I am working on a project right now shot in DV50 and up converted to DVCPro HD on ingest. We shot the DV50 material and we were supplied (from another production company) with Broll footage on DVCam. I up converted this on ingest (using the Panasonic 1200a deck) with good results. There is an obvious difference in the footage (24pN vs 60i, dv50 vs dvCam, 16:9 vs 4:3) but this is what I had to work with and I had to make it work. For reasons explained by richard in the previous post, you should consider capturing to the DVCPro HD codec. I used the AJ-HD1200a deck to up convert because the current K2 drivers have a bug that I have been told is being worked out by aja as we speak, and this is the part that I want to share with you. In the K2 control panel you can choose what kind of up convert to do, be it pillarbox, letterbox, zoom widescreen, anamorphic, and one or two other choices that I can’t remember right now (perhaps 14:9). This is important because the footage that was supplied to me on DVCam was shot 4:3, so I needed to choose the ‘zoom widescreen’ option in the control panel to compensate for 4:3 aspect ratio of the dvcam footage. This option essentially crops and zooms the 4:3 image to make it appear 16:9. All was well whilst logging, but when I went to capture the K2 control panel automatically switched the ‘zoom letterbox’ option to anamorphic which caused my dv footage to come in looking squished. Soooo, in your case, if you have control over who is shooting the DVCam, I would suggest shooting in the 16:9 anamorphic mode until this K2 bug is worked out, that way you will be shooting for the correct up convert aspect ratio. Or you can use the 1200a to up convert the footage and set the K2 to capture 720p or 1080i, whichever format you decide to edit in. Does this make sense? I know this is a mouthful, but I hope it helps in some way. Call aja tech support and explain your proposed workflow, they will gladly help you figure out the best way to do this.

Jeremy

———–
G5 Dual 2Ghz <> 4GB RAM <> FCP 4.5 <> Kona 2

ATTO 42XS <> Huge Systems 1.25 TB 4105 Fibre

[Bart Harrison]

For years I have recommended against EDITING in DV format. For those who ACQUIRE in DV format move it into a DV50 or an uncompressed environment for editing. This is why PROFESSIONAL level DV decks have component and even SDI outputs.

For many of the same reasons I highly recommend against EDITING in HDV format. For those who ACQUIRE in HDV format move it into a DV100 or an uncompressed environment for editing. Even those who don’t invest in an editing deck can use the component outputs of their HDV camera (through an AJA HD10A) and go into their NLE as HDSDI. AJA has just reduced the price of the HD10A which make this workflow even more attractive.

In my opinion HDV has a limited place as a professional acquisition format and no place at all as a professional editing format. Of course to each his own !!!

Bart

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Bart Harrison
MPA – The HD Suite

America’s VAR
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