EX3 and SD

[Don Greening]

The EX1R does but the EX1 and the EX3 do not record SD.

– Don

Don Greening
A Vancouver Video Production Company
Reeltime Videoworks
http://www.reeltimevideoworks.com

[Brent Dunn]

I have the EX-1 and it does not record standard def. It’s still better to record HD and downconvert, even though it takes more time.

Adobe does a faster job encoding and working with your files and final cut and compressor.

Brent Dunn
Owner / Director / Editor
DunnRight Films
DunnRight Video.com
Video Marketing Toolbox.net

Sony EX-1,
Canon 5D Mark II
Canon 7D
Mac Pro Tower, Quad Core,
with Final Cut Studio

HP i7 Quad laptop
Adobe CS-5 Production Suite

[Craig Seeman]

I think it really makes sense to record in HD nearly all the time.

Put an HD file in an SD timeline and you have a world of nifty tricks such as creating fake camera dollies, pans, zooms in addition to reposition a shot. Basically it can make a one camera shoot like like it was done with two or three cameras. Only in the most frantically time constrained situation would I think recording in SD would be a consideration. HD also gives you more options to repurpose.

[Jim Masi]

Thanks for the responses: if it was up to me I’d record everything in HD, I’m just rying to satisfy the specs set out by particular clients. If this camera could do both I could consider getting rid of my DVCam, but it looks like I’ll have to hang on to it.
Thanks again

[Craig Seeman]

There’s something not clear in your description of the client specs. Shoot HD, edit and deliver SD as I mention in my post. Even delivering in SD I’d avoid DV. It’s a horrible codec. ProRes and 8 bit uncompressed 4:2:2 work fine in SD. It’s your job to educate the client. Clients are not technicians. They often don’t know what they need. That’s been my experience.

[Jim Masi]

Sorry, what wasn’t clear is that I don’t do any post myself, otherwise I’d do just as you say. I’m just delivering raw footage to the clients I shoot for, therefore trying to deliver to them what they’re asking for.
Thanks for your feedback!

[Craig Seeman]

Make sure they understand the difference between SD and DV. There are better SD codecs as I noted above. Also you’d need to know whether they want 16:9 anamorphic, 16:9 Letterbox in 4:3, 4:3 Center Cut. All three can be delivered in DV but any professional NLE that can handle DV can generally handle the better codecs as well. Since AppleProRes decoder has become freely available for Windows, that’s become a standard and will look leagues better than DV even in Standard Def.

[Ettiene Snyman]

Hi …I need to quickly convert an HD clip for output to SD. How do I create an SD timeline on FCP7

[Ettiene Snyman]

How do I create that SD timeline?