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FCP 5 native “lossless” HDV editing?
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Steve: This is usually true, but you surely know what I menat is that the difference in quality is well beyond the $2000-2500 in price. It’s certainly not for hobbyists, but the price point is nothing short of amazing. In any case, my main point is that HDV is not to HDCAM or DVCPRO HD what MiniDV was to Beta SP or even Digitbeta. People were saying that here.
Adolfo Rozenfeld
Buenos Aires – Argentina
https://www.adolforozenfeld.com
adolfo@adolforozenfeld.com -
I entirely disagree with that Adolfo, in my company HDV fits in our workflow exactly where DV used to.
Another thing to bear in mind we haven’t SEEN the quality of the Panasonic camera yet. We know it will be better than the Z1 of course but until
we can actually see pictures, it is all theory.I am only basing my opinions on “real world” experience, the pictures from our Z1 have been outstanding, with very few problems, certainly no more than we had with DV.
Fact us it’s all good isn’t it? more choice for everyone.
Steve Connor
Cardinal HD -
Of course, more choices is always good. I am not a fan of the HDV codec, but truth be said, more from a post-production point of view than as a camera original. I imagine FCP 5 allows to transcode HDV to DVCPRO HD or whatever you want.
We all know that with good lighting and good composition there are no bad cameras and no bad formats. HDV as a format for motion graphics and compositing is a different story. But as always if one strategically uses its’ strenghts and avoids its shortcomings, great results are possbile. It wasn’t me who said is “not usable” 🙂
It’s true we haven’t seen Panasonic camera in action. But something has to go very wrong for it to dissapoint.
All the best!Adolfo Rozenfeld
Buenos Aires – Argentina
https://www.adolforozenfeld.com
adolfo@adolforozenfeld.com -
Good points Adolfo 🙂
Steve Connor
Cardinal HD -
[Adolfo Rozenfeld] “Of course DV is pretty nice. The problem with HDV is that it’s not DV – it has three times more compression than DV (this is, three times more pixels with the same data rate and a quite old codec).”
Hi Adolfo,
The amount of compression is not necessarily a valid way to evaluate this. MPEG2 DVD’s sourced from 35mm film can look better than anything shot on DV and the compression is much more. I’m not saying your conclusion is necessarily incorrect, just that the amount of compression doesn’t (IMO) constitute a proof.
Best Wishes,
Mitch
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Adolfo Rozenfeld said:
>”The problem with HDV is that it’s not DV – it has three times more compression than DV (this is, three times more pixels with the same data rate and a quite old codec).”You can’t just compare data rates, since DV is only intraframe compression and HDV uses interframe as well as intraframe compression. Both use DCT (Discrete Cosine Transform) compression. Even though both have the same data rate, DV contains a certain amount of redundancy in data, which has been eliminated from the HDV data. This extra redundancy makes DV easier to edit since the data from one frame is all that is required to construct that frame, whereas HDV may require multiple frame data to reconstruct one frame (although these multiple frame data pieces are usually much smaller than the DV frame data).
Yes, MPEG-2 has been around a while, and is not as efficient as, say, MPEG-4 Part 10. The encoding artifacts left in the signal are well known, and have been improved over time compared to a relatively new format such as AVC (although the lessons learnt with MPEG-2 have also been applied to MPEG-4 in its evolution).
Bill Lee
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Mitch and Bill: Yes, I know data rates are not the whole pictures and it’s about compression efficency. But that’s precisely where HDV at 25 Mbps (especially as a post codec) may not be the DV of HD. I’m not the only one who feels HDV’s reality could probably be shaped a bit too much to avoid cannibalization of higher formats.
Here’s what Adam Wilt wrote in DV magazine about this point:
“Long-GOP MPEG-2 may be good, but it can’t perform miracles. Will HDV turn out to be the “good enough” DV of the HD world, or will it wind up as HD’s Hi8: a cheap and cheerful acquisition format, but too lossy for any serious production work? After a couple of months with the format, I’m unable to make up my mind”.
This from one of the most enthusiastic supporters of the DV revolution in the 90s. Someone who really take sides about DV being more than “good enough”. You can agree or disagree, but you can’t deny there will be some discussion about it.
Mitch: The DVD argument is not a good example. A 35 mm film distributed on VHS tape will also “seem” much better. As a DVD Studio Pro teacher one of the frequent things I see is dissapointment with MPEG-2 quality, and I mean good encodes, not bad ones.
All this said, time will tell if in my particular case the DVCPRO HD thing with horribly expensive P2 cards is a possible route, or if I go HDV and live with the things I don’t like so much about it.
Adolfo Rozenfeld
Buenos Aires – Argentina
https://www.adolforozenfeld.com
adolfo@adolforozenfeld.com -
“HDV is not a usable format for professional postproduction” – Huh?
Tell that to my recent client who was happy, no… thrilled, to pay $24k for an HDV shoot / edit that would have cost her only around $18k in DVCAM or BetaSP. The Z1 was exactly what it was billed to be…and the HDV codec held up quite well under heavy AE usage. Didn’t do any green-screen- yet, but I’m willing to give that a try next. Hey, I even use the berated Cineframe 30 setting when appropriate.
Like any format, film or video, if you light it right and choose the right settings, it can be useful as professional format. I think that is more true with HDV than with DV.
System A Info G5/Dual 2 – 10.3.6 – QT v6.5.2 – 4GB ram – Radeon 9800Pro – Lacie FW800 L1 RAID via Lacie PCI card and internal – Decklink Extreme – Wacom 6×8 System B is identical except: 2GB ram – Decklink SP – Radeon 9600 – Pro Tools
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