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HD to DVCAM Question
I have a client that is shooting his commercial with an HD camera (not HDV).
He desperately wants me to edit the video, but I explained to him that I simply don’t have an HD set-up yet.
He was told that he could shoot HD (to get the best looking shots possible), then the HD tape could be ‘cloned’ onto DVCAM – and I can edit DV PAL in my FCP 4.5 (I won’t be onlining back to HD).
So, my questions:
1. Apart from the obvious resolution loss going from HD to DV, are there any problems with doing that?2. What frame-rate should they shoot the HD on? Can they shoot 50i? If so, will the DVCAM tape retain the 50i?
3. What capture/sequence settings should I use [I’m shooting in PAL]
Hope this all makes sense.
Thank you so much in advance.
Wayne
Jhb, South Africa -
3 Replies
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he should probably just shoot it DV then.
cause, hate to say it, the only thing different in an HD camera, than a dv camera is the tape pickup. the lense and chip are pretty much the same.
it’ll be cheaper, adn the product will be more hasselfree.
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Ben, I’ll have to disagree with you here. You really think the only difference between a $3,000 dv camera and a $100,000 HD camera is the tape transport? Hmm. You might want to rethink that.
Wayne, my question to you is what kind of Hd camera are they shooting on? See answers to your questions below.
1) No, no problems. You will have to decide in advance if you want the tapes to have a center cut downconvert (so the resulting SD image is normal 4:3), an anamorphic downconvert (so the image comes into FCP anamorphic preserving some of the resolution), or a letter boxed downconvert which has the least resolution since the image will be already letterboxed.
2) Depending on which Hd camera on, they might be able to shoot 50i, or perhaps 25p. Either way, you should be good.
3) You say you are shooting in PAL, but your buddy is doing the shooting on HD, right? If you do the DVCam converts and depending on how you decide to downconvert (see answer 1) it will determine how you capture. For the most part, you will be capturing normal DV PAL, the only thing to figure out is if the downconverts were anamorphic or not.
Make sense?
Jeremy
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Dear Jeremy and Ben,
Thanks so much for taking the time to reply — I feel much better about what to ask for and what to expect.
You’ve given me plenty to go on and I appreciate it.
All the best,
Wayne
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