HDMI Capture with HDV Deck Control?

[Michael Gissing]

I have successfully captured uncompressed off the Canon H1 with a Decklink HD Pro SDI card.

The trick was to start with an Uncompressed setup and then change the device control to DV – not HDV. On the Canon I set it downconvert via ilink which gave me frame accurate machine control but the HD SDI out was uncompressed 1920 x 1080. The difference for you is that you are using a slightly different card and capturing ProRes via HDMI.

My current workflow is to capture HDV via firewire and render ProRes. This saves a load of drive space and still looks great. I changed largely because many clients were capturing rushes as HDV and it seemed silly to recapture when the ProRes render option became available.

[David Roth weiss]

The question you have to ask yourself is, is your video so absolutely pristine and your monitoring so perfect that you need to bother with this for even one second?

Search for the threads regarding capturing to Pro Res on the fly via firewire and be done with it.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.

[Ted Griffis]

Thank you both for your replies. I was able to get deice control but having other issues with pulldown and starting to re-think approach.

I’ve seen the posts on ProRes on the fly, and just tried of bit of it myself. The only problem I have with going this route is not being able to reconnect if need be with the source tapes as it appears that you do not have that flexibility if you go this route. Or am I wrong?

I’m trying to get the content of this film in once, at the highest quality possible (short of uncompressed) so that there is not a need to re-digitize for finishing, however that being said, even with an awesome raid5 setup, things go wrong within production and computing and having a backup is a must for this film. A timecoded backup on tape that you can re-load from seems like the obvious choice, or is that out the window with HDV.

I don’t have a whole lot of experience with HDV as most of my clients are working in DVCProHD or better. How are people handling backups when working with this material? Digital?

thanks for the help, cheers,
Ted

Ted Griffis
GriffisART
https://www.griffisart.com

[Michael Gissing]

[Ted Griffis] “The only problem I have with going this route is not being able to reconnect if need be with the source tapes as it appears that you do not have that flexibility if you go this route. Or am I wrong?”

Yes you are wrong. If you have device control then the timecode on tape is accurate if you need to reload. The master tapes are your backup if the RAID gives you grief.

I hope your job is small or your RAID is absolutely huge because capturing rushes even in ProRes needs a lot of space.

I would recommend you capture as HDV via firewire and render your final edit in ProRes. Even if you want to recapture your final edit later, then using firewire as a device control and capturing as HDV is frame accurate. I have recaptured many HDV docos and the only sync trouble has been due to editors ignoring real timecode breaks, so capture carefully – as if it were any other tape format.

Others may have alternate workflows.

[David Roth weiss]

HDV, because of its use of so called long GOP MPEG encoding does have certain limitations with regard to accurate recapture, but its doable and not a deal breaker. However, as most of know, FCP isn’t in itself perfect in that regard anyway, and so I’m with you on avoiding the offline/online scenario whenever possible. That being said, capturing HDV via firewire to Pro Res on the fly has no inherent issues with as you say, “reconnecting with the source tapes,” other thena the same issues that any other method might, short of having to log in the reel number after capturing.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.

[Ted Griffis]

Thanks guys, very helpful. I’ll let you know how it works out.

cheers,
Ted

Maybe a little off topic from this post, but I’m curious if anyone out there using the Convergent Design HD Connect SI or LE has any thoughts regarding quality difference and workflow on “HDV to ProRes via Firewire” VS “HDV to HD Connect SI {or} LE (HDSDI).

Ted Griffis
GriffisART
https://www.griffisart.com

[Chris Poisson]

Ted,

Take a look at the HDMI box from Convergent Design. I believe it gives you control via FW, but I don’t know if you can capture to ProRes even with your rig, but I could be wrong.

Have a wonderful day.

[Michael Gissing]

[David Roth Weiss] “HDV, because of its use of so called long GOP MPEG encoding does have certain limitations with regard to accurate recapture”

The last HDV doco I recaptured was digitised on an AVID, Automatic Duck to FCP and then recapture of over 1100 edits, every one of them frame accurate. I don’t believe for a minute that it has anything to do with GOP structure as I have done the same process with DV downconverted edits, recaptured as HD uncompressed. I have actually had more errors recapturing HDCam but no-one says it has anything to do with that codec. Again they are nearly always operator error on the original capture.

I have tried this many times and many ways and I can tell you that it is as accurate as operator error allows. I am yet to find a case that wasn’t operator error in HDV. That’s over the last ten HDV docs that I have recaptured, probably in the order of 7,000 cuts.

I heard the same mantra in the early days of DV so forgive me if I don’t agree.

[Ted Griffis]

Thanks Chris, I miss the desert. (a Tucson native held captive in the north east)

The HDV to ProRes on the fly workflow is really cool, its limitation that I can see is the re-batch-capturing those clips if things fail. A convergent design box and a new capture card like a Kona or and IoHD I think is the way to go on this. The Black Magic Intensity card that I have now was purchased initially as an interim solution for monitoring. Its clear now that its time to make the jump.

Ted Griffis
GriffisART
https://www.griffisart.com

[Michael Gissing]

[Ted Griffis] “The HDV to ProRes on the fly workflow is really cool, its limitation that I can see is the re-batch-capturing those clips if things fail.”

Sorry to harp on Ted but there is no reason why you can’t recapture again frame accurate with that workflow if you have device control via firewire. Why is it a limitation?

My 2 cents worth? Why transcode to ProRes and then after grading etc render again to ProRes. That is one more transcoding than capture as HDV native and render the final to ProRes. More space, less effort on your drives and one less transcode. If someone can give me a reason why my logic is wrong then please – fire away.