HDMI Capture with HDV Deck Control?

[Tony Manolikakis]

Michael

I agree with you. I have recaptured 3 hour+docs and 6 half hour TV episodes with only a handfull of issues. Usually due to TC breaks on the tape and trying to capture over them.

Tony Manolikakis
Rev13 Films

[Ted Griffis]

I don’t mean to question anyone else’s workflow methods or codec preferences, they are preferences and fine options. I know that HDV is a capable format and don’t doubt that its manageable when needing to recapture. For this project, getting things out of Long GOP and getting the material in as ProRes, a format that holds up better to multiple generation/passing to animation/color and rendering is big consideration.

So I’m trying to get HDV material in as ProRes. The HDMI solution is not working out, its out the window in this discussion.

HDV-ProRes
I have done some testing and reading of various post on the Cow in regards to capturing HDV to ProRes on the fly. I was very excited about the prospect of this working, though in my testing, and some posts I’ve seen on this specific HDV to ProRes workflow, it does not seem to have batch capture capabilities back to ProRes (via on the fly). And some user report time code accuracy inconsistencies.

If the HDV-ProRes on the fly function does have Batch capture ability can someone please clarify how it works.

HDV-HDV
I know that HDV alone via firewire does have batch capture ability and I’ve done that workflow.
I’m not interested however in working in HDV as a codec for this project.

HDV-Convergent Design (HD Connect)-HDSDI (via Kona card)
This is probably the route I’ll be going, deck control and the ability to load via HDSDI to practically any codec.
From what I’ve read this has very accurate timecode for re-capture/batch capture needs.

If anyone has any experience with the Convergent design products Id love to hear your feedback on them. Or we can close this up and I can post on that forum.
Thanks you all for your help and advice with this.
Cheers
Ted

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

[Uli Plank]

I’m afraid you are misinterpreting the internal workflow in FCP. You can always grab HDV native and edit it into a HDV timeline to have real-time capabilities during editing. In the very end, before exporting for color grading, you can switch the codec for that timeline to ProRes (or any other format), have it rendered and save it all. FCP will always use the original files as a source for that rendering, so any additional elements will be rendered at full quality and HDV will stay every bit as good (or bad) as it is from the start.

No capture card for any price is going to give you an advantage here, as long as you capture tapes. You can’t improve quality once it’s on tape. Don’t waste money on this.

The only exception is grabbing life from the camera into the computer, which is pristine even with the cheapest Blackmagic Intensity via HDMI. But you won’t get TC anyway in this case.

BTW, re-capturing from HDV was always dead on for the first frame for me, only the length of the tail handles varies slightly at times – but who cares?

Regards,

Uli

Director of the Institute of Media Research (IMF) at Braunschweig University of Arts