HDV in FCP

[Shane Ross]

Edit in a ProRes timeline. That avoids all the CONFORMING. But, it isn’t good if you ever want to PRINT TO VIDEO back to HDV.

Shane

GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
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[Rich Kaelin]

Thank you for your reply. Yes< I understand the advantages of pro res, but there are some disadvantages as well. First, I bring my footage in direct off cards, so it is in native hdv format. Converting it all to RroRes has 3 major drawbacks… 1st = Time, I would have to read it all in from tape… 2nd = Space, ProRes footage takes about 4x as much space as the native HDV format, and doind so will not improve picture quality… 3rd = Quality, while ProRes is a great codec, it would still require re-compressing the video into that codec, which, for lack of a better term, is generation loss, especially if I want to re-archive final master on an HDV reel. Visually, I see no difference between my wrapped .m2t files and the prores, they look identical, but logic tells me that the prores went through an encoder, therefore something changed. I understand that prores will allow more realtime effects and faster rendering, but that is not a big issue for me as I find the most effective transition is almost always a cut.
The question I really have is is there anyway to make sure all my timeline renders are happening in the native HDV codec, so I can avoid mixing codecs on the timeline, and streamline the print to tape process. Thanks.

Rich Kaelin
Kaelin Motion Production Services
New York

[Shane Ross]

Capture HDV if you want…that’s fine. Keep the data rate low. But edit in a ProRes timeline. You can deal with the green render bar, don’t need to render to work. Render when you are done. Then you have the best of both worlds…low data rate, ProRes render files when done.

Shane

GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

[Rich Kaelin]

Your arrogant and condescending attitude is inappropriate for these forums. If you read my post, you would have seen that I am NOT re-rendering, that was the whole point. If I avoid transcoding I stay with original format and maintain integrity, the edit is 99% cuts. If I were doing a multi-layered sequence I would have used pro res, but the reality is I have hundreds of hours of footage and over 12,000 separate clips to transcode and the project has a deadline. I know an awful lot about this stuff, probably more than you. I know all the limitations and issues with HDV, and given the authority I would have advised against using it…but budget is a prime consideration for many clients. HDV is already compressed, so re-compressing it won’t improve quality. There are many threads on COW that confirm this.
These forums are for learning and sharing information and insights among professionals, not for deriding and belittling your colleagues. If behaving this way makes you feel like a better person, seek professional psychiatric therapy, it is an unhealthy mindset.

Rich Kaelin
Kaelin Motion Production Services
New York

[Rich Kaelin]

Thank you Shane for your helpful advice. This is basically what I have been doing, and everything looks fine, just wanted to streamline export. Unlike others, you seem to understand what these forums are for. I was a little discouraged by post from Dave LaRonde, I don’t feel that kind of feedback here is warranted or useful to anyone.

Rich Kaelin
Kaelin Motion Production Services
New York

[Jeff Mueller]

My situation is a bit different so I’d like to hear more thoughts. I shoot exclusively in HDV (sometimes 60i, others 24P) imported over FW and I do not print to tape, most of my output is either SD DVD or H.264. I do color correct everything in Color and it hates HDV but it also doesn’t seem to like 1440 (rectangular pixel) Pro Res, which is what you get when you import directly as ProRes. Storage is an issue for me, so I prefer to work in an HDV timeline with renders to ProRes, but this doesn’t seem to solve the issues with Color. What is the best work-flow for this? When and how should I be rendering?

I use a MacPro 1.1 2.66 Quad with the latest FCS and all updates installed. And BTW I really don’t have problems editing in HDV, it’s just with Color.

Thanks.

Jeff Mueller
http://www.ApertureVideos.com
Santa Barbara, CA

[Michael Gissing]

A lot of my grade and online work is from productions that shoot and edit HDV. They don’t capture and convert to ProRes. When they come to me, we grade in Color from a FCP sequence which is HDV. The grade from Color is rendered ProRes.

So the edit sequence doesn’t need to be ProRes as the grade render is doing that conversion and I suspect the quality of the Color render conversion is better than FCP.

Final online is therefore ProRes so every thing else looks great. Any composite or fancy title work can be delivered as ProRes (preferable to Animation codec), especially ProRes4444 for Alpha channel graphics.

The oft quoted horror stories of editing long GOP formats usually comes from people who don’t have grunt in their MacPros or are using old G5s. Even then, my clients experiences tell me that edit horror stories are largely urban myth and are the same gripes that DV first generated, again usually by those that don’t actually use the codec.

[Jeff Mueller]

That’s good information. Just to be clear, you are recommending editing in HDV but not doing complete renders until after taking it to Color as HDV? I have had problems with HDV in Color (either some shots not recognized or coming back out of sync) but I know there are many variables and am willing to try again if I am on the right path.

Thanks,

Jeff Mueller
http://www.ApertureVideos.com
Santa Barbara, CA

[Michael Gissing]

I have been round tripping HDV with Color 1.5.2 without any issues. There were problems with earlier versions of Color. So yes send to Color from an HDV sequence and then set renders in Color to ProRes 422. I have had reframes and slo mos working without sync or other issues.

I always render with 3 second handles (directors seem to want to change dissolves etc after grading and mixing sometimes), but that would also mean you could slip sync if something was out, but I haven’t had that experience with the latest versions of Color.

[Shane Ross]

The horror stories are urban myth? Wow…then my last weekend was mythological.

Two projects…one XDCAM, on an XDCAM timeline. TONS of graphic elements, stills, and titles. Some DV and other HD formats mixed in. Fully rendered, but I couldn’t export a self contained file, or reference movie. Errors galore. So no way to compress to anything. Solution? Changed the sequence settings to ProRes, re-rendered…issue went away.

Other project, HDV footage, HDV sequence setting. Lots of DV and stills mixed in. Rendering took forever, and sometimes crashed the computer. I pulled out all the non-HDV stuff. Sent it to Color, rendered out ProRes, added all the other stuff back. Zero issues doing anything.

Not a myth. If mixed with lots of text, graphics, or NON-GOP formats on a GOP sequence setting…huge problems.

The first issue I had with this format was XDCAM, XDCAM timeline..23.98. But mixed in 7 other codecs, and three other frame rates. Crashed 8 times a day. Changed sequence settings to ProRes. ZERO crashes for the rest of the edit.

Urbane Myth…

Shane

GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def