HDV to ProRes 422 via firewire. Any tips?

[Shane Ross]

How about a great tutorial?

https://library.creativecow.net/articles/poisson_chris/hdv-prores.php

Shane

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[David Mcgiffert]

Shane,

That is a spot on tutorial recommendation.
I have been using it for the last week or so
and it is working really well with FCS2, Canon XH-A1,
Mac Pro two 3.0Ghz Quad-Core Intel, OSX 10.4.11.

However, as everyone probably knows, it uses lots more
disk territory.

David

[Walter Biscardi]

[David McGiffert] “However, as everyone probably knows, it uses lots more
disk territory.”

But still miniscule compared to going to Uncompressed HD.

We still cut all our HDV material in DVCPro HD as we’ve found very little difference between that and ProRes 422 for HDV originated material.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.

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[Hamilton Robinson]

Thanks guys.

I really appreciate your advise.

This website is awesome!

Ham

[Paolo Ciccone]

I wouldn’t do it as ProRes is a lossy codec and you are basically transcoding from HDV, lossy encoding at 4:2:0, to another lossy codec. This will give you a generation loss.
If you get to *capture* in ProRes then no problem but transcoding will inevitably lead to image degradation.
An alternative to Uncompressed is BitJazz’s SheerVideo (https://www.bitjazz.com) which is completely lossless while being less than 1/2 the size of Uncompressed.

[Warren Eig]

I just did this with some footage shot with Canon’s XL-H1 with their 24F footage. Used the HDV 24p easy set up but changed the codec to ProRes 422 (HQ) and brought it in through firewire.

The footage was transcoded on the fly and looks great. And shows up as 23.98 fps.

Warren

Warren Eig
O 310-470-0905

email: warren@babyboompictures.com
website: https://www.babyboompictures.com

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[Walter Biscardi]

[Paolo Ciccone] “I wouldn’t do it as ProRes is a lossy codec and you are basically transcoding from HDV, lossy encoding at 4:2:0, to another lossy codec. This will give you a generation loss.”

In reality, the “generation loss” is completely negligible. When comparing the HDV original material to our finished and graded DVCPro HD masters, the DVCPro HD Masters generally look better than the originals. To my eye I can’t see any difference between HDV and the converted DVCPro HD files.

Yes there is a loss in there if you zoom way in on the files and you compare stuff on a scope, but with your eye, watching on a 50″ professional plasma HDTV screen, you can’t tell the difference.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.

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[Ted Griffis]

Walter,

Are you transcoding your HDV to DVCProHD or are you capturing at DVCProHD?

Ever work with the Canon HDV 24F format? How do you treat that in your workflow since there are no pro decks that play it.

Thanks,
Ted

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

[Paolo Ciccone]

Hi Walter.

I agree with you that immediately there is no visible loss, in fact that’s how Apple advertises ProRes, as “visually lossless”, but the data loss is there and if we add to it with other manipulations the final result will be visibly deteriorated. I’m just trying to add a little bit of caution in the way people treat their footage. With HDV, I work both with the JVC HD100 and the XDCAM, it’s pretty easy to make irreparable damage. I like the idea of using ProRes for either capture, via component out or HDSDI, or as an intermediate codec for editing but I’m kinda of a purist when it comes to pixels and I want to be sure that people understand that there is a generation loss with this kind of transcoding. Of course, as usual, it all depends on the material and the deadline :), if we are talking about interviews and ENG then no problem. It’s just that many time people tend to use a “shiny hammer” for all their projects and then I end up color correcting footage for a film festival and the clips have been shredded to the last bit of usable color and I’m expected to revive what’s no there anymore 😉

In my opinion, if the footage is for a feature or narrative work, transcoding to *any* lossy codec, not just ProRes, should be avoided. When it comes the time to color correct and grade the difference will be visible.

BTW, I enjoyed your articles a lot, thanks for sharing.

[David Roth weiss]

Ted,

Chris Poisson, who wrote the tutorial about HDV to Pro Res via Firewire uses one of the Canon cams too and he shoots 24p… So, try it out… I like that workflow and use it myself on all things HDV.

David

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

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