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HDV to SD real time
We’re doing a spot that looks like it should be “the cheesy shot on video look” so we’re using an HDV cam. We were going to have the post house dump it into their Avid’s as an SD stream (final output is SD). However since I saw that FCP 5 will do native HDV we’re picking up FCP 5 to use that instead. We use FCP 4.5 and a Decklink Xtreme to cut together reels normally so we haven’t stretched the system yet. So my questions are thus:
1. After I dump in the HDV can I watch it in SD thru the Decklink Xtreme in real time while editing (downconverted and possibly letterboxed) without nesting an HDV comp into a Decklink set comp?
2. I read that HDV’s aspect ratio is 1.333. So it’s basically 4:3? Or is it 16:9 like HD seems to always be?
3. We have a 2 disc array using FW800. Is this fast enough for HDV playback?
I’m cross posting this.
Chris Smith
https://www.sugarfilmproduction.com -
8 Replies
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Chris,
I have a decklink SP and a dual 2.5 with fcp 5 and it does the down conversion in RT out as letterboxed 16:9. I have been using the HDV AIC codec as the manual says the performance is supposed to be a little better since it doesn’t have to process the IBP structure. I choose view BM 1080 8 bit 29.97 in external video.The performance of SD is quite a bit better in my experience. I might suggest downconverting first then editing uncompressed SD if your drives will handle the data rate. If you capture the HDV “Mpeg Stream Clip” will transcode and scale to uncompressed SD from HDV.
Good luck,
Anthony Miles
DP, editor -
Wow, a wealth of great info. Yes, I’d love it just converted to BM Uncompressed SD. It was only shot HDV to get a better picture and DOF than DV, but from here on out I’d love it to be SD letterboxed.
I dump in tomorrow. I may have some more questions.
Thanks Again.
Chris Smith
https://www.sugarfilmproduction.com -
Okay, I ended up dumping in all the material regular HDV (not AIC). If I set the output to BM HD 1080 output I get black. If I set it to BM NTSC 8 bit, I get a picture on my monitor. However, although it plays real time on the FCP Canvas, I only get bad looking frames on my output when the playhead is stopped. It looks similar to the single field detting but that setting is off.
I did what BM suggested and re-installed FCP 5 then the BM FCP 5 drivers last. No difference. Furthermore the SD I have always had in the machine (elements for my reel) won’t play out through the Monitor from the QT player. They did before. I went to check the ‘use QT legacy’ and it was already checked and greyed out. However, it will not play out the output.
Any advice?
G5 DP 2.0 / OSX 10.4.1 / QT 7.0.1 / BM Drivers 5.0 / FCP 5
Chris Smith
https://www.sugarfilmproduction.com -
Chris,
I would recheck to make sure that you have “all frames” selected in view/external video after selecting the BM 1080 HDTV 8 bit. I think mine goes to off when I select the setting BM 1080 HDTV 8 bit. Other than that it must be a support issue and I am not really an expert on Mac tech stuff. That is why I bought MAC since I had become an expert on PC trouble shooting and wanted to get back to editing and outputting my projects, the way it should be.Good Luck,
AnthonyAnthony Miles
DP, editor -
Sweet! It was in All Frames, but I selected ‘Refresh AV Devices’ and it kicked on and works beautifully.
Thanks for your help Anthony. Now if you know why it won’t play my Quicktimes from the QT player directly to the output anymore things would be perfect 🙂
-C.
Chris Smith
https://www.sugarfilmproduction.com -
Chris,
Mine has never done this and would be very cool. Maybe I just misssed it in the manual or this isn’t really documented??? I probably just missed it. Glad it worked.Best regards,
Anthony Miles
DP, editor -
In the Decklink Sys pref, there is (was) an option for ‘use legacy qt’. With that switched on, it would output a clip if it was in a BM supported codec from any app (like the QT player) after updating to 5.0 it no longer does this. However in the driver install read me it says it supports it. Go figure.
Chris Smith
https://www.sugarfilmproduction.com -
in my prefs the legacy play out is gryed out
so at least in beta it does not work-Kaspar
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