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HDV Workflow – advice sought!
My client, up till now, has shot PAL DVCAM (from PD150s to DSR570s) for producing travel programmes to go to DVD or, in an earlier life, VHS. On the next project she’s looking to shoot on Z1s. My thoughts are as follows, given that the end product will be PAL DVD…
Her current editing system comprises a dual 1Ghz G4 with FCP4.5, 2 internal media drives (in addition to the system drive – these are fast IDE ones and fine with DV)and a Lacie Big Disk Extreme (500gig)ingesting and monitoring via a DSR25
Am I correct in thinking that this won’t support native HDV? I’m thinking she’ll need to (at very least) upgrade to FCP Studio to get that. If so, would the system cope with HDV even though the render times may be huge?
Would I be better downconverting to SD via the deck or camera (again, I’m assuming that the Z1 can convert HDV to SD DV via the firewire output) and editing DV as per our previous projects?
Would we be better off shooting DVCAM on the Z1 from the outset (My thinking is not – if the conversion is good enough, we’ll have HDV footage at least for future use)
Assuming the Shoot HDV, edit SD DV route, any other potential gotchas?
The thoughts of the collective would, as ever, be greatly appreciated!!
Jason
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1 Reply
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I’ve only one HDV project under my belt, on a 2GHz G5, but it was substantial, and I was paying close attention.
There was some occasional driftiness in timeline playback audio sync, and render times for color correction and export took me back several years, but it worked fine, with no video card. It does yield a better output to m2v dvd, and gives me some HD-DVD and H264 options that I didn’t have in DV.
The HDV movie files are about the same giggage as DV, so no problem on drive capacity or thru-put. The HDV mastering tape is $16+ per reel, but you get 64 minutes. It would be a shame to have the nice new camera in the field, and just record DV.
I’d be thinking to make some tests of HDV workflow, before running a major project in HDV on a G4/1ghz. You can do this fairly quickly with a couple of clips, layering, adding titles, color correcting, whatever is anticipated for a travel show. There is a camera menu setting to output HDV to firewire, and the project needs to be set for HDV and HDV capture.
If editing on your system seems too clunky, use the camera to downconvert during capture. The issue is not so much what the audience sees on DVD, as the client wanting to see something t=fore her HDV investment. Later, you can recapture the movie in the future when the HD market demands the increased quality.
I’d be reluctant to buy a new G5 editing system with theintel chip thing up in the air. Maybe after NAB.
Good cutting.
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