HDV workflow and mixing SD and HDV

[David Roth weiss]

Simone,

HDV is difficult enough as it is, but upresing SD and mixing with HDV is exponentially more difficult. Without a great deal of experience and expertise it will be very easy for you to make mistakes that will be compounded and multiplied as you get farther along.

I would advise that you carefully consider letting the market and the end product dictate your path in post-production. What type of project is this? What will be the finished length of the project? Is it for TV, DVD, theatrical, etc.? Let those factors determine how you will proceed. HDV may seem tempting, but you don’t have to choose the HDV path simply because some of your material was shot on HDV. Editing in 16×9 SD is suitable for very many projects.

DRW

[Will Macneil]

I’m just completing an HDV and SD film for the BBC. Since we’re only transmitting SD, there was never any consideration of finishing in HD. In the end, we converted both HDV and the DigiBeta material to the DV50 codec. If we had had less footage or more storage space, I would have used the 8-bit uncompressed. We captured our HDV to SD using the component output of the sony HDV deck into a Blackmagic extreme card. Timecode/machine control were via firewire. Audio was via analog unbalanced through a Canford balancing box. It all worked quite well in the end. HDV looks great in standard def.

What I do know about HDV in its native state is that I’d never want to edit with it. The fact that it stores frames in groups of 16 means that you’ve always got a terrible delay when stopping/starting playback or marking ins and outs. The intermediate codec sorts this and looks great, but I think you’re looking at data rates similar to HD uncompressed.

As for upressing, I’ll leave that to the experts – you might try putting a post on the Blackmagic forum.

I agree with David above to have a think about your final output.

W

[Simone]

Thank you for all your answers.
About the project: it will be a 52 minutes documentary for a DVD edition and maybe for cable TV. The HDV footage has already been captured with an HDV 1080i60 codec (it was done before I got on this project) and the SD – with the DV codec. What are my options now?
1. If I choose to edit in HDV, do I have to convert it to another codec to avoid GOPs (I’m just learning about all this)? If yes, is this conversion done by FCP or by another application? And secondly how will I convert the SD tootage? Sorry but I haven’t found all the answers by reading other threads.
2. If I choose to edit in SD 16/9, how do I convert HD footage (by simply dropping it to an SD 16/9 T-L, rendering, exporting and importing it, or is there a better way to downconvert it?) And can I, at the end, go back to HDV?

I greatly appreciate your help.

G5 Dual processor, FCP 5, no external capture card, no HDTV, 500 Giga raid disque, 2 250 Giga Lacie discs, 45 hours of HDV+SD footage in PAL and NTSC (plus more footage being shot in HDV50i – to complicated the story even more)

[David Roth weiss]

Simone,

If I didn’t have a client coming in 10-mins I would get on this with you right now in detail, but I’m going to have to give you the short answer.

The short answer: Because you have 45 hours of footage, I would suggest that you forge ahead and edit native HDV for now. Upconvert the DV material without any consideration for quality now, and consider those shots as temporary placeholders. Don’t worry about what that material looks like, but make sure to tell the client that its temporary so they don’t freak out on you. After you’ve cut the project for story, you’ll have the option at that point to either downconvert the HDV, or upconvert the DV. And, all of that i-frame business can be handled at that stage too — it isn’t always something that has to happen before the edit.

When you’re done with the priciple editing, come back here and we’ll figure out where to go from from there. You’ll know a whole lot more about the project by that time, and it will make your path from there much easier to determine.

Hope this helps a little…

DRW

[Simone]

This helps tremendously.

Without asking you to go into it in detail, I’d just like to know the method I’ll probably use to up-convert SD footage after the editing so I can propose it to the client. I feel awkward just telling them “Don’t worry, it looks bad now but I’ll figure out a way to make it look better later” 🙂

How would I also go about up-converting the SD footage for editing purposes: by simply re-scaling it to match the HDV dimensions? Should I then re-scale it until the picture reaches horizontal marges (and leave black sidebars on the left and on the right), or go further and fill up the entire screen (but then I would need to re-position the picture and leave out upper or lower parts). Will either of these methods have an influence on the up-converting later on? Or am I completely on the wrong path for the temporary up-converting SD?

Once again, many many thanks.

[Simone]

David Roth Weiss

Your short answer really helped me.
I am sorry to go back to my questions (see my previous post) but I stil feel I need to understand it better. I’m meeting the client in 2 days and would like to be more prepared (I continue doing my own research but still really need help and advice).

1. What method should be used to up-convert SD footage for the purposes of editing only (as you said “without paying attention to the image quality”) – re-scaling in FCP? Full screen or with side bars? Can I re-scale, export and import it (to avoid rendering during editing)?

2. What will be the method to up-convert it after the editing is done? Will I need the original SD tapes? Will it involve buying additional hardware/software? Going to a specialized facility?

3. Is it too late to do the up-conversion now because the SD tootage is already in the computer? It would’ve been so much better to edit with good-looking images, is it really too late?

Many thanks in advance for your knowledge and time and please forgive my ignorace – I’ll learn with time (and some help :).

[David Roth weiss]

Hi Simone,

I have some more info for you… Where are you located? A phone call would be a bit easier for me… Send me a private email and I’ll send you my phone number… Send to drw at drwfilms.com of course using email sentax… If you’re in some far away place I’ll send the info by email, but its woulkd be much easier to chat about it…

DRW