Mistake to purchase HDV camera?

[13]

“Most people are not going to immediately run out and by AppleTV. You still have to deliver the file so factor in the cost of a hard drive too or are you going to your client’s home to xfer the file (assuming they have the space for the file on their hard drive) and either they are you will have to set up Apple TV. All this also assumes they have 802.11g or 802.11N. Heck after all that money spent they can probably buy an HD DVD player now. Sorry but just because it “can” be done doesn’t mean the will be common or financially viable.”

You don’t need to deliver it on a hard drive, a simple Data DVD will do just fine (the movies you buy on itunes are only a little over one gig). If the Client wants me to set it up for them then that would of-course be an additional fee (but it is not going to be that difficult)

Just about any computer in the last 2-3 years has 802.11b already, and if not, you can always connect to the Apple TV through the built in ethernet port on it.

You talk about long down convert times, you are going to have long encode times no mater what format you deliver in. It is going to take time to encode to a HD DVD or Blue Ray DVD also.

All I sagest it a relatively inexpensive way to deliver HD content relatively soon. If you don’t like that method then don’t use it.

[Craig Seeman]

Thought I’d mention the other HDV thought . . . you deliver SD now but your client may come back in the future for an HD version when they have full playback capabilities.

So a year or two from now you get the order. You recapture that 90 minute wedding edit in HDV. You rerender titles, transitions, filter FX and the long GOP. Then you need to author that HD-DVD (or BluRay) and encode that to MPEG2 or VC1 or H.264 and then burn the disc. So maybe you’re looking at 5 to 8 hours work depending how fast your system is (if you’ve upgraded to faster computer and HD burner).

So you tell your client that new HD disc they’ve been waiting for is x hundreds of dollars before the order, from the wedding they already have on DVD a year or two previously.

Keep in mind if you need a new camera, HDV cameras make very nice DV cameras too (think about a camera light though) and, if on the chance you do have the above type of client, you’ll be good to go.

[Craig Seeman]

[zrb123] “You don’t need to deliver it on a hard drive, a simple Data DVD will do just fine (the movies you buy on itunes are only a little over one gig). If the Client wants me to set it up for them then that would of-course be an additional fee (but it is not going to be that difficult)”

Several Data DVDs since you’re not going to fit much HD on a Data DVD and they have to have the hard drive space and speed to handle the file once copied. Many people have their 3 year old $599 computers as primary computers.

[zrb123] “All I sagest it a relatively inexpensive way to deliver HD content relatively soon. If you don’t like that method then don’t use it.”

It’s whether the client likes and will pay for it. You’re talking about what could be a big expense (and time is money) for a very small client base at the moment. Hey if your clients are willing to spend the extra money great but don’t assume the workflow you mention is going to sell itself. HDV can have many aesthetic benefits but, once delivered, it may not have many financial benefits yet.

Heck you could even deliver a WMV HD file (in addition to the SD DVD) but are there that many clients willing to pay for you extra workflow? Only “you” can answer that, but I do video as a business and I’ve heard enough complaints from my compatriots to believe HDV is not a great money maker yet.

Things probably will change in a year from now but the cameras will be better then too. (AVCHD?, 1/3″ XDCAM HD?, etc.)

[13]

“Several Data DVDs since you’re not going to fit much HD on a Data DVD and they have to have the hard drive space and speed to handle the file once copied. Many people have their 3 year old $599 computers as primary computers.”

Like a said before if you can get an entire 2 hour SD move in 1-1.5 gig I can get a clients HD content onto a single Blank DVD (most videos for clients will not be nearly as long as 2 hrs)

“It’s whether the client likes and will pay for it. You’re talking about what could be a big expense”

Also like I said before it is cheeper for the client to go with something like this then with a HD DVD player. Also many clients might also like the option to have all their video content at the touch of a button instead of having to switch discs all the time.

Like I said before If you don’t like it then don’t use it. All I sagest is a simple relatively inexpensive way to deliver HD content to a client.

[Craig Seeman]

[zrb123] “Like a said before if you can get an entire 2 hour SD move in 1-1.5 gig I can get a clients HD content onto a single Blank DVD (most videos for clients will not be nearly as long as 2 hrs)”

Major UGH!. 2 hour SD is usually about 4 gig with MPEG2 encoding at a “passable” data rate. At the size you suggest it’s practically a VCD. If you’re talking DATA DVD 2 hours is about 16GB with DV or HDV codec.

I’ve heard that you can get 50 minutes of HD material on a standard DVD using H.264 (much better than MPEG2) and author in DVD Studio Pro and yes that might be enough (or one can break it into a 2DVD set) so it might be viable if the client can play back such a DVD. It won’t work in a standard DVD player but might from a computer (a Mac at least if they have one – not sure if a Windows PC would handle this). So I’ll admit that might work for some clients.

[Craig Seeman]

[zrb123] “(the movies you buy on itunes are only a little over one gig)”

Thought I’d note that while they’re H.264 those movies on iTunes are not HD frame sizes.

[13]

Using H264 a 2 hour movie is only 1-1.5 gig go buy a movie on itunes and see. It is not hard to do.

[13]

It is very possible to fit a H264 HD video on to a data DVD.

[Doug Graham]

You can shorten that production chain a lot by recording an HDV master of the original project on tape.

Regards,
Doug Graham

[Craig Seeman]

True.
I was thinking in terms of downconverting to DV during capture to avoid working with long GOP (long renders) when delivering SD but an alternative would be to work in HDV and export the edited HDV to tape. Each workflow has a significant “time bite” gotcha though.