OT…Panasonic AJ-1200a and Sony M25U

[Stuart Cummings]

There is an ad to the right on this forum its called the Connect Le this IS the best way to convert hdv to dvcpro hd period!! Stuart

[Walter Biscardi]

[Kevin Monahan] “If you want to convert HDV to DVCPro HD, you’re making a mistake. You’ll have worse picture quality, according to Nattress. And I believe him. He says to stay native HDV for the record.”

I definitely disagree with that one. We’re converting to DVCPro HD here and it’s a much better workflow than staying in HDV.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”

“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters

[Walter Biscardi]

[Rich Rubasch] “And if I did use the Sony deck via firewire into FCP coule I tell FCP to write the incoming Firewire stream to DVCPro HD and work with that on the timeline? Seems like that is a possible workflow into FCP if I want to cut everything DVCPro HD and have some HDV footage and the Sony deck.”

Nope. you need a capture card to do the conversion, FCP cannot convert one codec to another. the best product out there for conversions is the AJA Kona line. Any of them will do the conversion.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”

“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters

[Bob Flood]

hey all

here are my observations about this HDV thang:

1. gosh this topic gets beaten senseless all the time. This is my experience just working with FCP. editing in hdv is really slow. the cpu has to process everything so even simpl dissolve have to be rendered etc etc
we find that working in either dvcpro50 or dvcprohd is a lot faster, and still gives us excellent picture quality

2. we use a Kona LH in conjunction with our M10U. we either output 1080 or 525 analog component to our kona, and capture at either of the 2 dvc codecs aforementioned (we shoot HDV, but we usually edit and finish SD 16×9, as no one we supply can or wants to playback HD) we control the M10u with firewire.

3, I dont know how the 1200 treats anolog component in, if it does some conversion or not, but Sony’s flavor of HDV is only 1080i so you may have to knock down the frame size to 720p as well

4. we found that when cloning HDV from the camera to an m10u, we lost the timecode, so our clones had different timecode.
I do not know if that was the cameras fault, or the decks fault. I know the m25U supports TC in the hdv stream, but you might need 2 m25u machines to get TC accurate clones

hope this helps

bee eph

[Walter Biscardi]

[Bob Flood] “3, I dont know how the 1200 treats anolog component in, if it does some conversion or not, but Sony’s flavor of HDV is only 1080i so you may have to knock down the frame size to 720p as well”

There’s no Analog input on the 1200A, HD-SDI and Firewire only. And the 1200A handles both 1080i and 720p.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”

“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters

[Sean Oneil]

Why not just capture everything as NTSC DV for offline editing? Problem solved. Then when you go to master it, just re-capture everything natively over FW. Bring HDV in as HDV, DVCProHD as DVCProHD. If they’re the same framrate and frame size, this won’t be a problem. Then render it on an Uncompressed timeline. Export a self-contained Uncompressed QT as your “pre-master” and use this file as your source footage for color-correction.

Lossless workflow, and you get the superior RT performence of doing your creative work in NTSC DV.

[Walter Biscardi]

[Sean ONeil] “Export a self-contained Uncompressed QT as your “pre-master” and use this file as your source footage for color-correction.”

That’s definitely not something I would recommend. A single QT file for color correction? Even in a project that has as few as 20 shots would be a huge hassle to color correct. Make it more realistic like 100 shots and you’ve got a complete headache.

For color correction you need all the individual shots to remain individual shots. You can’t simply apply one color correction filter across an entire timeline and expect that your studio and outdoor locations are all going to match. Heck even 20 shots in the same room may not match.

A single file for color correction will make the editor frustrated and not yield optimal results for CC.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”

“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters

[Kevin Monahan]

[walter biscardi] “definitely disagree with that one. We’re converting to DVCPro HD here and it’s a much better workflow than staying in HDV.”

Well, Graeme was talking about picture quality, not workflow. According to you, Jer and Shane, It appears that the hit you take in conversion is worth it for an improved workflow.

Hey, I’ll buy that for a buck! 😉

Kevin Monahan
Take My FCP Master’s Workshop!
fcpworld.com
Pres. SF Cutters

[Sean Oneil]

[walter biscardi] “That’s definitely not something I would recommend. A single QT file for color correction? Even in a project that has as few as 20 shots would be a huge hassle to color correct. Make it more realistic like 100 shots and you’ve got a complete headache.”

Good point. But what about adding markers before exporting?

Sean