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P2 to HDV
I am at a loss so I ask my fellow editors. I am shooting on p2’s in DVCPRO HD. How ever our san is running low and we are trying to figure out alternatives in compression. Is there anyway while in log and transfer to transcode the DVCPROHD to HDV. Or can anyone think of an efficient way to convert DVCPRO HD to HDV. Mind you we are talking about 2TB A DAY in DVCPRO HD so efficiently is the key here.
And before any one suggests, No we can’t change cameras.
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10 Replies
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[michael Fernandes] “Is there anyway while in log and transfer to transcode the DVCPROHD to HDV.”
GOOD LORD, why on earth would you want to do that? Yuck.
No, you cannot transcode DVCPRO HD P2 to anything, it imports at full resolution only. You can transcode afterwards to a smaller format, like DV, by using the Media Manager. But keep the original imports on some drive somewhere so you can relink to them later. God, stay AWAY from HDV. Some of us who work with that format don’t capture HDV as HDV, we capture as ProRes or DVCPRO HD.
2TB a day? Wow. That is a lot of shooting. Well, what you need to do then is import the footage, use Media Manager to recompress it to a lower data rate format, and retain the originals on separate hard drives. Then when you are done with the cut, reconnect to the masters for the online.
I have a workflow for this in this magazine:
https://www.lafcpug.org/nab_supermag_08.html
Shane
GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
unfortunately that isn’t going to work for us. we save everything on the san and are constantly repackaging our material converting to pro res only takes an 15gb media managed project down to 13gb. We are a tapeless production company from acquisition to broadcast so HDV seems to be the best in file compression to us thus far taking that same 15gb project down to little over 2gb. i know its not ideal but the HDV is actually closer to what our station airs anyways being 25mbs mpeg2 wrapped in a gxf for grass valley.
I am just curious as to if there is anything we can do to make this conversion faster as the transcode on a quad 3ghz still takes roughly an hour for 4min block of our shows. so roughly 5 hours just to transcode the 20 minutes that was used in the show, and who has that kind of time.
Any suggestions?
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[michael Fernandes] “converting to pro res only takes an 15gb media managed project down to 13gb.”
OK, are you working with AVCIntra P2 or DVCPRO HD P2? Not that it will make much difference. DVCPRO HD P2 only imports as DVCPRO HD, while AVCIntra imports as ProRes 422 (or HQ) only.
[michael Fernandes] “the transcode on a quad 3ghz still takes roughly an hour for 4min block of our shows”
The GOP format is a processor hog…VERY difficult to work with. Which is why many people opt out of that format when they capture. Conversion to or from, or rendering, takes time. A LOT of time. IMHO HDV is simply the wrong choice for this.
So you need to convert from your shooting format to an online quality that has a low data rate? DVCPRO HD is the best format for that, to be truthful…IMHO.
Shane
GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
If you are doing that type of volume you might want to consider Panasonic’s
https://catalog2.panasonic.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ModelDetail?displayTab=O&storeId=11201&catalogId=13051&itemId=327735&catGroupId=34402&surfModel=AG-HPG20or
Use this as a deck and capture to whatever codec you wish. This is more of a tape workflow but it would be faster then any conversion via compressor (but compressor can be and automated process).
Are you really shooting 2TB of data every day, that is over 30 hours DVCProHD.
If you really want to use HDV as your source footage to edit with, why not sell the P2 cameras and get HDV cameras?
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We aren’t actually capturing on P2 cards we are using Focus Fire stores on HVX cameras. And the amount of those we would require to maintain our workflow given the amount we shoot then becomes a money issue.
Our original airings of the shows are in DVCPRO HD this is more of an archive system that we are attempting to organize.
And yes we do shoot that much. We have 4 full time shows running 46 weeks a year and 3 special limited run series with shooters in NY, LA, & CH
We do have 2 HDV cameras but they just don’t produce the image as well as the Leica lens on the Panasonic.
It seems like we just have to set up a larger compressor cluster and just run through all archives as you said at least that can be automated.
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Oooo….good call Michael. The first option, the P2 Gear, is $5000 and yeah, that and a Capture Card and you are set.
And that is a LOT of footage.
Shane
GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
I dunno if it went through or not so i’m sorry if i’m repeating but i didn’t see my response on the post.
We aren’t shooting on P2’s exactly, yes we do have a few of them for our more active shoots but we are mainly using firestore drives to record on. So while that is a good idea from looking at the website it seems as thought that may not work.
We shoot 4 shows a week 42-46 weeks a year as well as a few series specials we have going with camera crews in 3 cities, it all adds up pretty quickly.
It seems like doing a media manage conversion will probably be it. We have a few xserves and alot of edits so i’ll just have to set up a large cluster and have it go
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Michael
Your answer is to buy more storage. If you can not afford it, personally, you should not be creating this much content.
You really need to start a new workflow for your situation.
P2 to HDV is NOT a consideration. Hire a good consultant that can help you out.
Do you realize how extremely inexpensive hard drives are these days. 10 years ago there is no way you could afford to keep up with production.
Steve Eisen
Eisen Video Productions
Board of Directors
Chicago Final Cut Pro Users Group -
i didn’t realize my question would inspire such a passionate discussion. I understand the stigma behind HDV. But didn’t realize the sour taste it seems to leave with peopple. I think we are going to maintain the DVCPRO HD for edit & original air then just down convert to HDV for archiving web repackaging etc. Its a bit of a pickle as these are the cameras we have and the storage system. And we have to maintain the workflow as is but make it the most effective. I too wish for more hard drives how ever our system is running redundant so one upgrade in storage means 3x the cost. 1 raid for storage – 1 raid for mirroring – and now double the amount of LTO.
I’ve been playing with compressions and HDV runs 25mbit mpeg2 which even if we shoot, edit and master in DVCPRO HD we have to down convert to 25mbit mpeg2 for broadcast. Any suggestions as to a compression that is equal to that file size while maintaining HD resolution
Mike Fernandes
NBC Universal -
If you have ever had to work with HDV you’d see why we are this passionate about not liking it.
The issue you have is that DVCPRO HD is already a highly compressed format. It is a still a great format, and is one that people use as offline codecs for higher end HD like Viper and HDCAM SR. The other good HD codec is ProRes, but that takes up 2-3 times as much space as DVCPRO HD. DVCPRO HD is simply one of the better low-data rate formats.
HDV is compressed very efficiently, but has this odd GOP structure that leads to all sorts of issues, primarily had artifacting on quick pans, zooms and fast motion. Horrid artifacting, worse than betaSP dropouts. Shooting that format is one thing, but converting an I-Frame format to HDV is problematic, and can lead to bad artifacting that doesn’t exist on the master footage. Plus, as you noted, render times are huge.
The simple fact is that DVCPRO HD has one of the lowest data rates when it comes to HD. It’s data rate is close to double that of DV, but is lower than uncompressed 8-bit, ProRes SD and even DVCPRO 50. HDV is the only one with a lower rate. SO there are no other options for full quality editing codecs if you exclude HDV. Well, there is XDCAM, but that is a higher data rate than HDV, but is still GOP. There are other codecs like H.264, but those are delivery codecs, and not suited for editing.
I realize that you have a SAN and to upgrade the storage for that is a larger cost that just adding more G-Raids to the fold. I don’t know what to advise about this. You simply need more space, or you need to move into an offline/online workflow. Something that is difficult when dealing with tapeless formats, as they only import at full resolution.
Shane
GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def
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