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transition from dvcpro tape to hvx200 HD in productions
I’m looking to buy two hvx200’s for our corporate productions. We have hours upon hours of footage on dvcpro25 tape that we archive and still use every year.
My question is, what would be a good way to ease into HD with still having to incorporate and use a lot of SD stock footage for at least a few years to come?
I plan on shooting in 720 24p. Is my best option to shoot in HD, convert to DV tape in camera while keeping the original HD files archived until my HD studio conversion is complete. If so, will the DV converted footage be letterboxed or a full 4×3 image. This way I would be able to continue in SD until I have enough footage to do 100% HD programs.
I don’t have the option of just starting from scratch and shooting all new HD footage. It is going to be a gradual process.
Has anyone been through this or can anyone offer any workflow suggestions?
I have the budget for all the equipment I need, just need to make sure I have a plan of action that will not hickup once implemented.
Thanks for any help you can give me.Ben
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6 Replies
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Sure you could shoot HD now and do a downconvert- simplest is just in FCP(hopefully you’re on FCP). The footage could be either 16:9 anamorphic or 4:3 letterbox whatever matches your surrounding footage best.
Noah
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I will be using FCP. Are you saying my dvcpro footage will need to be captured in anamorphic widescreen or letterboxed in order to match my downconverted HD? Wouldn’t this require a lot of rendering on the dvcpro footage. I suppose there will be an issue in combining the progressive HD footage with interlaced DV. Any conversion solutions for that? It seems the old footage will end up sticking out like a sore thumb or vice versa. I may just need to dedicate a lot of time to reshooting the stock I deem necessary.
Thanks Noah,Ben
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Well, of course you’ll have to deal with 16:9 vs. 4:3, since HD is always 16:9. Shoot your HD with some 4:3 marks in the viewfinder and try to frame as compatible as you can.
Interlace is not such a problem, the HVX200 can produce 60i, if you want, plus 720p60 can always be converted to 480i60.
Upscaling is possible with well-shot footage, give ReSizer or Instant HD a try, you’ll find reviews for both of them here at the Cow.
We’ll all have to deal with mixed environments for a few years to come…
Regards,
Uli
Author of “DVDs gestalten und produzieren”, a book on professional DVD-authoring in German.
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I have no idea what your DVCPRO footage is like. If it’s all standard 4:3- then yes some rendering will be needed. Either to letterbox the DVCPRO footage or to center extract the DVCPROHD 16:9 footage. Honestly it’s not an easy mix but you did say it was necessary. My suggestion would be to add a Kona card which will make cross and down converts go a lot faster.
Noah
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Thanks for your help. It looks like my best option is going to be letterboxing my 4×3 dvcpro footage to mix with the downconverted HD and hopefully within a year I can replace it all with HD.
I am going to be shooting 720 24p with the hxv200 as all future content will be the same, so I guess I will have to deal with the interlaced vs. progressive issue unless you know of some software that can make interlaced video immulate the look of progressive, not necessarily 24p. I work for a very conservative cooperative. They do not like change, but I love what this camera can do.Ben
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Sure- there’s plenty of software out there like for example nattress.com and dvfilm.com offers some for making 60i look like 24p for a better match.
Noah
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