Whats Best Work Flow HDV To PAL For Documentary?

[Walter Biscardi]

[Darren Goodman] “1. Is there a better quality or faster workflow that I should use?”

Edit HDV all the way through, master to HDV tape, send your tape to a facility like PostWorks in NY for the NTSC to PAL conversion.

[Darren Goodman] “2. How can I get rid of jagged edges and artifacts?”

Within FCP, nothing will be all that clean. You’re converting from NTSC to PAL, which FCP does not do natively.

[Darren Goodman] “3. How can i output for producing a high quality DVD?”

Export your HDV timeline and then bring that into Compressor. Make your DVD.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.

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[Darren Goodman]

My camera will tape in PAL or NTSC. In FCP if I put everything onto a DVPAL sequence timeling, and Print To Tape, my camera will record in PAL. Will this give me the quality and eliminate the need to send to post production house.

[Jason Porthouse]

Darren,

It sounds like you are a little out of your depth on this one. To answer your question, no you cannot use your Z1 and FCP to convert NTSC HDV to PAL DV in anything like an acceptable manner. A broadcaster (at least, any worthy of the title) would reject it out of hand.

However – and I’m not trying to be funny or sarcastic here – if they’re happy for you to edit it, and from your post you have little or no editing experience, their standards may be lower. You need to find out what their expectations are.

As to the issue of standards conversion – using a stand-alone hardware converter (and I DON’T mean one of the 100 dollar ebay ones) will yeild the best results. It will cost though. Assuming the broadcaster you are editing for is paying for this, you should be able to charge accordingly.

A cheaper way to approach it, whilst still yielding excellent results, would be to buy Graeme Nattress’ Standards Converter plug-in at about $100. It is excellent, but will take a while to render. It’s workflow is also a little unusual but nothing too taxing if you RTFM. If you used this I would
1. Cut NTSC HDV to picture lock and audio mix
2. Copy edit in to a new sequence, 4:3 Standard Def – this should give you a letterboxed 4:3 sequence
3. Output as a self contained QT
4. Import this movie in to a new project in FCP (PAL DV Easy setup) and use to create PAL copy with the Nattress converter
5. Print to tape on your Z1 set up for PAL.

If you don’t understand this process, I humbly suggest you are out of your depth; for the sake of your project, get a pro in to help you. You’ll learn loads and won’t get a bad rep from your broadcaster. FWIW.

Jason

_________________________________

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[Phil Balsdon]

I’ve done this in reverse successfully using the camera in a PAL environment to create NTSC DVCAM 4:3 so I assume it will work in reverse.
You need to set the camera to shoot 1080i 50 (because PAL is 25 fps and 50 fields per sec) then set the camera to export DVCAM 4:3 which should be a SD image at 50 fields per sec.
This I did on a shoot in Australia with a locally sourced Sony Z1P for National Geographic Television (shooting 1080i 60 and exporting DVCAM 4:3). Response from USA was very positive they had no problems the pictures at all.
All that said it is the only time I’ve worked with this camera and otherwise found it an extremely inconvenient tool to work with in a predominantly run and gun handheld situation moslty under available light.

Cinematographer, Steadicam Operator, Final Cut Pro Post Production.
https://www.steadi-onfilms.com.au/