[Will Salley]

I had that same problem some time ago and traced it to the Blackmagic Deck control application, which should not effect you because you’re on the Kona. The problems went away with an update of the Blackmagic drivers. It could be a similar issue with the kona drivers – just a hunch though.

[Will Salley]

If you have already downconverted to DV and are working in a DV timeline, the HDV codec is no longer part of the process. Any artifacting should be apparent at this point. You should have no problems with the workflow you planned. If it’s a long sequence, try duplicating it and cutting it to about :20-:30 as a test.

[Will Salley]

You may have some artifacting from downresing and letterboxing (assuming your footage will be letterboxed and not masked), so if you’ve got the the storage and the machinery, it’s probably a good idea to go ahead and covert to SD. Your graphics will most certainly suffer from the compression of HDV albeit nowhere near that of standard def DV. You also may want to experiment with QT conversion on a short piece of media before commiting to the whole timeline.

[Will Salley]

AAC @ 320Kbps

[Will Salley]

I purchased a multitrack hard-disk recorder for just this purpose. The model I have is capable of recording four tracks at once. I take the board mix into channel 1 and 2, and use a stereo mic (in M/S config) to capture the stage volume from downstage center and go to tracks 3 and 4. If the sound mix is mono, that gives you and extra track to capture audience or whatever.

Usually, board mixes tend to be kick drum, snare and vocal heavy, with guitars, bass, and cymbals mixed lower. The reason is that the latter instruments have the most stage volume and don’t require as much help from the PA. The stereo mic will capture those instruments and can be mixed back in with the board mix. Room ambience will have more effect than with simple close-miking techniques and a good stereo mic or pair is essential.

[Will Salley]

I have to disagree with Walter on this. I shoot green-screen with a Sony Z1 on a regular basis and get very good results. There are other problems with the HDV codec that make it unsuitable for certain jobs, but for 95% of the time, the 1080i output from the Z1 will work fine. Sure the DVCPRO-HD codec will perform better, but it should, it cost more – but if it’s HD you want and the business model says HDV, then it’s certainly better than SD.

I have used it side-by-side with HDCAM on shoots for HDNet and others and usually the only difference in the footage is depth-of-field issues.

By the way, I convert all green-screen footage to an un-compressed format to key it – usually basic Animation QT.

Walter – tell Marion and Ginger I said Hi.

System A Info G5/Dual 2 – 10.3.6 – QT v6.5.2 – 4GB ram – Radeon 9800Pro – Lacie FW800 L1 RAID via Lacie PCI card and internal – Decklink Extreme – Wacom 6×8 System B is identical except: 2GB ram – Decklink SP – Radeon 9600 – Pro Tools

[Will Salley]

How large are the TIFF’s? I like to make them about 900 pixels wide for SD and 2000 wide for HD so the blow-up will be at less than 100% of the actual frame pixel width.

Also check your render settings in FCP.

Motion does a fairly good job of this but I still use After Effects out of habit. I suppose they are equal as far as render quality when identical settings are used.

System A Info G5/Dual 2 – 10.3.6 – QT v6.5.2 – 4GB ram – Radeon 9800Pro – Lacie FW800 L1 RAID via Lacie PCI card and internal – Decklink Extreme – Wacom 6×8 System B is identical except: 2GB ram – Decklink SP – Radeon 9600 – Pro Tools

[Will Salley]

I don’t want to get in a roundabout argument here but.

My OPINION is:

– The HDV codec is far superior to pixel/chroma-based codecs and produces better keying than those codecs.
– The sound quality is BETTER than other DV or HDV cameras beause of several factors including a true balanced input and better design. I have not noticed, by ear, any noise level difference between MPEG-2 audio, and DVCAM. I have noticed it is has a better signal-to-noise ratio than BetaSP, which is still the industry standard (most widely used) for broadcast. By the way, I don’t use the camera mic, I primarily use a Sennheiser 416 or 418 shotgun mounted to a an overhead boomploe via a Rycote shockmount. This goes through a Sound Devices 302 or 422 mixer and then to the camera via XLR. I have been doing professional location sound for 18 years.
– I didn’t say that keying HDV was easy. It simply produces much better results than DV (when keyed uncompressed).
-My system setup profile is slightly out-of-date. I have a Decklink HD and monitor through a Cinema Display /HDLink and a Samsung DLP HD display (up-ressed from 720).

System A Info G5/Dual 2 – 10.3.6 – QT v6.5.2 – 4GB ram – Radeon 9800Pro – Lacie FW800 L1 RAID via Lacie PCI card and internal – Decklink Extreme – Wacom 6×8 System B is identical except: 2GB ram – Decklink SP – Radeon 9600 – Pro Tools

[Will Salley]

Graeme, my point is that the codec itself is based on a completely different encoding technology and making comparisons to the DV codec by mere numbers will not be accurate. I agree that the video will never gain resolution simply by going in uncompressed, but the added effects WILL be using a more accurate sample than with other compression schemes – and the output will be cleaner than simply keying – unless Apple has found a way to de-compress the HDV stream in realtime. The complexity of the HDV codec, or any MPEG-2 image, is why it cannot be compared to DV simply by compression ratios and pixel counts.

System A Info G5/Dual 2 – 10.3.6 – QT v6.5.2 – 4GB ram – Radeon 9800Pro – Lacie FW800 L1 RAID via Lacie PCI card and internal – Decklink Extreme – Wacom 6×8 System B is identical except: 2GB ram – Decklink SP – Radeon 9600 – Pro Tools

[Will Salley]

Amen Brother!

System A Info G5/Dual 2 – 10.3.6 – QT v6.5.2 – 4GB ram – Radeon 9800Pro – Lacie FW800 L1 RAID via Lacie PCI card and internal – Decklink Extreme – Wacom 6×8 System B is identical except: 2GB ram – Decklink SP – Radeon 9600 – Pro Tools