Daft question? Maybe.

[noddydog]

For quite a while I have been a Studio Director and Vision Mixer. A few years ago I dipped my toe in the prosumer DV market and started making projects for charities and churches (see www.foolishtv.com). However I am not the most technical person in the world and just about found my way around the necessary aspects of DV.

Due to a new post in a different organisation I have to take everything up a gear now and quickly come to terms with HDV and possibly HD. The projects that I will be undertaking for this org will be distributed on DVD and via an internal Intranet. However some external web distribution will also be required on occasion.

I've got lots of questions since I've never cut a HDV project nor used an HDV camera in HDV mode.

I'm hoping that some of you nice people will provide me with a quick 'idiots guide' to the HDV/HD scene.

Here are some of my primary questions.

1) Given where and how my projects will be distributed/viewed is HDV worth the hassle or should I stick with SD?

2) If I were to shoot in HDV does the viewer at the other end need an HD TV to see any benefit?

3) What are the current 'best practices' for HDV projects. For example I've been told that some people shoot in HDV, capture in SD, edit in SD then use an EDL (edit decision list) to recreate the final cut in HDV. Why not do the whole thing in HDV?

4) What type of extra resources are needed to edit in native HDV? For example is more storage space required or a current dual core CPU?

5) If I had two identical projects once shot and edited in SD the other in HDV and eventually they were both distributed on standard DVD and viewed on a standard (none HD) TV would there be any noticeable difference?

6) Are there any drawbacks to HDV that I have not enquired about above?


Finally if anyone knows of any user friendly guides to HDV on the Net please point me in the right direction. Please forgive me if it sounds like I'm not prepared to do the leg work myself. Right now we are trying to move house, prepare for a new job, leave an old one plus do freelance projects on the side. Even the time taken to write this is at the cost of something else.

Thanks in advance for any replies, advice, info.

[drgagx]

Not really qualified to provide advice. I`ve stayed away from HDV because of the greater demands it makes but, fwiw, my answers:
1 Stick with SD
2 It will probably give a better result
3 In Edius, the preferred method is to capture to an intermediate codec called HQ. This enables frame by frame editing. Editing using the long GoPs of HDV is awkward and much less accurate.
4 You will need a much faster pc and extra storage to handle larger files. The dual core pcs will speed things ups significantly.
5 Probably not.
6 (a) Encoding back to HDV will take much longer than DV
(b) there are at least three different, and incompatible, flavours of HDV from JVC, Sony and Canon.

[noddydog]

Thanks for the feedback. Perhaps if I provide a bit more info about our current set up and the requirements of the new job it might provide a better idea of what route I should be considering.

Currently the spec of our edit PC is:

Premiere Pro 1.5 (plus other software from that batch, i.e. AE 6.5 Encore 1.5 etc) on XP
P4 3.2GHz HT CPU
ASUS p5GDC-V motherboard
2Gb DDRam
Sapphire ATI Radeon X600 graphics card
3 internal 7200 rpm HD's + several external ones connected via USB 2 and Firewire
Matrox RTX.100 card

Now I currently have a budget of £1000 to upgrade the edit PC side of things and I also have £3500 to buy a new camera. I currently own a PD170 with all the necessary accessories (batteries, charger, mics, tripods, etc).

The two cameras that I am considering as a replacement right now are the Sony V1 and the Canon A1. Whichever route I go I will need to buy a good crop of batteries + appropriate charger since where I'm going there won't be a lot of facilities. On this note I will be shooting in parts of the third world including the Asian sub continent. Therefore in the majority of cases the light levels should be relatively good but the camera must be robust.

As mentioned further up my projects will be distributed on DVD and over an internal Intranet and occasionally over the Internet. Obviously HDV is an option from the start, but I do not want to head down that road unless there are tangible rewards to the audience who will be viewing it. Most of the viewers will not have HD ready TV's and most of the time they will remotely download my videos for use later on during presentations and training. Keep in mind this will sometimes involve overhead projection.

So some additional questions would be

1) Any recommendations on what components I should spend the £1000 on with regard to upgrading the PC. It is very likely I will upgrade to the Premiere Pro 2 suite. I understand that certain graphics cards provide real time editing with Prem Pro 2

2) Will the 25P aspect of the Sony V1 provide a benefit here?

3) If I did shoot in HDV what is the best way to edit on Prem Pro 1.5 or 2, e.g. is their an intermediate codec that allows you to edit faster and eventually convert back to HDV?

4) Given the set up and situations described above is there anything else I should be thinking about?

Thanks again to all who view and/or respond. This is a great forum and I appreciate all the help.

[fuddam]

1) Given where and how my projects will be distributed/viewed is HDV worth the hassle or should I stick with SD?

HDV

2) If I were to shoot in HDV does the viewer at the other end need an HD TV to see any benefit?

No

3) What are the current 'best practices' for HDV projects. For example I've been told that some people shoot in HDV, capture in SD, edit in SD then use an EDL (edit decision list) to recreate the final cut in HDV. Why not do the whole thing in HDV?

agreed. which you can do. I know you are extremely adverse to using Vegas, since it would speed up your workflow dangerously, but FWIW, should easily be able to throw at least 4 tracks of HDV on the timeline, more if using a nice Raid 0 setup. BTW, downconvert in software produces better quality compared to doing it in camera, if using Sony.

4) What type of extra resources are needed to edit in native HDV? For example is more storage space required or a current dual core CPU?

same space - same bitrate

5) If I had two identical projects once shot and edited in SD the other in HDV and eventually they were both distributed on standard DVD and viewed on a standard (none HD) TV would there be any noticeable difference?

Yes. downconverted HDV is noticeably better than SD on SD set

6) Are there any drawbacks to HDV that I have not enquired about above?

probably. :p

Finally if anyone knows of any user friendly guides to HDV on the Net please point me in the right direction.

VASST has a very highly recommended guide available, tho not seen it personally. make sure is 2nd Ed.

http://www.vasst.com/product.aspx?id=ed515883-935a-4037-aef0-0ad68139e940

review here: http://www.hdvinfo.net/articles/training/dsehdvbook.php
Please forgive me if it sounds like I'm not prepared to do the leg work myself. Right now we are trying to move house, prepare for a new job, leave an old one plus do freelance projects on the side. Even the time taken to write this is at the cost of something else.


forgiven.

[fuddam]

So some additional questions would be

1) Any recommendations on what components I should spend the £1000 on with regard to upgrading the PC. It is very likely I will upgrade to the Premiere Pro 2 suite. I understand that certain graphics cards provide real time editing with Prem Pro 2
you don't want to hear my opinion on this issue, do ya? :D
can realtime edit HDV without any cards, if using partic software & good PC

2) Will the 25P aspect of the Sony V1 provide a benefit here?
no, since not going to have much influence on audience's appreciation of your fine art.

3) If I did shoot in HDV what is the best way to edit on Prem Pro 1.5 or 2, e.g. is their an intermediate codec that allows you to edit faster and eventually convert back to HDV?
cineform's intermediate is highly recommended. found it worked very well for me, when trying the demo. markedly faster than the native HDV, though file size was larger IIRC. converts it to AVI, I think.

4) Given the set up and situations described above is there anything else I should be thinking about?
probably

[dominicwitherow]

With regard to downconversion, I capture everything in HDV, then convert it to DVCPro (DV50) for final viewing. The results are fantastic and from DVCPro you get MUCH better compressed files too (I have been experimenting since seeing your video the other day).

Dominic