A FEW QUESTIONS ON SHOOTING & EDITING HDV

[Dominic I]

I have a large corporate job in the pipeline and would like "future proof it" by shooting on a Pro HD camera like the Sony HDW 730S (optex rent them out) in place of the DSR300/500 that i would normally use for a shoot like this.

My plan is to shoot and possibly edit HD then output to DVcam. Then if a higher quality version is needed in the future i can bring the footage back in and output to HD

I have a few questions

1. Am i right in thinking that Prem Pro 1.5 supports HD + does the Storm 2 support the editing of HD.

2. Can i play in HD via firewire into the
storm 2 without loss of quality (or would i have to use SDI)

3. Will a full size DVcam deck (Pana DV2700) play HD tapes in SD mode, or will it not play them at all?

4. If i edit in HD will my HDD's that are normally used for DV be up to it(250gb 7200 8mb etc)or does the increas in data rate only apply to SDI input'ed footage, and not as i think the down converted consumer HD.


Any help would be great

Regards

Dominic Irving

[Richard Payne]

1. Am i right in thinking that Prem Pro 1.5 supports HD + does the Storm 2 support the editing of HD.

Premiere Pro with the correct hardware will support it (Black Magic Decklink make something)
also you will need a very fast and big raid array. A Storm will not support HD in any way.

2. Can i play in HD via firewire into the
storm 2 without loss of quality (or would i have to use SDI)

No Storm is SD only

3. Will a full size DVcam deck (Pana DV2700) play HD tapes in SD mode, or will it not play them at all?

No not at all

4. If i edit in HD will my HDD's that are normally used for DV be up to it(250gb 7200 8mb etc)or does the increas in data rate only apply to SDI input'ed footage, and not as i think the down converted consumer HD.

I think you might be a little confused about the relationship between full on HD and 'Consumerish' HDV. HDV can be sent through FireWire and in native MPEG2 takes up the same same HD Space as DV (4mins Per GB). A Storm will not take HDV.

HD Cam will only be transfered via SDI as far as I know. Data rates are way too high for standard Hard Drives. Specialist Raid arrays are needed. There is nothing I am aware of that will convert HD to HDV but HDCAM can be downsampled and edited SD, and you keep the EDL and Rushes so you could make an HD master later.

Hope this helps.

[Dominic I]

Thanks for that, it clears up alot of things in one go.

It would appear that i have only one option if i wish to shoot using True HD and edit in SD but be able to use the EDL in the future, that is:

Get an HD player and an SD DVcam player(a pro one that supports writable time code from the HD deck).
Copy from one deck to the other using Component (or possably SDI).
I cant see there being an noticable quality loss on the SD cloned tape over that of a camera shot tape in DVcam.
It's a bit of a long winded route to go but would "future proof" me for later on, as i'm not keen to invest in HD equipment just yet.

What do you think of this??

Regards

Dominic

[Richard Payne]

Because of the cost of HD players it might be an idea to let a facilities company do the HD>DVSD conversion for you. In order to have the same TimeCode as the rushes you will need the copies to be on DVCAM . There are some high end Sony DVCAM decks with SDI input so this should be possible (If a little expensive).

Have you thought of shooting HDV instead? It would considerably reduce the cost, you could probably buy the equipment for the same cost as renting !