Jump to content

Editing HDV


Sandy Thomson

Recommended Posts

I'm shooting mainly S-16 but using a Sony HDR-FX1 for some shots where the portability of video is an asset. I have been transferring the film to HDV and editing it on line with a G5 in FCP together with the video footage. I have not done any transitions or other effects requiring rendering and really will not as I am only doing rough cutting in preparation for our editor. I have had no problems up to now other than some transfer issues on the film side where I was using a two stage transfer process. Howver, one of the labs I work with recenly told me that I can expect to have problems editing the compressed HDV particularily when it comes to rendering. They said that HDV is fine if viewed as it comes from the camera but trying to edit it creats many problems.

If this is true should I be transferring the HDV to another codec for editing?

 

Sandy

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thats the montra that has been pushed around by people who have never had experience with HDV. Its not really a problem. I am doing final clean up work on a 100minute HDV feature movie and we have had a great working experience with the footage. It cuts easily, we can still scrub the timeline, nothing needs to be rendered unless there is an effect added on, and renders finnish quickly. I dont notice the codec causing any problems. the timeline is responsive and snappy. I really cant tell much of a difference between editing DV and HDV, except rendering time is about 2x what DV is.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thats the montra that has been pushed around by people who have never had experience with HDV. Its not really a problem. I am doing final clean up work on a 100minute HDV feature movie and we have had a great working experience with the footage. It cuts easily, we can still scrub the timeline, nothing needs to be rendered unless there is an effect added on, and renders finnish quickly. I dont notice the codec causing any problems. the timeline is responsive and snappy. I really cant tell much of a difference between editing DV and HDV, except rendering time is about 2x what DV is.

 

Many thanks for the response. I have invested a lot in working in this format and have had no problems at all other than the ones one might expect to encounter after returning to a business I left 25 years ago! Mixing film with video was never my intention going in, but the definition of HDV and the 16X9 common aspect ratio seem to make the combination quite compatible.

It's interesting that people who may have a lot of video editing experience with DV feel qualified to project dire warnings about a system they've never worked with.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Premium Member

Hi,

 

A disturbingly large number of high end places take the position that they're qualified to comment on any video system that has ever been or will ever be invented; their advice is to be taken with a pinch of salt, especially when you're asking for something they're not able to do. Yes of course it is possible to edit HDV; does it look as good as HD-D5, of course not, but if you are doing cuts and dissolves it's very much better than DV. People will also tell you priceless things like DVCAM has better resolution than DV and DV doesn't have timecode, which are also untrue.

 

Phil

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Premium Member
Hi,

 

A disturbingly large number of high end places take the position that they're qualified to comment on any video system that has ever been or will ever be invented; their advice is to be taken with a pinch of salt, especially when you're asking for something they're not able to do. Yes of course it is possible to edit HDV; does it look as good as HD-D5, of course not, but if you are doing cuts and dissolves it's very much better than DV. People will also tell you priceless things like DVCAM has better resolution than DV and DV doesn't have timecode, which are also untrue.

 

Phil

How do the contributors to this thread feel about shooting 25fps PAL HDV if planning for a filmout? What's involved in converting 25 fps PAL to 29.97 fps HD and/or SD NTSC if one also wanted to have that route still available for distribution?

 

Yes, DV25 is DV25 no matter how it gets recorded! :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What's involved in converting 25 fps PAL to 29.97 fps HD and/or SD NTSC if one also wanted to have that route still available for distribution?

Converting HDV shot at 50i to NTSC shouldn't be any different than converting SD PAL 50i/25p to NTSC. It's a simple matter of slowing the frame rate from 25 fps to 24 fps (1:1), and then either adding 3:2 pulldown or encoding the video at 24p for DVD. Keep in mind that with this technique, the audio must be pitch corrected when slowed down or it will sound too "deep." I've used this technique a million times and it works great.

 

For transferring to film, you would need a very high quality deinterlacer to fill in the missing fields. Fortunately, I've noticed that deinterlacing HD material works much better than with SD footage. This will absolutely still look better than either 60i NTSC or even true progressive scan SD (NTSC only) transferred to film since only one field of HDV contains more information than one whole frame of SD NTSC.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Premium Member
For transferring to film, you would need a very high quality deinterlacer to fill in the missing fields. Fortunately, I've noticed that deinterlacing HD material works much better than with SD footage. This will absolutely still look better than either 60i NTSC or even true progressive scan SD (NTSC only) transferred to film since only one field of HDV contains more information than one whole frame of SD NTSC.

 

Thomas,

 

Thank you. Is a "high quality deinterlacer" a DIY project or strictly for a good post house or lab?

 

Sincerely,

 

Hal

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Premium Member

Hi,

 

> as the mini-dv timecode can sometimes go off by a frame here and there.

 

How?

 

It's exactly the same system.

 

The only way this is happening is if the post house is writing you off and not bothering to line things up correctly if you ask for miniDV (very likely) or if you have some sort of offset programmed into an NLE or deck somewhere (unlikely).

 

Phil

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Premium Member
People will also tell you priceless things like DVCAM has better resolution than DV and DV doesn't have timecode, which are also untrue.

One exception would be when you have film telecined for creating a precise EDL from offline files. Between these two, I would recommend DVCAM, as the mini-dv timecode can sometimes drift by a frame here and there.

 

I would like to know if anyone has tried using telecine-to-HDV for editing offline 24fps film, and if it's possible to put together a frame-accurate EDL with this format. Thanks.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Is a "high quality deinterlacer" a DIY project or strictly for a good post house or lab?

Generally speaking, there isn't much a good post house can do that you can't do on a PC, as long as you have access to high quality files (i.e. footage scanned / telecined to disk). The only advantage the post house has is speed (thanks to more expensive hardware and drives), but the quality is about the same in the end, despite longer rendering times on a home PC.

 

A couple high quality deinterlacers to try out are Algolith's MAADI and Revision FX's FieldsKit. Both are available as plugins for After Effects or Combustion. They both have the ability to compare frames to figure out the best way to deinterlace the footage, and are both better than After Effects' or Combustion's built-in deinterlace filter.

 

By the way, I don't know what type of deinterlacer is built into a Flame, etc. but these plugins may give you a better result. Don't assume you can get better results out of an expensive system just because it's expensive. <_<

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi,

 

> as the mini-dv timecode can sometimes go off by a frame here and there.

 

How?

 

It's exactly the same system.

 

The only way this is happening is if the post house is writing you off and not bothering to line things up correctly if you ask for miniDV (very likely) or if you have some sort of offset programmed into an NLE or deck somewhere (unlikely).

 

Phil

 

Hiya Phil!

 

I've got a feeling this might be a wierd NTSC thing. NTSC DV uses drop frame timecode whereas PAL doesn't I think. As we are talking PAL here there shouldn't be a problem.

 

I have to say I'm only guessing however, they might be talking about something else. *shrug*

 

love

 

Freya

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Premium Member
Hi,

 

> as the mini-dv timecode can sometimes go off by a frame here and there.

 

How?

 

It's exactly the same system.

 

The only way this is happening is if the post house is writing you off and not bothering to line things up correctly if you ask for miniDV (very likely) or if you have some sort of offset programmed into an NLE or deck somewhere (unlikely).

 

Phil

If you have a timecode burn-in on the frame itself, you will see that the mini-dv timecode will usually, but not always, be exactly in sync (on a NTSC timeline). It's not locked frame for frame, which is really the only significant difference between DVCAM and mini-dv (This is a known functional difference between the two formats). You can find differences in EDLs generated by these two different formats, even with identical footage. I had been warned about this by two major post houses, but insisted that the mini-dv would be fine, until I discovered on my own telecined footage that the warnings did in fact have merit, thus prompting the move to DVCAM, which I had previously resisted. (This has nothing to do with being "written off" by the post house.)

 

Actually, I'd recommend skipping both these formats for editing film, and instead go with something like DVCPro HD with a 24 frame (23.98) timeline. This way, you'll get a more critical look at your footage and focus, and be able to generate a 'cut list' that will be exact.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've got a feeling this might be a wierd NTSC thing. NTSC DV uses drop frame timecode whereas PAL doesn't I think. As we are talking PAL here there shouldn't be a problem.

 

I could be wrong, my understanding of pal is limited, being born in America and very infrequently visiting europe, but I believe Pal is 25fps.

 

 

NTSC is 29.97, which is why drop-frame must be used, every few minutes that .03 of a frame adds up to a whole one. With pal being locked at 25fps, there would be no need to drop a frame ever. At least thats my understanding.

 

I heard NTSC switched from 30fps to 29.97 in 1953 (could beworng on the date) and the reason was to intruduce color. Chormanace is layed over the lumanence field out of phase, so that later they can be seperated. I think the 29.97 has something to do with that chromanence phasing....highly technical explination for something that should have never been invented. I hate NTSC. we are bogged down by the short-sightedness of 1950s engeneers. Did they even have transistors in 53? i think they came in around 56, anyway. Never the same color. This has nothing to do with the timecode debate. regardless weatherr drop code is there or not, to call time code 'true timecode' it must be accurate every single frame. Now for most mini-DV projects its not a huge concern....come on are any of you editting mini-DV from a low res proxie? hahaha any AMD k6-2 350Mhz editors out there? (Be quite naysayers, that was my first adobe premiere 4.2 edit bay I payed for when I was 13, and it could handle 10MB/sec YUV data)

 

the big difference between DVCAM and DV25 is the way it records to tape. I dont think there its techically different, in terms of bitrate or color space or compression sceme, but DVCAM does have more user bits availible, including enough to record full time code on everyframe. DV records it every few frames, and depending on the quality of deck or camera used, it can fall out of sync by a frame or two only to catch up again. DVCAM also has more redundant recordings, to minimize drop out-errors as well. those are the only differences I know of. let me know if I am missing any.

 

Now on to a question I had...I shot a ton of HDV in the sony cine-frame setting. Now the pulldown is complete crap. Totally useless, but I heard the true value of cineframe is pulling the interlaced frames out to get a 25fps video, then slowing that to 24, pitch shifting the audio then adding the pulldown back on. Does anyone have experince doing this? Can anyone recomend a good software program (or better yet after effects or premiere plug in) that can do this? I am premiereing my movie on the 15th of next month, so expident help is much appriciated.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I could be wrong, my understanding of pal is limited, being born in America and very infrequently visiting europe, but I believe Pal is 25fps.

It's not that it's limited -- it's just a trade-off. PAL DV is 25 fps instead of 30 fps with NTSC, but you get about 100 more lines of information per frame with PAL (720x576 PAL vs. 720x480 NTSC). Plus, there's no such thing as "phase" or "hue" on a PAL television.

 

The PAL standard is newer than NTSC, and much more popular around the globe.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's not that it's limited -- it's just a trade-off.
I wasnt refering to Pals capabilities, just my understanding of Pal. What I know i learned how it correlates to NTSC. I actually have nothing mroe than limited accedemic knowledge of PALS workings. thats what I was saying.

 

 

How does it not have a hue? I understand the chromanence is not phased in on top of the lumenece, and so a true hue/phase potentiometer is unessicary, but do phosphors not shift in reponse? are you telling me there is absolutley no need for a hue on any PAL television? If so I like it already. We got screwed with NTSC. backwards engeneers.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I wasnt refering to Pals capabilities, just my understanding of Pal. What I know i learned how it correlates to NTSC. I actually have nothing mroe than limited accedemic knowledge of PALS workings. thats what I was saying.

How does it not have a hue? I understand the chromanence is not phased in on top of the lumenece, and so a true hue/phase potentiometer is unessicary, but do phosphors not shift in reponse? are you telling me there is absolutley no need for a hue on any PAL television? If so I like it already. We got screwed with NTSC. backwards engeneers.

 

The reason that PAL does not have a hue shift/button lies in the way the signal is created. PAL means Phase Alternate Line. The luminance (B&W signal) is overlaid with a sine wave. The phase difference with a refernce signal (this is the colourburst before the luminance signal ) the height of the sinewave determines the saturation (done to make the signal backwards compatible for B&W tv's.

 

Noe the trick is that for every other transmitted line the sinewave changes phase, end therefore any shifts caused by atmospheric interference will be cancelled out per pair of lines when the phase is reversed in polarity for the hue to be recovered. As these lines are very close together the difference gets averaged out. Our eyes are much more sensitive to luminance than chrominance, so small errors like this (smaller than NTSC at least) are impercebtible. Add to that the 100 extra lines 720x576. The 25fps temporal resolution is a small trade off, and most people like to emulate the film look anyway..

 

Also a point aside. I'd like to point out that for an interlaced signal the kell factor determines that the maximum resolution is 2/3 of the line res. ie: 1080i = 2/3 * 1080 = 712.3 lines. I'm getting pretty tired of people going for the numbers game. maybe they should buy a HVX200. I hear their CCD's have lots of pixels....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

Could you suggest any high - quality deinterlacer that I can use when editing with Final Cut Pro 5? I have heard about Magic Bullet, is this a software or a plugin? What do I actually need to deinterlace my material shot on 50i on my FCP5?

 

Thanks

 

LJ

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...