I'm looking into a new system and I'm having a little problem working out what I need to do to preview HDV on an external monitor.

I'm still open to options.

Out of interest: I found this useful link that may be of interest to some:

HDV DVD Z1 HDV mini DV Z1 HDV hire HDV editing

Here's where I'm struggling though.

I want to run two 20" (ish) monitors and preview on an external HDV monitor (for price reasons this will just be an HDV ready TV).

For price reasons this will also be done on a PC so I'll be sticking with Premiere Pro.

I'm looking at a 512MB Radeon HD 2900XT PCI Express graphics card with two DVI-I ports and VIVO

I looked into VIVO and found this on wikipedia:

Video In Video Out, usually seen as the acronym VIVO (commonly pronounced vee-voh), is a graphics card port which enables some video cards to have bidirectional (input and output) video transfer through a Mini-DIN connector and a specialized splitter cable.

VIVO is found predominantly on high end ATI video cards, although few high end NVIDIA video cards have this port as well. VIVO on these graphics cards typically support composite, S-Video, and Component as outputs and composite and S-Video as inputs. Many other video cards only support component and/or S-Video outputs to compliment VGA or DVI. It should be noted that while the component out signals support high definition resolutions, it does not support the HDCP standard which would be required for official HDTV support as set out by the EICTA. Also, a person using VIVO must have software that can display the input signal.

Some practical uses of VIVO include being able to display what's on your computer (including downloaded/recorded tv shows & movies) on a TV and being able to connect a DVD player or video game console to your computer and allow viewing via monitor. Note that VIVO cannot receive radio signals (either from an antenna or cable), and much like tunerless HDTV sets and composite monitors, there must be additional equipment to watch television programs.

The question is: Can I run this card with Premiere Pro and preview the video on an external HDV ready TV through VIVO. If not any ideas what I need?

I've also been looking at camera's and need a camera that records both NTSC and PAL.

I recon it'll be the Sony HVR Z1E but I've also been reading that the HVR V1E (I don't think it does both NTSC and PAL though) has an HDV out port that can connect straight to an HDV TV.

Could this be used as an intermediate between PC via firewire and HDV TV in the same way as MINI DV camea and an SD TV can for previewing?

Thanks,

David.

HDV is HDV no matter which side of 'the pond' you are. There is no NTSC/PAL issues unless you set your camera to record in SD... but then, why buy it if you do that?

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Because some projects I'll be working on soon have been requested in NTSC SD specifiacations. There will be enough of them to warrent buying a camera with an NTSC option.

I'm thinking if it's possibly to use the HVR V1E as an intermediate to previewing it may be worth just converting in post production though. If anyone knows if this would work the information would be apreciated.

David.

You just brought something to my attention Alan.

I've been under the impression that HDV is the same everywhere in the world, is this really true though. HD uses square pixels I believe, and HDV doesn't. Are the pixel ratios definately the same? And frame rates, I haven't came accross anywhere stating a specific frame rate, is the US still 60i and here 50i

How is this dealt with?

David.

Might be best to record in HDV with the Z1 and downconvert to either PAL or NTSC as required using something like Procoder or Cineforms Aspect HD or NEO.
Ideally you would record in 1080 50i for PAL and 1080 60i for NTSC to avoid frame-rate conversion. HDV is an anamorphic format, recording in 1440x1080, which is squished out to the equivalent of 1920x1080 on playback, so the pixels are not square.

The UK version of the Z1 will downconvert an HDV recording to PAL on playback, but I believe you'd need the US version of the Z1 to do NTSC.

I've not heard of VIVO before, but if delivers component video at HD resolution then you should be able to feed your HDTV from it, but make sure that you can set the VIVO component output resolution indendently of the other two PC monitors, otherwise your second monitor and your HDTV may well have to run at the same resolution, which may not be ideal.

This should allow you to view the Premiere timeline in HD, as long as you can direct the video overlay to the VIVO output, but it will not let you monitor decoded HDV footage during capture - you'll need something like Adobe OnLocation that comes with Premiere Pro CS3. or some extra hardware for that.

Alternatively, if you want to lose one of the PC monitors, most graphics cards will drive two monitors with different resolutions, and if you get one with DVI-D ports you can get a DVI-D to HDMI adaptor for your HDTV (assuming it has HDMI inputs).

Thankyou very much, still abit of research to be done it seems, but I'm going in the right direction now.

I'd assumed the Z1 would downconvert to both PAL and NTSC, it doesn't rule the camera out, but it's a bit of a pain.

Losing one of the monitors at certain times could be a possibilty, I'd prefer not to though.

Thanks again.

David.

As I understand it HD will be 1920 x 1080 pixels and they will be square. HDV is 1440x1080 and are not square.

There are more differences than that but regarding aspect ratios then there you have it.

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I'm not young enough to know everything!