hdv editing

tomdeane · #1 (**permalink**) 10-07-2006, 11:10 AM

hi there,

im thinking of buying a hdv camera, maybe sony a1 - but dont really understand the whole hdv editing thing. i have adobe premiere pro 2.

i have a pc that is windows xp, intel pentium 4 CPU 3GHZ, 1GB RAM, 150GB Hard drive. i am thinking about getting an external second hard drive, but dont know what sort to get (usb or firewire) and how many GB i need?

also, how long does a hdv tape record for? is it 1 hour like a standard mini dv tape?

with my pc what would i need to upgrade to edit HDV footage? and once i have the footage can i write it to dvd? or will that make the quality the same as normal mini dv? i dont really understand how it all works

any advice or help would be great

Mark W · #2 (**permalink**) 10-08-2006, 03:10 PM

First thing... why do you want an hvd camera, sounds to me like you would be better off with a decent sd camera. If you are mainly going to make dvds then the quality you get is vastly less than hdv and slightly less than sd, ie an ordinary dv camera.

If you have a 'hd ready' telly you can realise the quality by recording what you edit back to the tape and watching off the camera. Remember hdv is still quite a young technology and untill we can make and view hd dvd discs it may be hard to justify for many, you may find you rarely get anything out of the hvd bit of your camera.

I should think your pc is fast enough to edit hdv, just... I think dual core is generally reccomended for hdv editing.

There again all hdv cameras are very good sd cameras too so I suppose you cant really lose.

tomdeane · #3 (**permalink**) 10-08-2006, 10:55 PM

i want a camera that does hdv cos in a couple of years time when technology gets better and IF hd becomes the norm i dont wanna have to buy another camera!

i got an hd ready tv, so could watch it through the camera on my tele. but when hd dvd's come about surely i could put my footage on them couldnt i?

does the speed of your computer reflect the quality of the finished film or just the speed that it does anything?

Mark W · #4 (**permalink**) 10-08-2006, 11:57 PM

Yes, once we all have the hardware / software required we will all no doubt be gleefully turning out hd dvd discs - once we can afford all the stuff.

I expect it will be a year or two befor prices for writers and media are near current sd prices. I dont think you can even buy a hd dvd writer at present- can you ? Anyone know?

miwhel · #5 (**permalink**) 10-09-2006, 04:02 PM

HDV is not the same as HD.

HDV is a compression codec developed to allow 1 hr of hi res video to fit on a 1 hr mini DV tape. Premiere pro 2 will happily edit HDV but anything other than cuts and transitions will be a clunky experience, the PC rescourses required are hi and ppro2 is already a rescourse hog. Your pc will probably require a hefty upgrade if you wish to make it slightly more enjoyable.

The HDV codec is an MPEG stream that relies on keyframes and a number of frames before and after, if you have drop out when writing to tape then this will last about half a sec as opposed to 1/25 of a second for DV-AVI.

If you are unable to edit HDV then most HDV cams are switchable, so you could shoot DV until you were able to upgrade the PC.

As Mark says DVD is slightly lower quality than DV because of the huge compression required to get the video to fit on a disc. If you have a Media center then edited HDV video could be played back through that to an HD ready TV, but these are not true 1080 HD and some will not playback 1080 HD so the video might have to be output to 720 HD for the TV to display it.

There are a lot of reasons not to go HD/HDV just yet, but there are certainly more options on the way.

GTWCMT · #6 (**permalink**) 10-14-2006, 03:46 AM

If you go to the Adobe premier pro website and click system requirements, you will see the computer specifications.

With what you said about HDV and not wanting to upgrade, as other have said HDV is young and you will see advances made which will give yo a better quality and other improvments.

Camera CCD's though currently mainly Cmos in alot of cameras, is going to see a new SCCD3 (model not 3X ccd) which will give alot better quality than is currently available. HD will become alot bigger than its current 1080 line and will proberly move to more like 2500 lines.

With that said, it could be a few years away and you could always be chasing the next best thing.
Blue ray is available, but not for domestic DVD players so its a bit of a waste, you will be looking at dual layer to get high quality on to disc, I am not versed with the up and comming disc burning and DVD production software, so you will need to look into that.

Mark W · #7 (**permalink**) 10-14-2006, 02:18 PM

Er, sorry,

The vast majority of cameras use a CCD as a sensor, not a cmos chip, although a few of the newer cameras are sporting cmos.

DV as a standard started in 1996 and has a lot of life left in it yet. HDV has only just got started and will be around for a long time to come. It is very unlikely that we will see any increase in resoloutions on cameras and nowhere in any reliable sources will you see that suggested except in the far off future.

HDV will be with us fir a long time to come and equipment purchased now will not become obselete for a long long time.