Death and Tuxes

August 1, 2005 11:42 AM

I am going to be editing HDTV footage on a PC. Assuming I can figure out how the 'ell to do this.

My wedding gift to my sister is to transform her raw wedding footage into a video. The videographer that is to shoot the wedding offered the option of shooting in HDTV mode (He has one of these new prosumer cameras that allow both HD and regular resolutions). I want to go for it.

For the foreseeable future, the project would be captured (downsampled), edited, output at 480x720. (It would be letterboxed in NTSC.)

Why not just suck it up and shoot in normal MiniDV mode? I am hoping that it will be worth the hassle of converting etc. in order to fire it up years from now, recapture and reoutput at full HD res in 10 years (when everyone owns jetpacks and 45inch HDTVs).

I am interested in making this work with a hardware setup as close as possible to my current one. I have a Sony Vaio, 2.8 ghertz donuts, 1gb ram, firewire. I also have an external usb 160gb, 7200rpm hd. I have an external LCD monitor that can manage 1600X1200.

Will my hardware setup be adequate? What software have people had good experiences editing with? What software will allow me to convert HDTV to NTSC? Should I do this step separately, to avoid having to purchase an expensive editing suite just for that one step? Should I try to capture on a friend's mac using Final Cut Pro (I understand that has more support for HD)?

posted by BleachBypass to computers & internet (9 comments total)

I talked to a friend in the film industry and he told me that it is incredibly hard to shoot and edit in HD, few are able to do it well and make it look good.

With that said, I asked him specifically if he had trouble editing HD. He has a top of the line Apple he uses (G5? I have no idea what it is up to now), and says he has no trouble editing HD as the camera he uses -- and every camera he has used -- downsamples to the Mac to make it manageable and the editing actually takes place on the camera itself. He says for him its all seamless (using again production quality software, which I'm sure you can get at less prices than he payed for).

So I guess to answer your question, if I were you I'd try it out and see what the system is setup for. From my industry friend, it sounds like a general HD setup compensates for hardware limitations by using the camera to bring down the resolution before it even hits the computer. I'd try that out first and it may be you have no problems what so ever.
posted by geoff. at 11:59 AM on August 1, 2005

Check with your guy if his prosumer camera is a single CCD camera (some of the new 24p prosumers are). Despite the higher pixel capture, a single CCD camera is going to make a poor show of it in the typically bad-for-photography lighting environments of a wedding ceremony and reception, and it will be necessary -- particularly to have a good 720p picture ten years down the line -- to have a good lighting set up.
posted by MattD at 12:18 PM on August 1, 2005

http://www.avid.com/products/xpressStudio/

Take a look at this. Avid Xpress Pro can handle HD. Good luck - you have a hell of a job in front of you. Your PC is probably new enough it can handle it. The harddrive might be a little slow (video editing is one of the places where 10k or 15k RPM drives are actually nice), but you should be good.

As was said above though, I really don't think its worth the hassle. Shoot in MiniDV, edit cleanly, and you'll still have something fun in 10 years.
posted by devilsbrigade at 12:27 PM on August 1, 2005

whatever you do, i suggest doing your editing with vegas. i've used it for a million projects and it blows away everything else i've tried (including the overpriced/overreated final cut pro). and it'll be able to work with whatever format you throw at it.
posted by subclub at 12:35 PM on August 1, 2005

BleachBypass (great name - I take it you work in some level of developing or love of film?. You can skip most of this and go right to Method 2a. This will work today, with little to no headache and make you a hero.

MattD - it's not as straightforward, for the the low res that video is, the one camera on the market that is one CCD...it's CCD is huge (I think 1"). What will matter is how well/poorly it's shot and the frame rate.

Devilsbrigade - Xpro is excellent...but HDV isn't delivered yet as a solution. End of the year.

Subclub is right - Vegas is very good...but not so mature of an editor as an audio tool (where it is very good). You'll need to get the plugin that allows it to work in HDV.

HDV is a Long form MPEG-2 (HIGHLY compressed stream) captured on traditional DV tapes. Could be any of two different sizes and three different frame rates (well, technically six)
DV is an I frame based (5:1 compressed) signal, and run at 30 fps (30 interlaced frames, or 29.97 for you sticklers).

1) You can either work using downconverts from the HDV...and try to conform later
2) You can work entirely in HDV and downconvert the DVD as a finished product.

The beauty of #2, is that when HD DVD's catch up..it'll be easy to just make an HD DVD from the raw master.

Method #1 - PC solution (you could deal with this on mac...but the PC solution is the harder one here.)
You didn't mention what software, so I'll talk in generalities.

You'll downconvert everything to DV. Now you don't need the HDV camera any more.
Take a regular DV deck/camera (that has inputs) and plug it into the HD camera.
Ugh, I just realized, that the Timecode won't clone, as you'd need the sony deck that's out there (and a second DV deck to clone to.)

My realization is this: you can't 'conform' easily without timecode matching. You'd have to figure out for each tape the unique mathematical difference between the downconverted tape and it's original.

Then years from now, you'd have to use the same editing system to have it recall all your cuts.

Delivery isn't so clear cut - you'd need a compressor that knock it down to SD MPEG-2 as well. And for DVD authoring once it's SD, it should be easy.

Method 2 - FCP
Apple has a beautiful (albeit requiring a powerful machine) setup for this.
Capture HDV from the camera. Edit (preview in NTSC using the camera). Finish.
Create the DVD using DVDSP4 which can handle HD, and author a SD DVD.
Take the whole HD where the media is, put it on a shelf and pull it down years from now when she buys an HD DVD player and make the HD DVD.

Method 2a. the method I suggest!

Don't care about learning all of that...there's a small hit in quality
iMovie + iDVD (the latest, cost ~$50, no manual needed) will handle HD.
Edit in iMovie, author in iDVD, give your sister a present. This will be an SD DVD, but displayed correctly. Later, when HD DVD are prevalent, you can take the raw imovie project and either iDVD will be up to speed or take it to DVD SP.

Again, I'm suggesting using the iApps if you're a novice and the Pro Apple apps if you're an expert.
Vegas is an alternative, but will have a harder learning curve and it's DVD workflow isn't as strong.
posted by filmgeek at 12:52 PM on August 1, 2005

Yes, you really want to think about this before you jump in. HD files are much larger to work with and can slow your system down very quickly. There are also some strange formatting issues that come with the deal: manageable if you know a lot about video and potentially project-killing if you don't.(See filmgeek's comment for details)

Having said that, you can "copy" some of the system requirements for "turnkey" HD systems, such as these. Most people will tell you that anything short of a Intel Pentium 4 processor at 3 GHz is asking for trouble.

For the PC software, you could also try Premiere Pro for your HD editing needs.
posted by jeremias at 1:03 PM on August 1, 2005

Thanks, this gives me a lot to chew on - a lot of "Best" answers.

It will be outside close to the "golden hour," so I think there is a good possibility of the lighting turning out well. And the videographer is a documentarian I have known for some time, and I trust his aesthetic sense pretty well.

I have experience in Avid, but heard FCP had come a long way since I last toyed with it. I'll have to take a look at Vegas, too.

This makes me realize I should investigate the exact specs of his system further, and inquire as to the frame rates, etc. that he intends to use.

Thanks again, everyone.
posted by BleachBypass at 1:55 PM on August 1, 2005

BB, feel free to contact me (as you don't have your addy in your mefi profile.) I speak/teach professionally about avid, fcp, hd + hd workflows.
posted by filmgeek at 2:04 PM on August 1, 2005

If you have access to premiere, you can download the HDV plug here and edit natively. I have done this on slower computers than yours but with more ram. The file sizes really arent much bigger than SD DV, and are limited by using the same 25mbs DV tape, so your 7200 RPM hard drive should work fine.
posted by ryanissuper at 2:12 PM on August 1, 2005