Canon HDV cam shoots 1920 x 1080 but FCP HDV capture is 1440 x 1080?

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Level 1

19 points

Canon HDV cam shoots 1920 x 1080 but FCP HDV capture is 1440 x 1080?

I bought Final Cut Pro 7 last year, at the same time as I bought the Canon Vixia HV30, an HDV camcorder & my MacBook Pro 17". At the time I called tech support for FCP and they recommended I capture and edit in HDV native, using the HDV-1080i sequence preset and the HDV capture preset. It wasn't until later that I realized that the presets are both for 1440 x 1080, not 1920.

Is there a better/higher quality protocol for capture/editing HDV footage? Am I losing resolution, and am I also changing the format slightly from the resolution on my tape? Is 1440 x 1080 the same 16:9 size as 1920 x 1080?

I generally capture the whole 1 hr tape, so I do use up a lot of harddrive space when I edit, and my laptop is a 2.93 ghz intel duo, not super fast but not bad either. To maintain the HD quality I plan to output to Blueray disks, eventually, but I haven't bought a burner yet.

Thank you for advice.

Macbook Pro 17", Mac OS X (10.5.8), FCP 7, Motion 4

Posted on Nov 30, 2010 11:43 AM

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Answer 1

Tom Wolsky

Level 10

150,986 points

Nov 30, 2010 11:45 AM in response to Amy Jenkins

1440x1080 is the anamorphic form of 1920x1080. It's the format that HDV uses.

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Answer 2

Amy Jenkins Author

Level 1

19 points

Nov 30, 2010 12:12 PM in response to Tom Wolsky

Can you explain a little further, please? Is the resolution/format identical, or is it "corrected" on output? Thank you.

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Answer 3

Tom Wolsky

Level 10

150,986 points

Nov 30, 2010 12:20 PM in response to Amy Jenkins

Canon HDV cam shoots 1920 x 1080

Let's start with this. Your camera doesn't shoot 1920. It shoots 1440. That's the HDV spec. The video is displayed as 1920x1080.

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Answer 4

Jim Cookman

Level 7

23,435 points

Nov 30, 2010 2:18 PM in response to Amy Jenkins

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Answer 5

Nov 30, 2010 1:36 PM in response to Jim Cookman

With all due respect to Mr. Wolsky (I love your books), your HV30 does "shoot" 1920x1080 and you can display this through the HDMI or component outputs directly. In fact, the image sensor is capable of creating a 2048x1536 still image. What you are observing is the first step of compression when "recording" to HDV tape. The HDV tape recording spec only allows 1440x1080 to be recorded to tape, so, the camera squeezes the image horizontally to 1440 width before recording. This anamorphic signal has a 'flag' imbedded to tell the playback software to stretch the image back to 1920 for display.

Depending on how many filters or transitions (renders) you plan to use in your projects, you may want to consider capturing to Apple ProRes or use your HDV captures in a Apple ProRes sequence. HDV is a better acquisition codec than editing codec.

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Answer 6

Tom Wolsky

Level 10

150,986 points

Nov 30, 2010 1:55 PM in response to David Kuhnen

Are you in marketing?

Fine, the camera is capable of feeding a 1920x1080 signal from its sensor. That signal is not HDV. The camera is not capable of recording a 1920x1080 signal using the HDV specification. The media is being captured in FCP from the tape not from the HDMI output. The tape is not recorded in 1920x1080.

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Answer 7

Nov 30, 2010 1:57 PM in response to Tom Wolsky

Isn't that what I said?

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Answer 8

Tom Wolsky

Level 10

150,986 points

Nov 30, 2010 2:06 PM in response to David Kuhnen

So what was the point of your previous message? A discussion about the meaning of the word "shoots"?

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Answer 9

Amy Jenkins Author

Level 1

19 points

Nov 30, 2010 2:10 PM in response to David Kuhnen

Thank you both for clarifying.

David says: "Depending on how many filters or transitions (renders) you plan to use in your projects, you may want to consider capturing to Apple ProRes or use your HDV captures in a Apple ProRes sequence. HDV is a better acquisition codec than editing codec."

I use quite a lot of slow motion in my edits, and as I mentioned usually capture the whole 1 hour tape and then edit down. Given this, is Pro Res the way to go? What are the advantages over editing in HDV native, particularly in the visuals?

Thank you again.

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Answer 10

Nov 30, 2010 2:20 PM in response to Tom Wolsky

Well, if we want to drag this out, I was making a distinction between what the camera is a capable of producing and the limitations of recording to HDV tape. Along with that, a more detailed explanation of why the OP is seeing a 1440 x 1080 spec when she expected a 1920 x 1080.

I also tried to answer the OPs question about "a better/higher quality protocol for capture/editing HDV footage"

My apologies for any misinformation or misdirection.

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Answer 11

Nov 30, 2010 2:47 PM in response to Amy Jenkins

Amy, to answer your last question, HDV is a rather heavy-handed compression format. Every time you render using HDV, you are compounding that compression (re-compressing) and the defects that may come with it.

Capturing in HDV and editing in ProRes will require more rendering, but you will be rendering to a much higher quality codec, so your image(s) will degrade less.

If you capture to Apple ProRes and edit in ProRes, the quality will essentially be the same as HDV in a ProRes sequence, but there will be less rendering and larger files.

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Answer 12

Studio X

Level 7

27,229 points

Nov 30, 2010 2:51 PM in response to David Kuhnen

capture to Apple ProRes and edit in ProRes

This is the way to go particularly if you are headed on a more complex post production path (eg Color, Shake, etc). Even if you are not, you will be working with an all I frame codec and FCP will be a happier camper.

x

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Answer 13

Amy Jenkins Author

Level 1

19 points

Nov 30, 2010 7:28 PM in response to Studio X

Excellent advice from all, thank you!

So far I have been capturing in HDV and editing in HDV sequence but I did have my rendering set for ProRes, if that makes sense. I haven't tried editing in ProRes with HDV captured material (I'm midstream in a project that was captured in HDV) so that will have to be my next step. If you edit HDV-captured material in a ProRes sequence, does every clip you put in the timeline need rendering?

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Answer 14

Nov 30, 2010 7:36 PM in response to Amy Jenkins

Depending on the power/speed of your computer, you will likley have real-time playback capability but possibly at a reduced resolution.

For full resolution playback and export, yes, every HDV clip will have to be rendered which is essentially converting each clip to ProRes.

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