Intercutting HD and SD material?

Question

Intercutting HD and SD material?

Greetings,

I found a brief thread about intercutting SD footage into an DVCproHD timeline, but have some more specific questions. Here's the archived thread below:

http://discussions.apple.com/click.jspa?searchID=-1&messageID=1637978

Firstly, the archived thread above mentions simply capturing the footage with the corresponding codec. Is this correct or even possible? Can you capture mini-DV footage through a firewire deck with communication/machine control @ DVCproHD 720/24p to match the SD DV footage to the P2-acquired DVCproHD 720p/24 material?

We don't really have the option of 'up-rezing' the SD footage to HD at this time, though it may be something we can acquire in the future, so I don't have the immediate option of a hardware or software based solution, but I've heard good things about Red Giant's Instand HD.

The project in question will probably be finished in SD anyway, so would a solution be to use the media manager to make NTSC-DV clips from the original DVCproHD clips? What about the funcionality of the high-speed playback when doing a down-convert like this? Some material was shot at 48 and 60 fps and plays back at the slow motion speed in the 720p/24 DVCproHD timeline, but will we lose this during a down-convert to work in a regular NTSC DV timeline?

Thanks for the help.

Dual 2Ghz G5 (2nd Gen) 2G Ram Mac OS X (10.4.7)

Posted on Nov 29, 2006 7:11 AM

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Answer 1

dMerc

Level 2

345 points

Nov 29, 2006 7:48 AM in response to Chris Ratledge

I usually just capture whatever I with the native codec and depending on what I have more of render in the timeline.

That is, if I have a ton of SD and a few HD clips to include I'll make an SD timeline and render the HD stuff. If there is more HD then I'll render the SD stuff in the HD timeline.

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Answer 2

Shane Ross

Level 8

43,110 points

Nov 29, 2006 7:53 AM in response to Chris Ratledge

Firstly, the archived thread above mentions simply capturing the footage with the corresponding codec. Is this correct or even possible?

If it weren't possible, we wouldn't mention it as a possibility.

This is what we are doing on the show I am working on now....which is why I make all the suggestions I do in that thread.

Can you capture mini-DV footage through a firewire deck with communication/machine control @ DVCproHD 720/24p to match the SD DV footage to the P2-acquired DVCproHD 720p/24 material?

IF you rent a DVCPRO HD deck like the AJ-HD1200 or HD1400 you can upconvert DV to DVCPRO HD and have it do a center extraction. By that I mean it will cut off the top and bottom of the DV 4:3 frame to fit into the 16:9 frame. Or if you get a Kona 3 you can capture from a DV deck with SDI out you can capture with a center extraction, or as Pillarboxed, black on the sides, and you can then frame the image how you like.

You can use Instant HD, or even Compressor ( http://proapptips.com/tips/article.php?story=20061003052011208)...however, if you have a LOT of footage, say more that 50% of your project, it might be wise to look into a capture card. Media Manager is not the way to do this..it cannot upconvert.

ome material was shot at 48 and 60 fps and plays back at the slow motion speed in the 720p/24 DVCproHD timeline, but will we lose this during a down-convert to work in a regular NTSC DV timeline?

Yes, if you downconvert the footage you lose the ability to do slow motion. Your best option would be to edit it all in an HD timeline then downconvert when you are done. Again, a capture card like the Kona 3 (and kona LH) can do this.

Shane

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Answer 3

Nov 29, 2006 3:07 PM in response to Shane Ross

If it weren't possible, we wouldn't mention it as a possibility.
This is what we are doing on the show I am working on now....which is why I make all the suggestions I do in that thread

Thanks for the clarification.

IF you rent a DVCPRO HD deck...Or if you get a Kona 3....it might be wise to look into a capture card.

Thank you, but these options are impossible at this time. This is in an institutional setting that needs a relatively simple solution immediately, so thanks for the compressor tutorial, we'll try this with our current project.

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