HDV

If you have been following my blog, you know that we use a Sony V1U primarily as another DVCAM camera, for most of our shoots. We actually shot a lot of interviews a few weeks ago with our V1 and a rental, in the hopes that matching the two cameras would be easier than trying to match the V1 with a Panasonic camera.

Here is the transcript of a conversation had this week while shooting a surgery:

Doc: So, is that an HD camera?

Me: It shoots HD, but not at the moment. Do you record HD?

Doc: No, the HD scope (medical video camera) doesn't let you record in HD.

Me: Figures. Although you are displaying it on those nice plasma screens in your OR.

Doc: It's nice isn't it.

Me: Not bad, although when you walk right up to the screen it looks kind of grainy.

Doc: What do you think looks better the plasma or the boom mounted LCD?

Recently I experimented with different HD video editing options, to determine if I should shoot an upcoming project in HD or standard def. I concluded that i will stick with standard def for now. 

I installed the Intensity Pro card. This allows for HDMI capture and monitoring of HDV. I do not have an HDMI (or any HD) monitor, so I could not test that part, and from what I observed, without HDMI monitoring, using the Intensity for HD editing is not so useful.

Capturing HDMI HDV to external SATA drive (350 gig 7200rpm seagate)

In our last episode, we experimented with some HDV footage, converted into various formats including WMV HD, P2 and H.264, all with favorable results. The main point of this exercise, in advance of proposing any HD or HDV projects, was to educate myself about the various flavors of HD and HDV, within the confines and limitations of my current setup and gear.

The next day i received a sample WMV HD file from my client. I assume the file was made by a previous production group, however given the range of oddly conceived medical video devices, it could have been the original format, but this is not likely.

I actually found i could import the WMV HD file into Sorenson Squeeze and output just about anything else. The goal in this exercise was standard def FLV. This worked fine and various bit rates produced expected results.

The next test will be to play H.264/MPEG-4 via the latest Flash Player.

My first use of HDV was last year. I shot a friend's wedding with a rented V1U in SD, but then shot some HDV footage to see what it looks like.

On my 19" home CRT computer monitor, it was not too impressive and the YouTube version did little for me except attract YouTube hits:

 http://youtube.com/watch?v=HB_C7PVR0oo

 Next came Oct 2007 when I was asked to rent a HD projector to show some XDCAM recorded surgery in an auditorium. This was surprisingly easy and the results seemed to have more to do with the camera used than anything else.

This week I was asked if I could convert WMV HD files to web video, presumably Flash.

Aside from Microsoft, I have not seen anyone else use WMV HD. COme to think of it, I once purchased the special edition of Terminator 2, which included a WMV HD disc. However due to some odd DRM efforts by Microsoft, I have never gotten it to play, and you cannot view the video outside of the outdated Microsoft player app.

I have read of some COW members giving clients WMV HD files in lieu of a Blu-Ray or HD-DVD disc.

Okay, CC bloggers, I just got a new EZ FX jib for my Z1U. Having never used one before, I thought that a blog exploring how to use a jib would make a useful addition to the blogs. So, any ideas on how to best use the thing? I also have the "pedestal" option, and man it's a beast! I'm using it for the first time this morning, so talk now!! I'm stoked but a little bit out of my league as far as skill on using this thing, so any suggestions would be very welcome. TJ

Before I go into this, if you haven't read Chris Poisson's article here at the Cow on how to capture HDV as ProRes 422 via firewire please do so now.

I'll wait.

Well, it was inevitable. Sooner or later I'd have to work on a project that was shot with an HDV camera. And now here it comes. It will be a "trailer" for a documentary on Shamanism. I say "trailer" with "quotes" because it isn't like a movie trailer...2 min tease of what the movie is about. No, it is a partially shot documentary in need of finishing funds. So I will be cutting a 10 min "mini-doc" (do I love those "quotation marks" or what?) about the subject.

The New York Times reports that Warner Brothers has now lined up in Blu-Ray DVD corner effectively giving the Sony format about 70% of the high definition DVD market. They'll continue to release movies on both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray until May and then switch exclusively over to Blu-Ray. This leaves Universal and Paramount along with Dreamworks as the only major studios backing HD-DVD.

As a production company that had to jump into Blu-Ray production in support of one of our clients, this is welcome news for us. I have to say, if you have not seen Pixar's "Cars" and "Rattatoule" on Blu-Ray disc, you have not seen the true capabilities of Blu-Ray. Jaw dropping is the only way I can describe what these movies look like in HD. Better than what it looked like in the theater.

Full article on the New York Times website.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/05/technology/05disc.html?ex=1200200400&e...

So we've had a lot of discussions on the Final Cut Pro and Apple Color forums about what can we use to replace the current Broadcast CRT monitors that are EOL? I've not been overly impressed with the current crop of LCD monitors out there. My favorite to date, the Panasonic 1700W and 2600W are both good, but cannot completey replace my Sony CRT Broadcast monitor.

So a recent thread in the Creative Cow Final Cut Pro forum about Internal vs. External RAID's got me thinking more about the subject. I'm a firm believer in external RAID's and really don't have any desire to install 3 or 4 drives inside my Mac Pro tower.