HDV footage should be edited in ProRes timeline for DVD?

My HDV footage was already captured and I usually edit in an HDV timeline and export a HDV SCQT for use in compressor. I've seen some posts and also read Ken Stones article on capturing HDV in ProRes and editing in a ProRes timeline but what if my footage is already captured?

Thanks
EArl W.

Just choose (or you might have to create) a ProRes Easy Setup that matches your raster size and frame rate. If your system is capable of throwing ProRes around at all, you'll be able to play back a single stream of HDV in a ProRes timeline at full quality.

Everything will technically need rendering before it goes out, but rendering ProRes is so much faster than conforming and rendering HDV that you'll barely notice.

Capturing as ProRes is not recommended, at least not by me, because you can't log-and-capture and because it's a big waste of space if you have a high shooting ratio.

Thank you Jeff, I've downloaded some Easy set-ups from Ken's tutorial so I'm assuming one of those may work. My system is a 2 x 3 Ghz Quad-Core Intel Mac Pro with 6 GB RAM but I'm just using my interanal SATAs (stripped together). Just to be clear, I want to use the Pro Res timeline and ProRes SCQT to improve effects quality as well as have a better looking DVD?

Thanks
EArl W.

Phrases like "improved quality" and "better looking" are difficult, because they're so subjective. Your footage will never look better than what was recorded on the tape. You might be able to change it creatively, through color correction or what have you, but simply rendering it on a ProRes timeline won't make it look any better.

What you'll give up forever by moving to ProRes is the ridiculously long render-and-conform times of HDV, plus the second compression hit you get when exporting footage in HDV format.

Thanks for the help, I will try the ProRes timeline and export method for my next HDV to DVD project.

Thanks again
EArl W.

If you already have HDV in the timeline, I have this.

[www.kenstone.net]

--ken

Hey Jeff, I'm still trying to figure this out...please bear with me

You are capturing footage in HDV format, like I am already doing, but you are placing it on a ProRes timeline of similar proportions (HDV 1080i60 goes to ProRes 1440x1080 60i)?

When I do that, if I place an HDV clip on the timeline (and don't change the timeline to match clip settings), the clip will go down there, but everything has the green render bar...or whatever that's called. Say I have an hour long show that requires very little editing...I still have to render the entire hour long sequence? Whereas if I'm in an HDV sequence, I will only have to render any edits that involve filters, speed, or transitions.

Is that right? Seems like that would take a lot longer with rendering, especially since the HDV sequence requires very little.

Or is that a case where you edit on an HDV timeline and do the ProRes QT export (which I never heard of doing until today)?

I read Ken Stone's article about how to get better SD DVDs out of an HDV source...that may explain why I don't like the way my HDV footage edited on my HDV timeline doesn't look good in Compressor, and why my Print to Video/DVD Recorder option looks better, but it sounds like doing the ProRes QT export is even better.

I'm still very confused!

Thanks much!!!
Casey

I said this somewhere on here really recently, but I can't remember where, so I might be repeating myself: For a while I was doing simple shows (no graphics or titles) in a 1440x1080 ProRes timeline, but now I don't bother any more. Going to 1920 doesn't slow me down, and it makes life simpler, so that's what I use.

The price you pay for using HDV isn't the render time; it's the conform time and quality. It can take hours to conform an HDV timeline with a lot of cuts in it. Plus, that conform imposes another compression hit. B- and P-frames have to be decoded and converted to I-frames, but what's even worse is that I-frames have to be converted to B- or P-frames. Unless you get incredibly lucky and land some of the clips on your timeline in just the right spot so GOPs can be reused whole, Final Cut will have to recompress your whole show on export, to a format that you only used for acquisition.

Hmm. I'm trying it on a 30 minute edit I did, and at the rate it's going, it's going to take several hours to render on a ProRes timeline, what took 20 minutes originally on my HDV timeline. I must still be doing something wrong, right??? I tried copying the clips off my HDV timeline onto a ProRes timeline of similar proportions.

What do you mean "going to 1920"??

I understand about the I-frames, the B- and P-frames having to be converted, and all that.

Time and speed is a big issue for what I'm doing, and I can't always say "I'll render that overnight". I understand there is a slight quality difference, but I don't know if I can justify the time it takes to achieve it (that's going under the assumtion that I'm doing it correctly).

Thanks!!!
Casey

I'm ashamed to say I used to edit HDV natively. The only reason to edit HDV natively is if you need to print to HDV tape - which was how we passed the program along to the DVD vendor.

If you don't have to deliver the finished program on an HDV tape then the best workflow is to capture (CONVERT) HDV via firewire directly into ProRes. Simply choose Apple ProRes in the "capture" settings and then use the same easy setup for your sequence settings. You won't have to render or conform for output via any graphics card that supports ProRes.

But if you need to go out to HDV (or firewire) you will need to render a self contained Quicktime using the HDV codec, which in my experience is much faster than conforming a native HDV sequence.

The only real downside is the amount of disk space this requires.

Am I missing a special graphics card that supports ProRes? Is that why it seems so slow for me?

What about saving your edited master? Is everyone doing that to hard drive as well? I have been going back to HDV tape for the past 3 years...in case anyone wants to go to BluRay, but we've only had a couple calls for it. I don't think that it would make sense for me considering the amount of disk space it would take to have saved everything on the computer...considering the length and quantity of the things I'm doing.

Casey

A graphics card, an Aja or Blackmagic for example, is required only if you want to export to a tape deck via SD/HD SDI, HDMI, or component/composite analog. A graphics card in this context is a frame buffer will all the appropriate goes-intos and goes-outtas, not the graphics card required by your computer.

If your exporting a Quicktime file (data) on a DLT or other storage medium where it will then be encoded for blu-Ray or SD DVD then you don't need a graphics card. We send a lot of uncompressed SD Quicktime's to a post facility for QA and transfer to whatever format the broadcaster requires. That way we don't have to own or rent a ton of equipment.

For HDV originated programing our workflow was similar to yours, however, the more we used ProRes for other formats, starting with uncompressed HD and SD, we found it so user friendly that we adopted it as an intermediate format and we try to convert everything coming into post-production into ProRes. As soon as we thought we had something that worked really well one of the shows decided to go with XDCAM, now we're trying to figure out the best and most efficient way to convert that to ProRes. If anyone has any suggestions I'd appreciate it.

It never ends...

Ridiculously silly nitpick: Where I come from, a graphics card is the thing you hook a computer monitor up to. What you're talking about, Chuck, is an I/O board. I'm sure it's just a difference in regional terminology.

I just tried creating a photo montage in a ProRes timeline, and it's rendering now and it's taking 2-3 times longer to render a 6 min. montage than if I did it in HDV. Is that right?

I'm not seeing how this is easier or more time-saving. The quality may be a little better, but time is money too.

Please tell me I'm doing something wrong!

Thanks!!!
Casey

Are you on an old system or something? ProRes render times are much less than HDV render-and-conform times. Much.

I'm on a Mac Pro 2x3gHz intels with OSX tiger, using FCP 6.0.4

What does "2x3 GHz" mean? I'm not a Mac expert, but I think it's been a really long time since Apple shipped a Mac Pro with just two processors in it. Mine's got eight.

The other significant difference is that I'm running 10.5.4.

It's has 2 - 3ghz dual core intel processors.

Is it Leopard that makes the significant speed difference???

Ugh, I hate computer crap. What does that mean? That it's a four-processor system? Mine's eight processors. It's not surprising that my system should therefore be significantly faster than yours, since ProRes is optimized for big systems.

Yep, that's a four all right.

But if ProRes is significantly faster on yours, it would seem that HDV would be proportionally faster as well.

Anyone else out there have any clues? I don't think I have a "be really slow" button enabled anywhere.

It's apparent that I'm not experiencing the same results that you or other ProRes users are, and I've double checked my settings against Ken Stone's tutorials...maybe I should download some of the profiles he has.

Thanks!
Casey

Not necessarily. One of the huge selling points of ProRes is that the performance, both for playback and for encoding, scales with the number of processors you have available. This isn't always true ? in fact is very rarely true ? for computers. Most of the time, adding more processors doesn't make any single task much faster at all. ProRes is different. So I'm not actually surprised that an eight-proc system runs considerably faster than a four-proc system.

The other thing I can think of is that while ProRes is a really low data-rate format compared to uncompressed, it's still a high data-rate format. In order to use ProRes with HD footage your system has to be able to handle at least one stream of uncompressed SD. Maybe your framestore isn't fast enough to let the computer write out the ProRes files as fast as it wants to?

Yeah, I don't know about that...I don't know as much about the hardware as it may sound.

Any time I've tried ProRes, I just haven't seen the results that justify using it. I'm not ruling out the fact that I may have a few settings off, though I kind of doubt it.

I would LOVE to be able to get a DVD out faster than real-time, are you doing that by exporting a ProRes file into Compressor?

I'm ashamed to say I used to edit HDV natively. The only reason to edit HDV natively is if you need to print to HDV tape - which was how we passed the program along to the DVD vendor.

No reason to be ashamed Chuck. You've found a workflow that is better suited to your needs / setup and thats great, but you need to remember that everyone's needs vary dependent on their circumstances. Editing HDV natively is a perfectly acceptable if not ideal workflow for many and there are good reasons / benefits in doing so. Ingesting natively as HDV preserves the pristine integrity of your recorded footage and the low data rate of the native format keeps your storage requirements minimal. By editing native you maximize the efficiency of your edit system with the ingested footage ... and by choosing ProRes as the render codec you also get the benefits transferred by that codec if and where necessary.

If you don't have to deliver the finished program on an HDV tape then the best workflow is to capture (CONVERT) HDV via firewire directly into ProRes

It's certainly "a" workflow and it may well be unequivocally the best workflow for you, but its not necessarily "the best" for everyone ... that presupposes that there's a single black and white one size fits all workflow thats perfect regardless of individual hardware and software setups, and we all know the world of post/production is never that clear! Every workflow will have its Pro's and Cons. Those with large and fast disk arrays may prefer to convert all their footage at source (at the potential loss of ingest speed depending on whether the workflow is tapeless or otherwise) others may see no reason or benefit to doing so (potential loss of basic disc performance due to over-full storage, storage system not fast enough for multiple stream realtime editing with high datarate sources such as ProRes etc) and would rather transcode only what was needed for delivery when the edit is complete. Ideal workflows are many and varied, and very much dependant on individual needs.

Simply choose Apple ProRes in the "capture" settings and then use the same easy setup for your sequence settings. You won't have to render or conform for output via any graphics card that supports ProRes.

For clarity then, for those who may be following along and/or reading in the hope of finding their own best workflow, many/most/all? I/O hardware devices that support ProRes will also fully support realtime playout of HDV native timeline / sources, and one can always render the timeline as full ProRes for ETT/PTV if necessary.

But if you need to go out to HDV (or firewire) you will need to render a self contained Quicktime using the HDV codec, which in my experience is much faster than conforming a native HDV sequence.

Thats been my experience too, albeit with the caveats noted above.

The only real downside is the amount of disk space this requires.

Yep, that and the raw performance required of your storage system if you hope to handle multiple streams in realtime.

As soon as we thought we had something that worked really well one of the shows decided to go with XDCAM, now we're trying to figure out the best and most efficient way to convert that to ProRes. If anyone has any suggestions I'd appreciate it.

The most obvious workflow would be to use an XDCAM deck such as the F75 and capture from HD/SD-SDI to suitable I/O hardware. Failing that, unless or until someone offers a Log and Transfer / XDCAM Transfer plugin or similar that transcodes to ProRes during ingest, you're looking at post processing the transfered footage prior to working with it. To speed things up you could look into automating the conversion of the transfered clips through the use of Compressor droplets & folder actions attached to your ingest folders ... it would be pretty easy to write a simple Applescript to directly auto add the converted footage to your FCP project too, tho perhaps not as easy as chasing up the new "Loader" from Digital Heaven :-)

Cheers
Andy

I have an old G5 Quad 2.5 Ghz with 4.5 GB Ram with (external) eSATA drives.
I capture HDV for file size but use the ProRes codec for rendering to speed up the render.
My computer is older than yours and I am also on OS 10.4.11

Tell us about your complete system 'cause it doesn't make sense that you get faster conforming HDV than ProRes.

God Bless,

Douglas Villalba
director/cinematographer/editor
Miami, Florida

[www.DouglasVillalba.info]
[www.youtube.com]
[vimeo.com]

Thanks Andy! That makes perfect sense...there is no "one size fits all" in post-production.

Douglas, I'm on a Mac Pro with two 3gHz intel dualcore processors with OSX tiger, 2 gig of RAM, using FCP 6.0.4. I have a couple FW800 drives connected as well.

I want to be sure I understand what you're doing. You are capturing and editing HDV video, but using the ProRes codec under Sequence Settings under Render Control, right? Right now mine is set for Use Same As Sequence Codec.

Casey

Hi, just a few questions about the old ProRes -

My system is pretty old - a G5, dual 1.8Ghz processors, 3Gb ram, OSX 10.4.11.
Is this up to scratch for ProRes ? (Cant check right now coz Compressor's on the go !) I read on Creative Cow that its a good idea to reduce your playback quality to medium and then you get 'Quarter ProRes' and it still looks good but it's less processor intensive.

Also I already have some HDV timelines and cant recapture, so do i just change my sequence settings to ProRes and theoretically I will see render time and colour space benefits ?

ProRes is optimized for Intel processors, and especially for eight-processor systems. On "lesser" systems, you'll get less real-time performance, which may or may not be good enough for your needs. Only way to know for sure is to find out.

(There are no color-space benefits of using ProRes. Though ProRes is capable of holding ten bits of precision per component, eight-bit source footage is eight-bit source footage. And Final Cut can render in float space regardless of whether your destination compressor is ten-bit or not.)