HDV footage in COLOR

What is your workflow with HDV footage when you use it in Color

What do you like to export out as
thank.

Hey there,

Not 100% sure that this is the absolute best way to do it, but having spoken to RPMpost guys, they thought this was not a bad idea.

We media managed the entire project to Apple Pro Res 422 first. This allowed us to get the "locked picture" project to be sitting on a different drive all by itself with all the source media being the size of the clip with 1:05 handles.

Then we went into Color, and coming out of Color we exported in the same format as the "original media" (which is Apple Pro Res 422).

Color will let you export Apple Pro Res 422, Apple Pro Res 422 (HQ), and Uncompressed 8-bit and 10-bit. Unless you want uncompressed footage to be put on HDCAM tape or do a film out, Apple Pro Res is the way to go.

Anyone out there, please correct me if I am wrong...

Always best to match your source footage when rendering or exporting all throughout the work-flow. (capturing, rendering, exporting, etc). That's why the ProRes
is good news for HDV, it (theoretically) is the best match for HDV source footage. So if you shot with HDV (even to P2 or drive at 100mbps) there is never a reason to use 10 or 8 bit uncompressed anywhere in the work-flow, which will increase your bitrate by 400% with no gain in quality compared to the original footage.
Same applies to projects shot with DV25 or DV50 SD. Use a codec that matches the source format and stick with it all the way through.
So the current consensus for HDV is use ProRes everywhere in the work-flow.

Uncompressed is really only good for telecine from film, or video that was shot uncompressed
in the first place, meaning at the same data rate that the uncompressed codec gives you, which is about 200mbps (SD) and 400mbps (HD).

Hope this helps,
Paul Buhl