HDV - It's Not Just for Breakfast Anymore
-FOR PRODUCERS- The HDV format was developed by several companies, including JVC and Sony, in order to bring "HD to the Masses". Unfortunately this has given many the impression that HDV is a "consumer" format not suitable for "real" HD. Having worked with HDV for nearly a year now (with a camera that only touches the surface of the format's capability,
the JVC JY-HD10U), I can say first hand that HDV has real potential.
So what is HDV exactly? Simply put, HDV is the HD broadcast format (MPEG-2, 15-25 Mbps) combined with a mechanism to record the resulting MPEG-2 stream onto standard DV tapes. Notice I said HD broadcast format; if you ever been amazed by the quality of HD programming on TV, that is the potential of the HDV format!
So, why has HDV received luke-warm response from the industry? Unfortunately, until very recently (a couple of weeks ago), there was only one option for recording in HDV - the JVC JY-HD10U. The camera was quite limited, only (1) 1/3" CCD, lack of true manual controls, audio problems, etc. In other words, it doesn't come close to taking advantage of the HDV format. Still, with proper lighting and careful camera techniques, the HD10 can produce some amazing images.
By all accounts, the new Sony HDR-FX1 will be PD-150 of the HDV world. True manual controls, 3 CCD's, great optics, etc. We will be doing various articles and reviews on the FX1 in the coming weeks, as we plan on shifting our production from the HD10 to the FX1. The Sony FX1 should prove once and for all whether or not HDV is a format that has legs.
Another reason that HDV has been knocked is that MPEG-2, especially long GOP, is not considered a great editing format. As recently as 3 years ago the thought of editing MPEG-2 without specialized hardware was far-fetched. With today's computing power, editing MPEG-2 natively is a reality, although still not recommended because of the possible generation loss inherit in editing MPEG-2. Luckily, various companies (such as Cineform and Lumiere HD) developed solutions to this problem while HDV was still in its infancy.
We use Cineform's ConnectHD (in conjunction with Sony Vegas) to edit HDV, and the results are impressive. On our meager Athlon XP 2000 machine we can edit 720p HD without having to render previews. Sure, it is a slightly slower process than editing DV, but that is to be expected.
Cineform takes your HDV MPEG-2 files (specifically M2T files, or MPEG-2 transport streams), and converts them to AVI files encoded with the Cineform HD codec (cfhd). The Cineform codec is very similar to wavelet, you can expect file sizes similar to DVCPro50 (Cineform uses variable bit-rate encoding, with bitrates in the 40Mbps to 50Mbps range). I can attest first-hand that the codec is "visually lossless", and results in files that are very easy to work with. They give a perfect compromise between file size and editability (is that a word?). Best of all, you can work with the CFHD files in almost any video editing program. We've used CFHD files with Vegas, VirtualDub, Adobe Premiere, ProCoder, etc.
As you can tell, I'm excited about the potential of the HDV format, and if you are interested in producing HD for broadcast TV, you should be too.
by Ben Buie -Read Full Article-
the JVC JY-HD10U), I can say first hand that HDV has real potential.
So what is HDV exactly? Simply put, HDV is the HD broadcast format (MPEG-2, 15-25 Mbps) combined with a mechanism to record the resulting MPEG-2 stream onto standard DV tapes. Notice I said HD broadcast format; if you ever been amazed by the quality of HD programming on TV, that is the potential of the HDV format!
So, why has HDV received luke-warm response from the industry? Unfortunately, until very recently (a couple of weeks ago), there was only one option for recording in HDV - the JVC JY-HD10U. The camera was quite limited, only (1) 1/3" CCD, lack of true manual controls, audio problems, etc. In other words, it doesn't come close to taking advantage of the HDV format. Still, with proper lighting and careful camera techniques, the HD10 can produce some amazing images.
By all accounts, the new Sony HDR-FX1 will be PD-150 of the HDV world. True manual controls, 3 CCD's, great optics, etc. We will be doing various articles and reviews on the FX1 in the coming weeks, as we plan on shifting our production from the HD10 to the FX1. The Sony FX1 should prove once and for all whether or not HDV is a format that has legs.
Another reason that HDV has been knocked is that MPEG-2, especially long GOP, is not considered a great editing format. As recently as 3 years ago the thought of editing MPEG-2 without specialized hardware was far-fetched. With today's computing power, editing MPEG-2 natively is a reality, although still not recommended because of the possible generation loss inherit in editing MPEG-2. Luckily, various companies (such as Cineform and Lumiere HD) developed solutions to this problem while HDV was still in its infancy.
We use Cineform's ConnectHD (in conjunction with Sony Vegas) to edit HDV, and the results are impressive. On our meager Athlon XP 2000 machine we can edit 720p HD without having to render previews. Sure, it is a slightly slower process than editing DV, but that is to be expected.
Cineform takes your HDV MPEG-2 files (specifically M2T files, or MPEG-2 transport streams), and converts them to AVI files encoded with the Cineform HD codec (cfhd). The Cineform codec is very similar to wavelet, you can expect file sizes similar to DVCPro50 (Cineform uses variable bit-rate encoding, with bitrates in the 40Mbps to 50Mbps range). I can attest first-hand that the codec is "visually lossless", and results in files that are very easy to work with. They give a perfect compromise between file size and editability (is that a word?). Best of all, you can work with the CFHD files in almost any video editing program. We've used CFHD files with Vegas, VirtualDub, Adobe Premiere, ProCoder, etc.
As you can tell, I'm excited about the potential of the HDV format, and if you are interested in producing HD for broadcast TV, you should be too.
by Ben Buie -Read Full Article-
