Just curious here, but it seems like HDV is getting a bad wrap. Why do so many people steer clear of HDV?
'In the life that man creates for himself, he too, creates his demise... and his legacy.'
'In the life that man creates for himself, he too, creates his demise... and his legacy.'
Most people are just scared of it for no good reason. There are some legitimate problems with HDV (e.g. the image tends to break up if you push color grading too far), but most of the claimed 'problems' are just scare stories.
HDV is not true High Definition. HDV is recorded on MiniDV tapes and therefore has to be compressed. HDV is horrible when you want to pan quickly. Objects begin to break up as you pan. It has alot of problems with drop outs, too.
DVCPRO HD on the other hand, is true high definition.It captures the full frames. It's recorded on p2 cards and there are no drop outs. There's many other advantages that I could go on forever. So read more about it if you're thinking of buying a camera.
"Metal never dies it only hides"- Aaron
"Metal never dies it only hides"- Aaron
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HDV is not true High Definition.
Yes it is.
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HDV is horrible when you want to pan quickly.
No it's not.
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Objects begin to break up as you pan.
No they don't.
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It has alot of problems with drop outs, too.
No it doesn't.
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DVCPRO HD on the other hand, is true high definition.
If I remember correctly, DVCPRO HD is 1280x1080, while HDV is 1440x1080. Why is the _lower_ resolution format 'true high definition'?
As I said, HDV has its problems, but please don't keep repeating scare stories with no basis in fact.
DVCPRO HD has a lower resolution but it has less compression.
"Metal never dies it only hides"- Aaron
"Metal never dies it only hides"- Aaron
I've read something about a GOP compression that HDV uses, that can cause visual artifacts in the video when you edit. Is that something I should worry about, or is it just more scare tactics?
'In the life that man creates for himself, he too, creates his demise... and his legacy.'
'In the life that man creates for himself, he too, creates his demise... and his legacy.'
In certain circumstances it will cause artifacts, but I've shot quite a few hours of HDV, even trying deliberately to create artifacts, and the only problem I've had is when pushing the grading in post. Since the MPEG-2 compression throws away detail that it thinks you can't see, if you push the grading too far you start to see artifacts caused by that lack of detail in 'blank' areas.
I've seen some still-frame captures on the web which looked pretty bad (e.g. fast-moving water), but you still probably wouldn't notice if you were watching it as a video rather than stepping through frame by frame. Similarly, going back to the comment about pans, the compression will have to work hard to keep up but when you're panning fast the whole frame is a blur anyway so it's largely irrelevant. I suspect shooting under a fast-flashing strobe light would be a problem for the compression too, though some people have said they tried it and it was OK.
Basically you just need to be aware of the limitations and work with them: a fair amount of high-end HD footage for documentaries has been shot on HDV, so it's certainly good enough for low-budget movies. Heck, Clint Eastwood used HDV from Sony Z1s for some PoV shots in his recent WWII movies, because he could stick the cameras in ammo boxes and have the extras carry them around while they shot an hour of HD per tape.
Oh, and dropouts are a problem if you get them because they corrupt half a second of footage, but I've never got one in the hours of HDV footage I've shot.
Yep agree with MarkG, I've got an Canon XHA1 and so far so fantastic. Really pleased. Stuff gets a bit grainy if you whack the gain up, but that's to be expected.
I've experience lots of drop outs on some older minidv tapes, none on the canon 'hd' minidv tape that the camera came with. Guess i'll be sticking with them.
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There's daggers in men's smiles
This is from the site:
How is DVCPRO HD different than other HD formats?
There are several HD formats in the industry, namely D-5 HD, HDCAM, HDV and others that can be classified as either an intermediate codec, like one that may be used in the editing domain. DVCPRO HD?s main characteristics are 100 Mbps, frame independent resolution (intraframe recording), 4:2:2 color sampling, and the use of metal particle tape or solid-state memory P2 cards.
What are the benefits of solid-state technology?
Because solid-state recording does away with the parts that are found on traditional tape mechanisms, it has a quiet operation; is virtually maintenance-free; and can be used in extreme and harsh environments.
"Metal never dies it only hides"- Aaron
"Metal never dies it only hides"- Aaron
Sod's law, there I was saying I hadn't had any drop outs on the canon HD minidv tapes... and now they're just as bad as the normal minidv tapes. It might not be the tapes...
I'm using Avid Xpress Pro HD to capture, and while it starts capture ok, i get an error message during the capture saying words to the effect of
'capture aborted due to invalid frames encounter. The invalid frames have been discared'
and the capture is aborted.
Really annoying and detrimental to my work, any ideas? Is it a tape/camera problem, or the software. Help ?:(?
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There's daggers in men's smiles
Are you sure it's not a timecode break rather than a dropout?
There you go?:D??:D??:D?
"Metal never dies it only hides"- Aaron
"Metal never dies it only hides"- Aaron
Although there may be dropout problems with HDV, it's not because of compression, it's because of the tapes (or so I believe). I'm wondering if I should pick up an external hard drive for the camera, so I can simultaneously record on both formats, to make sure I have a backup should one or the other fail. Stupid $1000 hard drives...
'In the life that man creates for himself, he too, creates his demise... and his legacy.'
'In the life that man creates for himself, he too, creates his demise... and his legacy.'
quote:
Originally posted by MarkG
Are you sure it's not a timecode break rather than a dropout?
As in, when I've pressed stop recording during shooting?
Don't think so, I'll check. Any other ideas? Seems pretty random
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There's daggers in men's smiles
No, I mean when you don't start recording again from the next frame and the timecode jumps. If there's a gap in the timecode then the computer can't capture it without losing track of where it was on the tape.
