HVX down-conversion question

[jqwest]

I'm considering using a DP with an HVX; however, I would need to down convert footage to SD so that I could edit on my Mac (it doesn't have enough processing power to handle HD).

My questions are:

1) what type of image quality should I expect? Obviously if the down-converted image quality is inferior to shooting straight on to a DVX100, then it wouldn't be worth using an HVX.

2) if I found a DP with a RED camera and down converted to SD, would the image quality be any better?

[btownproductions]

1) The image quality should look nicer than the DVX if you shoot to P2 and then dub it to the tape. Plus, this way you get to use all the features of shooting HD on the HVX like variable framerates, focus assist and you'll be able to do more with scene file settings. I'd say that the image definitely won't be inferior to the DVX.

2) That I couldn't tell you because I've never used a RED (Although I'd love to haha). And I haven't heard of anyone using the RED for SD. (Too me, that's just way too much money to be spending to shoot SD)

[jqwest]

good to know. thanks btown.

[kwoff]

What model Mac do you have? DVCPro HD is not as processor intensive as HDV and can be edited on many older Macs, so I would do some tests with your hardware (maybe you already have) before finally deciding that you need to downconvert to SD to edit. Even if you are ultimately going to go to SD, the final SD product likely will look better if you edit and do any color correction in DVCPro HD, with its 4:2:2 color space, and then downconvert. If you don't want HD for your final output you could also shoot in DVCPro50 on the HVX to get SD with the better 4:2:2 color space, but I believe DVCPro50 actually has a higher data rate than DVCPro HD.

Good luck,
Kevin

[Barry_Green]

Yeah, what mac can't handle DVCPRO-HD? As long as you've got, say, a 1.33GHz or faster G4, you can probably handle it. You need FCP5.0.4 or later.

[jqwest]

Ok, I've got a mac G4 1.5 with 1GB RAM.... and FCP 6. I had trouble editing with HDV before and that's probably why I just assumed it couldn't handle DVCPRO.

And if Barry says my Mac can handle it, well that's good enough for me :-)

I assume then, my Mac could handle the RED proxy files as well... even up to 1080?