HDV 24p vs. DVCPRO HD 24p as master codec?

[borax]

I am starting a FCP project involving 80%HDV footage shot on the Canon HV20 and 20% shot with the Panasonic HVX200 at 720p.

Should I convert all of the HDV footage to DVCPRO HD to work with that codec, even though it's lower resolution than the native HDV? Is it a more professional codec?

If I go with the HDV 24p codec will I still suffer from some of the editing issues associtated with editing in HDV? Is HDV 24p true 24p?


OR

Should I convert everything to Apple ProRes422?

Any suggestions would be a great help.
Thanks

[jumpthewire]

what is your final delivery?
are you color correcting/if so what program?

shawn

[adkimery]

If you shot w/an HV20 and you want edit at 23.98 you'll end up converting it into another codec anyway.

Here is a white paper from Apple about it, link (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2410).


-A

[borax]

Yeah, I know I have to transcode anyway.

That's why I want to start off on the right foot. To keep the file sizes down I figured it would be the most straight forward to convert all the HDV 60i to HDV 24p, but I don't know all that much about that codec.

Since I have an HVX200 I am very comfortable editing in DVCPRO HD 720p which is what a small amount of the footage was shot in. So I would love to edit in the format I know, the only problem is I am throwing away resolution for nearly 80% of the footage, which doesn't sit well with me.

1440x1080 down converted to 960x70 in compressor is what I would be doing which I've heard isn' the best app to use for that job.

So I was thinking of using HDV 24p as my master sequence settings, but I want to know what issues I will have down the road, if any?

Will I have issues with the lower 4.2.0 color sampling of HDV? Is ProRes422 the best option in my case?

I really want to enter festivals with this film, Right now I can't anticipate it being transfered to film, but at least a Blu-ray HD DVD at some point.

[adkimery]

I definitely would not transcode the HDV 1080i60 into HDV 24p. Either go ProRes or DVCPro HD. If you are worried about quality loss do a quick test w/each codec and see how big the 'real world' loss is compared to the 'on paper' loss. Festivals, and audiences, care more about story than format and if you do a good job in production (good lighting, good sound, playing up to the cameras pros while staying away from its cons, etc,.) then you have nothing to worry about. The HV20 can shoot some impressive looking images, but if what you have on tape looks like bland video there's nothing you can do to 'save it' in post.


-A

[borax]

Thanks Adkimery,

The footage looks great, I am not worried about that, it's just the thought of down sampling the footage to 720p make me cringe.

I just shot a feature using only 720p with small moments of footage shot with the HV20 and it worked out well. But I read a posting here that talked about compressor doing an "OK" job of down sampling footage. I just want to keep the HV20 stuff looking as good as it does right now.

So you think going to ProRes or DVCPRO HD might be the way? Cool.

Why should I avoid HDV 24p?

[jumpthewire]

copressor doesnt do the greatest job doing upconverts/downconverts.

i recently had epidsode do some upconverts and was really happy with
the results....

shawn

[adkimery]

Why should I avoid HDV 24p?
Compressing from one HDV codec into another isn't going to be pretty, IMO. If it was me I'd go Pro Res.


-A

[borax]

O.K. I'm going to go with ProRes it seems the safest option.

As a side note, I did work on a similar project and converted the HV20 HDV 60i footage to the HDV 24p codec to keep the file size and codec similar and I didn't notice a difference. I assume that it properly deinterlaced the footage. Has anyone else tried this, or uses this as a workflow?