Questions re: editing DVCPROHD

[Brian Broz]

Hi everyone,

Like everyone else, I am anxiously awaiting the new P2 based 720P camera.

My question is about editing. My understanding is that even though DVCPROHD is 100mbit it doesn't require lots of processing power (like HDV) to edit. I have a dual g4 1.25 and wondering if that is fast enough to edit HDV (for now)? From what I hear it's not fast enough to edit HDV (due to the MPEG2 long gop).

Any comments or experiences are much appreciated.
Thanks,

Brian B

[Neil Rowe]

why not check out the FCP specs needed for editing HDV or DVCPRO-HD.. and see what they say wil work, and what will not.

[Brian Broz]

I understand that, but I was hoping for real world usage and experiences (if possible). As we all know, minimum requirements doesn't always tell the whole story.
Thanks,

Brian

[NoahK]

I've cut with DVCPROHD off a Powerbook (1.25Ghz) I believe. It was definitely hurting with RT transitions and such but still capable. Your machine should be up to the task. I would recommend beefing up your hard drives, getting an internal RAID going would be a good start.

[Barry_Green]

No real-world experience in mac editing at all. However, keep in mind that if you're using FCP-HD, right now you can't edit HDV so you have to transcode it to something the computer can edit. That means either using the Apple Intermediate Codec, or transcoding to DVCPRO-HD, or going to Lumiere or CineForm or something like that.

Any other codec should be much more responsive than MPEG-2. The other codecs are all designed for editing, and are pretty much either discrete frame or with a very small GOP (like 2 frames) rather than HDV's 15 frames.

FCP-HD will natively edit the DVCPRO-HD format of the new Panasonic camera. FCP-HD is also supposed to support HDV in the future. I don't know if that native support will involve transcoding to an intermediate codec or not.