Editing HD in Ppro 2.0

milvid

milvid

Well-known member
I have an AMD 4000 64 bit CPU with 2 GB's of RAM a 36 GB RAPTOR for Software and a 250 GB SATA2 HD for footage. I have a BFG 6600GT Video card.

I was wondering what kind of performance I will get editing HD footage, even with multicam.

Also "skettalee" which is with me, asks the same about his Intel Pentium 4 3.2ghz with 2 GB RAM as well as a few internal 7200 rpm IDE100 HD's and a 9800 Pro ATI Video card.

We want to know if we can even capture and edit HD (skettalee is getting a Sony HDV HC-1 today), and if so, what kind of performance issues will we run into?

Thank you for your help with this.

PS: If these systems aren't enough, what kind of upgrades would you recommend?
:dankk2:
 
If you are editing HDV, as opposed to uncompressed or less compressed HD, you should be fine. If your systems aren't quite hefty enough to directly edit the m2t files you can always edit with a proxy like CineForm. Works just fine. I've edited footage from a Z1U on my system before, but that was when I had an Athlon XP 2800+ and other lower components. It worked all right, but it was much easier to do the work through proxy files. I've switched away from Premiere too, so I can't speak for how well PPro 2.0 will handle it. You should be able to use it though.
 
Thank you for your response but now I have a few more questions.

Whats HDV as opposed to HD ? Does that mean its compressed? Also, you talk about m2t files. We are going to be using the Sony HDV HC-1 camera with Premiere Pro 2.0. Does that mean when we shoot in HD on the camera when we go to capture in Premiere it will turn our files into an m2t file? Or do we get options right before capturing so you can choose what format to capture at? That just confuses me. I know trial and error will let me know but I wanted to be aware of this before we even got the camera in hand. We will be picking it up this afternoon.
 
HDV is an MPEG-2 based codec that captures in HD resolution but at a much lower data rate. This way you get the same resolution as HD (up to 1920x1080) but you're not handling as much information. True HD takes much larger amounts of storage space to handle, so it's not as easy to just throw a tape in and run around shooting HD. HDV also has less color information than regular HD. HDV isn't a bad format, but it's just not the same from a technical standpoint.

I haven't ever captured with Premiere 2.0's capture utility, so I'm not sure how it works. In 1.5 it would let me explain that I was capturing HDV and it would capture it according. M2T files (from what I have read) are the master HD files that are captured and contain the actual HD footage. You can use a proxy file system where Premiere will use an SD 'proxy' file that is the same thing as the HD file but at the standard definition resolution. You edit with that but when it comes time to export the project it will substitute the HD files instead of the proxy files and you'll end up with an HD format file.

It should be pretty straightforward when you actually have the cam and plug it in to Premiere 2.0. It will give you the option to capture in HDV and it should be fairly normal from there. Others who actually use Premiere would probably have better info than I do. Good luck. Let us know how it turns out.
 
A couple of things, PPro1.5.1 could not edit HDV. It used a subset of Cineforms AspectHD to convert HDV to an HD intermediate codec [not an SD proxy]. If you purchased AspectHD you get a lot more realtime HD performance.

PPro2 does edit HDV natively. The difference between the two methodologies is that AspectHD converts HDV to an HD intermediate format with a bit rate of ~75 to 100Mb's [same as DVCProHD] which requires a lot more I/O. To edit HDV natively the bit rate is only 25Mb's but requires the CPU to do all of the MPEG calculation on the fly so it is VERY CPU intensive. A 3.2GHz P4 is probaly not enough processor.

It is much easier and cheaper to optimise your I/O bandwidth, stripping a couple of SATA drives in RAID 0 for example, than it is to use the CPU for everything. Editing HDV natively, the CPU quickly becomes the bottleneck. Editing HDV natively in FCP, Premiere or Avid is a bad idea.

Regarding the concept of an intermediate format for post, Cineform renders an amazing HD AVI file directly from the PPr2.0 timeline that you can use any number of quality encoders for delivery. The intermediate codec is 10bits and although it can't improve the color quality of HDV it does not step on the image and you certianly get as good a quality on the output.

Using AspectHD in PPro I have captured and edited footage from the HC1, FX1 and Z1, and the JVC HD100. I'd like to say that it has been as easy as editing DV, its close but obviously there are many more things to think about with HD than DV [how do you encode HD for DVD's etc] that make it a bit more challenging. But as far as playing the timeline, adding transitions and effects its comparable to DV.

Have you purchased PPro2 or are you using the demo? I recomend that you evaluate AspectHD, eventually comparing it to editing HDV natively in PPro2. If you chose to work in a digital intermediate workflow with AspectHD the only upgrade I think you would need is a RAID.

Enjoy the HC1, for the money its a great little camera that's really fun to use.
 
So say I want to shoot just a vidcast at my home.... And I shot it with the HC1 in HD and what can I capture it at to work with as I got it like that? I dont mind bringing it down size because its going on the net anyway for some kind of streaming or quick download. Is HD downconverted to something like 300 or 400 or something, you know, just a small box on a website. Nothing huge to download. what should I do with that?

And then the same token, i want to try to shoot a music video for myself with that camera and edit it whatever way I can, fast with the system I got now. (skettalee) And then later put it in a small file format like quicktime as well as on a dvd for viewing....

Whats the chance of getting that done? Now remember, I like HD and all but isn't HD down sampled to what SD's size is minus the widescreen still a better quality? I dont need any great HD footage I just want something really good for web use as well as a DVD to just pass to friends and what not.
 
If your producing something for the web an easier and better way to go would be to use the DVX and edit in SD, it will give you a much better image.

However if you want to acquire in HD [with the HC1] to keep the HD source but edit in SD then you can capture SD directly from the HC1 and edit normally. For content destined for the web it doesn't make a whole lot of sense upgrading to HD.
 
so yours saying if i capture in HD (which im capturing as we speak in HDV 1080i) and then make the video size smaller and compressed for web, it wont be a better quality image than shooting at SD and having the same web video size?

I would think it still would look better.

BTW, just got the camera and man its sweet. I love the colors it produces. its dark colors are amazing. Something like a saving private ryan effect almost with those blacks and greens. I love it and its bad ass though I only looked at the video through the camera so far. Im capturing now so ill see what comes next. Im doing a great job capturing though, no dropped frames or problems so far.

Also, i did an HDV 1080i 30fps Project. Thats right, right?
 
PS : Just installed the Trial for Cineform Aspect HD. Thats what im supposed to use to capture footage? Cause i didn't know how to use it with premiere pro. Also, i am noticing that trying to edit the hd footage does stay a little choppy when playing timelines. after a while it does get a bit smooth but yeah...

Can someone tell me how to do whatever you guys said about a proxy?
 
What are your project settings?

Are you capturing HDV in PPro2 and editing HDV natively? Or did you encode using AspectHD and are now editing with AspectHD?

Regarding which is the best format for the web, I have found that the DVX's picture looks better when compressed for the web. If you've never seen HD before the HC1 has a lot of wow factor. But that's in large part becuase of the resolution so you loose much of that wow factor when you reduce it for the web.

Also when you reduce from 1440(1.33)x1080 you need to be careful how it is scaled and compressed. I have not been all that impressed with the Adobe Media Encoder the mpg's seem to be abit soft. I have seen downconverts from Canopus ProCoder2 whick look very good. I think one of the options for scaleing is Bicubis with sharpening - but I haven't used it myself. The point I'm trying to make is that going from HD to web gets pretty soft, taking a DVX image to Web looks better.

Having said all of that, in the right light the HC1 produces some amazing images doesn't it? It gets really noisy in low light though.
 
Yes I agree wth the last sentence. But hey, I got Canapus... What should I export out of premiere pro? Im trying all kinda stuff and mostly I get very interlaced liney footage and I cant figure out what to export out of premiere as. All I want is a setting if someone knows it that got something good. HELP!! I like mov files for the web but cant seem to get a good output quality... at all. Anyone?
 
The HC1 capture 1080i and interlaced footage looks like crap on preogessive LCD and CRT computer monitors. Since your wanting to output for the web when you export movie in the render tab choose progressive.
 
You know the only way I got good looking exported footage was doing it with Canapus Procoder thorugh Premiere Pro.

What would you say the best input and output settings from the HC1 would be to output to a DVD and keep the widescreen look just shrinking it with bars on the top ?
 
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