I know this is a lot of questions at once, but my sense from having explored this forum for a while is that it is a community full of wisdom, experience and generosity of spirit (even if also a few prickly personalities). So, I'd be grateful if people even answered only some of them. BTW, I started this thread on the HV200 board and am placing it also under this GH1 discussion list as with the exception of the AVCHD issue (see below), it seems a likely candidate for my needs as well as the HV200s.
1. Is there any sort of practical work around that will allow AVCHD to be edited on a PowerMac G5 (Dual Core 2 GHz w 8 GB Ram) or is one simply best either to avoid cameras using that codec (and hence many of the newer style SDHC solid state media capture devices) or bite the bullet and give in to a major computer upgrade?
2. Am I crazy to be thinking about trying to edit HD in any form on my trusty PowerMac G5, even if it comes in, for example, as native .mov encoding for FCP from the HM100U?
3. Am I correct in my understanding that if there’s a lot of rapid horizontal action in my subjects, it is best to aim for 1080p, not 1080i, shot preferably on CCDs not CMOS?
4. Am I correct in my understanding that rapid subject action and the need for rapid camera panning militate against the 5D MkII due to viewfinder and rolling shutter issues?
5. If one can get a used/refurb/demo HV200, is it significantly inferior to the HV200a version? What are the benefits of the later model?
6. Do P2 cards wear out?
7. Is there any way to avoid the painful cost of P2 other than not to indulge those cams in the first place?
8. I've read elsewhere about indie-docs that had successful releases in the theatrical/festival milieu but couldn't break through into broadcast due to some technological shortcoming perceived by some buzz-smitten network exec who demands nothing short of Red One to air on his network. I assume there’s nothing one can say (other than to lie ☺) to sway such folks. The HV200 series cams are "below" the Red, and frankly, budget is an issue such that even an HV200 (version “a” or not) with a bunch of P2 cards, although possibly optimal, is rather a stretch.
Assuming however one is faced with a more reasonable exec and assuming that AVCHD won’t work for my post-production set-up, is it a plausible to plan to augment a consumer HDV cam (eg. an HV40 with 24p setup) decked out with add-ons such as a 35mm adapter, good fast glass, and a Beachtek type XLR with inputs control adapter (although I realize there is still no way to override the auto-audio gain in the camera) or perhaps better, a separate audio capture on eg. an H4n combined —in both cases, with a good mic (eg. a 416)? Can one achieve a base-line technical standard that will pass muster in the broadcast world, at least the public broadcaster world?
BTW, given the inherent violence and risk to gear of one of my projects there perhaps is some intrinsic value of sacrificing some of the manual controls to have a unit (and for that small cost therefore, a back-up unit) that is physically more disposable ( a "disposa-cam")), not to mention the intrinsic benefit of smaller size and weight for greater agility to get out of the way of trouble in the first place.
9. Again with the caveat implied in point 8 above, with the technology marketer’s push of full 1080p, assuming one is working with a good sensor and not overly compressed codec, is 720p just fine now or in the foreseeable for broadcast? I ask this because it appears that there may still be good deals to be found for “last year’s” shoulder-mounted 720 units.
10. One-person ENG units are ever more common in foreign and remote coverage situations because of increased travel costs and diminishing media budgets, and the enablement of miniaturization and computerization of gear, but in the documentary milieu where money is also tight yet higher production values may be expected/needed to meet end user expectations, what are the upsides and downsides of going it alone?
11. Can one person even manage physically and mentally all that A/V gear (along pads of release forms etc. as well as, in my case, with stills camera gear ), let alone do so successfully or is that scenario as much of a holy grail as the fabled anti-gravity camera? Perhaps it is only the province of some sort of film-making super hero, who most undoubtedly, I am not.
12. Presuming a documentary subject is intrinsically scintillating enough to carry the day and that one’s skills are not totally awful, has anyone on this forum done one person documentary unit thing successfully and/or otherwise worked out some form of bare-bones grunge indie up-close-and-personal style/ solo documentary approach that could pass muster for broadcast presentation? If so could you share your key lessons learnt?
13. In that case, what are the up sides—but in particular down sides—to this approach that were surprises for you to learn and that presumably I may not yet have discovered/thought of?
14. Am I biting off more than I can chew given the evident steepness of my learning curve?
-Peter
1. Is there any sort of practical work around that will allow AVCHD to be edited on a PowerMac G5 (Dual Core 2 GHz w 8 GB Ram) or is one simply best either to avoid cameras using that codec (and hence many of the newer style SDHC solid state media capture devices) or bite the bullet and give in to a major computer upgrade?
2. Am I crazy to be thinking about trying to edit HD in any form on my trusty PowerMac G5, even if it comes in, for example, as native .mov encoding for FCP from the HM100U?
3. Am I correct in my understanding that if there’s a lot of rapid horizontal action in my subjects, it is best to aim for 1080p, not 1080i, shot preferably on CCDs not CMOS?
4. Am I correct in my understanding that rapid subject action and the need for rapid camera panning militate against the 5D MkII due to viewfinder and rolling shutter issues?
5. If one can get a used/refurb/demo HV200, is it significantly inferior to the HV200a version? What are the benefits of the later model?
6. Do P2 cards wear out?
7. Is there any way to avoid the painful cost of P2 other than not to indulge those cams in the first place?
8. I've read elsewhere about indie-docs that had successful releases in the theatrical/festival milieu but couldn't break through into broadcast due to some technological shortcoming perceived by some buzz-smitten network exec who demands nothing short of Red One to air on his network. I assume there’s nothing one can say (other than to lie ☺) to sway such folks. The HV200 series cams are "below" the Red, and frankly, budget is an issue such that even an HV200 (version “a” or not) with a bunch of P2 cards, although possibly optimal, is rather a stretch.
Assuming however one is faced with a more reasonable exec and assuming that AVCHD won’t work for my post-production set-up, is it a plausible to plan to augment a consumer HDV cam (eg. an HV40 with 24p setup) decked out with add-ons such as a 35mm adapter, good fast glass, and a Beachtek type XLR with inputs control adapter (although I realize there is still no way to override the auto-audio gain in the camera) or perhaps better, a separate audio capture on eg. an H4n combined —in both cases, with a good mic (eg. a 416)? Can one achieve a base-line technical standard that will pass muster in the broadcast world, at least the public broadcaster world?
BTW, given the inherent violence and risk to gear of one of my projects there perhaps is some intrinsic value of sacrificing some of the manual controls to have a unit (and for that small cost therefore, a back-up unit) that is physically more disposable ( a "disposa-cam")), not to mention the intrinsic benefit of smaller size and weight for greater agility to get out of the way of trouble in the first place.
9. Again with the caveat implied in point 8 above, with the technology marketer’s push of full 1080p, assuming one is working with a good sensor and not overly compressed codec, is 720p just fine now or in the foreseeable for broadcast? I ask this because it appears that there may still be good deals to be found for “last year’s” shoulder-mounted 720 units.
10. One-person ENG units are ever more common in foreign and remote coverage situations because of increased travel costs and diminishing media budgets, and the enablement of miniaturization and computerization of gear, but in the documentary milieu where money is also tight yet higher production values may be expected/needed to meet end user expectations, what are the upsides and downsides of going it alone?
11. Can one person even manage physically and mentally all that A/V gear (along pads of release forms etc. as well as, in my case, with stills camera gear ), let alone do so successfully or is that scenario as much of a holy grail as the fabled anti-gravity camera? Perhaps it is only the province of some sort of film-making super hero, who most undoubtedly, I am not.
12. Presuming a documentary subject is intrinsically scintillating enough to carry the day and that one’s skills are not totally awful, has anyone on this forum done one person documentary unit thing successfully and/or otherwise worked out some form of bare-bones grunge indie up-close-and-personal style/ solo documentary approach that could pass muster for broadcast presentation? If so could you share your key lessons learnt?
13. In that case, what are the up sides—but in particular down sides—to this approach that were surprises for you to learn and that presumably I may not yet have discovered/thought of?
14. Am I biting off more than I can chew given the evident steepness of my learning curve?
-Peter
) 
) have put their raw data on the web. I think you need to be (just a bit) more careful with SxS though, but with p2 and SDHC I think it's pretty straight forward.