Apocalypse Express, A1 - SD - (sorry!)

bballplaya283 said:
Yes you can certainly do that. Shoot everything you do in 16:9 1440x1080. When you have the camera turned on it is a menu option that says "Down-convert," and when you capture this it will import just like 16:9 SD. Only thing is, if you shoot 24f, it imports as 60i (I think). I'm pretty sure if you will need to edit on a 60i timeline regardless of your original framerate. My computer is pretty bad, so this is what I am doing. I would definitely go with the XHA1 over the DVX because it will last for much longer. If I went with a DVX, I'd try to get a DVX100 (original) for around $1600. You just can't justify spending $3000 for a DVX when for $500 more you can get an HD DVX.
Hey, thanks for the info! I'm leaning closer toward the A1. Just went out and picked up Stu Maschwitz's book (DV Rebel's Guide) and want to read more about what he says about 24F. He says, of the two, having 24P is more important than having HD, but the way he words it, it's unclear whether he thinks 24F qualifies as 24P. I'll keep digging. Thanks again. Good to see the passion re: the A1.
 
24F rocks my socks, now whether its interlaced or whatnot, i dunno. But i opened my footage ina 24p timeline, progressive and it didnt have to render or anything, ran smoothly and beautifully.
 
PaPa said:
24F rocks my socks, now whether its interlaced or whatnot, i dunno. But i opened my footage ina 24p timeline, progressive and it didnt have to render or anything, ran smoothly and beautifully.
That's great to know! May I ask what you're using to edit, hw and sw?
 
i used adobe premier pro 2 for the editing, color correction, sound mixing, and so on.

I edited most ofthe stuff on my laptop which is a dell, core 2 duo, 2.16 ghz, 2 gigs of ram, and a 512 quatra graphix card. Good tool.
 
PaPa said:
i used adobe premier pro 2 for the editing, color correction, sound mixing, and so on.

I edited most ofthe stuff on my laptop which is a dell, core 2 duo, 2.16 ghz, 2 gigs of ram, and a 512 quatra graphix card. Good tool.
Thanks so much for sharing your clip and your information, Jonathan. VERY helpful.
 
24F rocks my socks, now whether its interlaced or whatnot, i dunno. But i opened my footage ina 24p timeline, progressive and it didnt have to render or anything, ran smoothly and beautifully.

What I was referring to was when you downconvert to SD from HDV source material. For some reason if I edit that (24f material) on a 24p timeline, I see little interlacing lines. I'll post a picture to show what I mean.

Actually... I think I'm wrong. I'm pretty sure the reason I was seeing interlace lines was because I watched it in preview mode in Vegas. I just watched some of my downconverted footage and it looked fine.
 
its well shot -- and it looks good on youtube which is tough to achieve.

What were the specs of your video as you uploaded it ??
 
bballplaya283 said:
What I was referring to was when you downconvert to SD from HDV source material. For some reason if I edit that (24f material) on a 24p timeline, I see little interlacing lines. I'll post a picture to show what I mean.

Actually... I think I'm wrong. I'm pretty sure the reason I was seeing interlace lines was because I watched it in preview mode in Vegas. I just watched some of my downconverted footage and it looked fine.

A reason you may be seeing interlace lines in your downconvert of HDV 24F (which is a 24 fps-only stream) to SD 24F is because the A1 only downconverts with pulldown to 29.97 via firewire. You are likely capturing with pulldown, but Vegas may be extracting it on the fly for you if you're not seeing it in an SD timeline.

It doesn't downconvert via firewire as an "advanced pulldown" DV stream, which is a mode you can select to shoot and record in SD 24F DV-only. It's the same as the DVX in SD origination, however...downconverting HDV 24F to SD means interlace pulldown is added. This is a strong reason to stick with HD editing in order to edit 24F HDV in a 24p timeline, and do the downconvert later through software.
 
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actually Elton.

i just shot some HDV stuff and am tryingto figure out how to import/capture the footage into pp2 so that its SD?

I am going crazy, where does one chose this option in the camera?
 
"ou can set the camera, via a menu setting, to output SD on firewire. This means you can capture as straight SD DV format and not worry about processing or downconverting HDV at all.

The alternative is to capture and edit HDV and then export to an SD format after editing. This will give you slightly better results.

For delivery on DVD, you would export to MPEG2 720x480 with widescreen aspect ratio. If this looks squeezed on a 4:3 TV, you need to set the DVD player to output as letterboxed video."

this is the best explanation that was available on the forums, but its not detailed enough to help me out.

When i go into PP2 and click capture, i dont have to option in camera to do the downconversion or anything.

please someone give a more detailed step by step instructions.
 
With the A1 in VTR mode:

--push the menu button
--Select "Signal setup" (and do this with firewire unattached to the camera)
--Scroll down to "HD DOWN-CONV
--The item should say "off" by default. Select it and choose "On"
--Select letterbox on if you want to capture and edit as 4x3 letterboxed SD. If not, just leave it off and the camera will output "squeezed" anamorphic SD that you are supposed to unsqueeze in post, or encode for DVD as 16x9 anamorphic. (this is what I almost always do.

--You should now be able to capture into ppro as a normal dv device, but your 24F footage will now be 29.97 with pulldown already introduced in the footage. Edit and capture as normal DV.
 
k, what happens is i can open the menu when in VTR mode, chose HD down conversion on and so on, but when i connect it to the computer via firewire and open the capture window, both the letterbox and downconversion items in the menu get Grey and i cant use them. Why does this happen?
 
PaPa said:
k, what happens is i can open the menu when in VTR mode, chose HD down conversion on and so on, but when i connect it to the computer via firewire and open the capture window, both the letterbox and downconversion items in the menu get Grey and i cant use them. Why does this happen?

Have you tried playing the footage and looking at it live in the NLE capture window? The greyed out items just aren't available during a live downconversion process, I believe.
 
well, the only way i can watch the footage in premier pro 2 is through the capture window, and once its in capture window, either it will give me a message saying device is not on, or restart device.

But just once im in the capture window, both of those menu options get greyed, so i cant even watch it unless its straight HDV
 
Elton said:
Have you tried playing the footage and looking at it live in the NLE capture window? The greyed out items just aren't available during a live downconversion process, I believe.

Do you have msn Elton, i would like to speak with you about this. i seem to be very confused.
 
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