HVX200 + sony HVR-M25U + black magic intensity HDMI

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dbwolfe

Active member
ok, so I'm finally going HD. moving my dual G5 + DSR-20 & sony SD monitor to the other side of my studio as a SD station. HVX200 is coming in december. I plan on shooting solely in 720/24p/30p/60p and editing in DVCPRO HD 720/60p in final cut. so here's my question: even though I have no interest in HDV, I need to prepare to be able to work with HDV in a 720/60p timeline (in case another shooter hands me an HDV tape). I just read about the sony HVR-M25U and it's ability to downconvert & output 1080/60i as 720/60p over HDMI. so if I put this deck into my septup (w/intensity card), can I capture 1080/60i HDV over HDMI using the DVCPRO HD 720/60p codec and drop the video right into my 720/60p timeline? will the HDV potentially look better downconverted and captured with the higher quality codec. I really do hate interlaced video at this point in my life. wait, can I also capture my older DV/DVCAM footage over HDMI using a higher quality codec (say DV50 or uncompressed 720x486)? that would be grand. HDMI is essentially uncompressed HD correct?
 
technically everything you said should be possible - except that the down/cross conversion will not "improve" the quality of HDV. I have found though that the conversion to a higher quality codec will make the image more flexible in Post - meaning that when editing it does not fall apart as bad - at least in the DV realm. DVC-Pro is in my opinion a better and easier editing codec (a great capture one too).

But.. I have never used the intensity card. One thing to check is how it handles the copyright management flags. I would think it should not be a problem, but worth checking into.

Adam
 
I generally concur with Adam's points. Verify that the Intensity allows realtime capture as DVCPROHD (it should, but verify). There IS a recompression loss converting from one to the other, but it isn't major. The big quality question to me is this - how good is the 1080i60 to 720p60 conversion from that deck? The good news is that it is realtime, the bad news is you have to buy a deck. Other option - capture as native HDV, run it through Compressor to generate DVCPRO HD. Is DEFINITELY MUCH SLOWER, but possibly better quality (depending on the settings/tweaks used).

-mike
 
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