Integration of HMC150 footage with SD

A

AdrenalineSleep

Member
Hello everyone! I am brand new to this forum and I wanted to thank everyone for being a tremendous resource in my search to buy a new camera. It's been indispensable. This will be my first camera that I am buying in a very long time. Certainly the first high end/prosumer purchase I have ever made. After a battle between the DVX100B and the HMC150, I figured it was worth the extra coin to go for the HMC.

Some of the work I will be doing is shooting of live events, particularly live music and some theater.

The question:
How can I best (Is it feasible to) integrate footage that I record with an HMC150 with video recorded from something like the DVX100B? Can I record at 1080/24p and convert it to SD to fit in with the preexisting workflow?

Mac and PC platforms.

Thanks in advance!!
 
SD conversion isn't an issue. Just use toast to kick it out to whatever you want. Only thing I don't know how to deal with is the 4:3 aspect ratio if you're mixing the HMC150 with the DVX. Haven't played around with that cropping because we all shoot 16:9.
 
Everything I shoot will be in shot 16:9 anyway. The DVX will be set to 16:9 using digital squeeze. I take it this should be fine.

If am understanding correctly, I can use the full HD footage on the same project as footage imported from a DVX?

Does toast do a good job of rendering the HMC150 footage in SD?
 
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I'd skip Toast. That would cut off a lot of flexibility and quality in post.

But, the answer is yes - you can mix formats in the FCP timeline (since version 5, I think).

I've been mixing footage a lot lately, between SD footage from the HVX or DVX, and the HMC. I tend to work in an HD timeline, and scale the SD stuff up, if I'm doing much with effects or CC. If I do a lot of reframing of the HD stuff, I use a 720p or SD timeline.

On a few occasions, I've run into what seems like a bug in FCP, where all the interlace settings for the different camera clips match, and played live from FCP everything looks good, but when output directly through compressor interlace issues between the different cameras pop up (that is, either the SD or HMC footage, when the SD stuff is inset, show bad interlace artifacts). I THINK this is related to the fact that 30p SD footage isn't really recognized as such. Anyway, exporting to a quicktime file, then encoding that, solves the problem....
 
I shoot HDV 1080i with sony cams and mix my HMC150 footage by using toast to transcode to HDV (apple intermediate codec / AIC). Mixes fine.

I've also used my cam as third cam for a same day edit with 2 other sonys shooting SD 16:9. The way we got that to work was imported the footage into Premiere CS4 all as one big clip, then exported it out as sd DV. He then cut up the clip like it was one huge clip picking what he wanted. Only did this due to time crunch and it was our first time mixing the footage. Haven't moved into HD for SDE's just yet for our company.

I would suggest downloading some MTS files from an HMC150 and using toast to transcode. Drop the clip on a timeline and see what you get. I would assume that it would come out fine as toast has a myriad of options as to what you can toss it out as. DV being one of them. You do get a hit in quality but that is expected since you're down converting.

I was always hesitant about shooting squeeze with DVX's. Didn't take the time to fully understand how it was recognized by the NLE compared to REAL 16:9 so I stayed away from it.

When you ask does it do a good job, what do you mean? If you're asking does it work, yes.
 
Thanks much for the input guys

ullanta said:
I THINK this is related to the fact that 30p SD footage isn't really recognized as such.
Click to expand...

I take it that the 30p SD issue does not occur if you are shooting 24p with a DVX?


Humanoid Typhoon said:
When you ask does it do a good job, what
do you mean? If you're asking does it work, yes.
Click to expand...

I meant does the footage look good. That is, are there any issues with footage looking sub-standard (worse than the SD footage) when being converted down.
 
I feel like down converted footage from the HMC to SD looks better than footage that originated in SD especially from the DVX. Just my opinion with the small tests I have done. Much more crisp and clean.
 
matt s. said:
I feel like down converted footage from the HMC to SD looks better than footage that originated in SD especially from the DVX. Just my opinion with the small tests I have done. Much more crisp and clean.
Click to expand...

I figured (hoped) that is probably would. My follow up would be what tests/methods have you used? The stuff already listed seem like pretty good ideas so far but I am looking for input wherever I can get it.
 
Just like matt, I've found the down converted footage looks better than SD. It will always look better than SD unless you have your settings set in such a way which makes it downconvert to a really small file size compared to the native size of SD (480). Better colorspace as well.
 
AdrenalineSleep said:
I figured (hoped) that is probably would. My follow up would be what tests/methods have you used? The stuff already listed seem like pretty good ideas so far but I am looking for input wherever I can get it.
Click to expand...


On the mac side, you're stuck with few options for SD downconverting BEFORE editing :

1) transcode using toast to DV
2) import into CS4 then export out as DV (which is a long process for anything but a few clips)
3) import into FCP as ProRes or AIC then exporting out as DV (same long process)
4) try one of the plug ins like cineform (but to be honest I haven't researched that too much since I don't need SD workflow before editing).
5) anyone feel free to chime in with anymore mac alternatives

You could always do like ullanta and edit in a mixed timeline. It should upres your DVX footage (not a whole lot but a bit).
 
Transcode raw .MTS files from toast to SD. DVCPro50 looked great as did DV.If shooting 1080 you may gain some chroma resolution over 720 and by down converting it to DVCPro50 and its 4:2:2 chroma subsampling for doing any color correction/grading may help. If not doing any grading you could just output to SD DV.
 
AdrenalineSleep said:
I take it that the 30p SD issue does not occur if you are shooting 24p with a DVX?
Click to expand...


Can't say for sure, I almost always shoot 30p. But I'd assume not, 'cause FCP DOES recognize 24p, just not 30p.

But the "issue" is not so bad, and shouldn't stop you... the extra export to a progressive format at the end is no worse than an initial downconversion, and as has been said, keeping things HD as long as possible into the process yields a better result.

Remember, DV has a lot of colorspace issues... I'd avoid dropping to that lowest common denominator!
 
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