Will the HVX200 Require special stuff to edit it's footage?

M

mushyosh

Active member
Just vaguely, I have heard from someone that the HVX needs special softare or hardware to deal with its footage. To me this sounded like rubbish but could anyone confirm this?

Basically the company I work at is considering buying the HVX, but is also considering The Sony HDV cams. I am trying to push for the panasonic (of course) but then I was told this about the HVX being more problematic in the editing/hardware requirments?

Is there any truth to this?
 
no, hvx200 seems to got more "smooth editing" support than those other formats. HDV seems to be more problematic than Pana in say, FCP. you'll be fine and smooth sailing with pana. :) look up fcp, avid, and other major NLE's.
 
OK cheers. I was just looking at a diagram about getting footage from the HVX into a computer. I'm guessing when you use Mini DV tapes then importing footage is the same as any other camera, no problem. BUt when using the P2 card, you need extra hardware to import the footage i.e a P2 Drive?

What are the costs like with P2 cards, and P2 drives? But P2 cards can hold a hell of a lot of footage right?
 
mushyosh said:
BUt when using the P2 card, you need extra hardware to import the footage i.e a P2 Drive?
Click to expand...

All you need to do is plug it right into a PCMIA slot into the computer, and with some panasonic drivers, it will show up.



mushyosh said:
What are the costs like with P2 cards, and P2 drives? But P2 cards can hold a hell of a lot of footage right?
Click to expand...

Right now, P2 card are very expensive. An 8GB card can hold 8 minutes of DVCPRO HD footage. It sounds like it holds nothing, but when you consider that you can dump it onto a laptop drive and then swap it out with another one that is already in the camera, it works out alright. Also you can dump footage to a firestore or directly onto a laptop via firewire.
 
DVCPRO-HD is already supported in at least three NLE applications, FCP, Avid, and Canopus.

Getting footage into the computer is incredibly easier than it is from tape. As has been said already, if shooting on P2 cards you can just plug the card into the computer, it'll show up as an external hard disk.

If you don't have a PCMCIA slot, you can use the camera itself as the card reader -- just plug in a firewire or USB2 cable and the camera will show up as an external hard disk. You can then copy the contents off the cards at 400 or 480 megabits per second.

And if you'd shot on the FireStore, you can of course just plug that into your computer.

With P2, there is no digitizing. The footage is digitized as it's shot. So when you go to edit, it's merely a matter of pointing to the files on the card, or copying the files onto your system's hard disk. No need for a deck or any wasted time in post. Far from being "more complex", it's actually much easier and more streamlined and far, far quicker than the DV/tape or HDV/tape approach.
 
Barry_Green said:
With P2, there is no digitizing. The footage is digitized as it's shot.
Click to expand...

Same with DV and HDV :thumbsup:

Just takes longer to tranfer from a tape than a P2 card.
 
The difference is that with P2, you can edit straight from the card, without the need to transfer any footage whatsoever. With HDV/DV, you always have to capture it first, and in almost all cases, that's done in realtime - which means much more time is spent on the back end.
 
It terms of fiction editing, capture is a tiny fraction of the edit time. For something like ENG work, I can see why P2 could be a dream come true.
 
mmm said:
It terms of fiction editing, capture is a tiny fraction of the edit time. For something like ENG work, I can see why P2 could be a dream come true.
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True, but P2 offers other advantages even for fiction. No filmstock, no developing, no telecine... Off course there's no comparing DVCPRO HD with 35 mm, but as an alternative for 16mm I could live with it.
 
mmm said:
Same with DV and HDV :thumbsup:

Just takes longer to tranfer from a tape than a P2 card.
Click to expand...
Well, yes, but here we're arguing semantics vs. the real-world benefit.

As far as what we receive, as a tangible benefit, from the footage being digitized when it's shot, DV and HDV (on tape) aren't any timesaver vs. shooting analog. Capturing DV or HDV footage takes just as long, and is in fact basically the identical same process, as capturing analog footage through a digitizing board.

Whereas P2, or hard disk, or XDCAM disc, eliminates the entire process. With P2 and hard disk you have instant access to your footage. With XDCAM you're limited by the disc transfer speed, but you still have nearly instant access. It's nonlinear vs. linear.

P2, disk, or XDCAM; they're all nonlinear. DV and HDV are linear. So whether it's digital on the tape or not is nearly irrelevant, it's still a linear workflow. That's the difference.
 
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