HDRebel88:

 My question would be if you have an MC Adrenaline why the hell are you doing anything in HDV? It's the worst format on the market.

What does having a Adrenaline have anything to do with the format the client brings me? I'm not going to turn away a client because the format, in your opinion, is beneath the standards that should be imported into a avid.

HDRebel88:

If anything I'd rather have Avid work on supporting AVCHD and Intra and forget about HDV (since no company is going to be making any more HDV products starting sometime soon.).

Avid is supposed to already have "Native HDV editing" since 2005. The point is it should just work.

Sorry to chip in so late but this has been a problem in the PAL version since October 2006

http://community.avid.com/forums/p/25613/162296.aspx#162296

I don't bother using MC for HDV I always use FCP as it never has any problems dealing with HDV material coming in through firewire with deck control and also doesn't have any timecode issues.

 A while back I had to capture a large number of HDV tapes (720p/24).  Avid doesn't yet support that format in HDV, so I used HDVxDV ($80USD) to capture from the JVC deck over firewire.  Then took the .m2t files it created and used it again to Batch convert them to 1280x720 Quicktimes with a 24p frame rate @ a DNx resolution. 

Once those QT's were created, I just had to import them into a 720p/24 standard HD raster project. 

 

I use a lot of HDV and have had mixed results. After shooting several multicamera shoots using up to 7-Z1s I found that the time code was usually unstable for the 1st 20-30 seconds of rolling. After that, the cameras seemed to settle down. So, if I tried to digitize during that first 20-30 I would get sketchy results, like "can't find the pre-roll or video present but not recorded or constant seaching for an in point.. So, on the next shoot we started all cameras about a minute earlier than usual and not a single problem. I have tried both the camera and the HVR 10MU deck with success as long as I leave time for the camera TC to settle. I realize that that is unacceptable to some, but it has saved many a headache.

Also, (important) I have often been stalled by not checking that the format (on the settings bin) was set to HDV. It often happens that when I restart from another project that it remains at 301 and I spend a frustrating 20 minutes while slick's problem happens. It starts recording and then stops after a couple of seconds saying "Video present, but not recorded." I had to leave myself a post-it top remind me to check the format status.

Finally, I have been digitizing HDV directly from the new EX1 over firewire and I am having very few problems. I am using the settings for the Z1 or HVR 1500 and both work fine over firewire. It sometimes gets confused on rewind, but that has been the only issue. Finds the code every time. and locks immediately.

Slick_rick,

I've had some experience, both good and bad, with HDV and Avid. How are you connecting the Sony deck to the cpu? Connected to the build-in fw port or to a fw card? Are there other drives in the fw chain? The Adrenaline is turned off while you capture but is it connected? Is your deck control fw or RS-422? Have you recently repaired Permissions for the OS? Have you reset the ports?

glitch:

Slick_rick,

I've had some experience, both good and bad, with HDV and Avid. How are you connecting the Sony deck to the cpu? Connected to the build-in fw port or to a fw card? Are there other drives in the fw chain? The Adrenaline is turned off while you capture but is it connected? Is your deck control fw or RS-422? Have you recently repaired Permissions for the OS? Have you reset the ports?

hello glitch

I connected the z1 throught the built in fw 400 on the front of the comp. i do have a graid on the fw800 connected on the rear. the adrenanline was not connected and was using the fw for deck control as the camera does not have 422. I ran diskwarrior and still have the same results. What do you mean by reset the ports? let me know so i can give it a try. thanks for the help.

HDRebel88:

 My question would be if you have an MC Adrenaline why the hell are you doing anything in HDV? It's the worst format on the market. If anything I'd rather have Avid work on supporting AVCHD and Intra and forget about HDV (since no company is going to be making any more HDV products starting sometime soon.).

 

Are you even remotely serious? People are still working in SD and you want to stop fixing problems with HDV?

BTW, I've some amazing footage shot in HDV with Canon's XH-G1, A1 and XL-H1. No, it's not 2K or even 4:2:2, but it actually looks darn good. And AVCHD is supposed to look worse than HDV, but you want Avid to spend effort on what is so far a strictly consumer format. So people can edit their trips to the Bahamas w/ Media Composer? EDIT: There apparently some big plans for AVCHD by Panasonic and some other firms for use in high end cameras.

And telling customers "Get a better camera" is a pretty lousy option.

Love it or hate it, HDV is a pervasive format that needs to be full supported.

To reset the ports in on a Mac you need to boot into Open Firmware;

Hold down the Command-Option-O-F as you boot

At the command prompt type "reset-nvram"

Then type "reset-all"

Your mac will reboot and the ports are reset.

slick_rick:

I connected the z1 throught the built in fw 400 on the front of the comp. i do have a graid on the fw800 connected on the rear.

This is probably not the issue but: unless your system is one of the newer intel Mac Pros - the front 400 port and the rear 800 port are on the same bus. Just as a quick test - you could pull the G-RAID off the system and see if that makes a difference for capturing w/TC.

AS far as turning down what a cliet brings you... we no longer have to edit in the format that was shot. As a matter of fact, we never could in the past! We got Beta and we digitized it as AVR whatever. Why? Because the system ran that way... and now, the system runs much better in it's native media formats. HDV is an outside format, the reason folks are telling you to avoid it is because they have done it and it's frankly lame to edit with.

No big deal, I have captured HDV, with timecode and yes, it works. But I have advised every client I support to use a deck with component or SDI outputs to drop it into DNX because it's simply better for an editor to work with. Faster, more flexible and easier to deliver reliably.

As far as Windows vs. Unix (MacOSX) I can't comment. But Avid is clearly busting A55 to get a new version of things out. I hear interesting things about opening the hardware.