I've read many threads and am still confused of what I should do as a workflow for this project!!! I would very much appreciate any recommendations of what you think I should do with this:

I have 50 hours of HDV video that I would like to capture and start hacking away at in order to cut down to a 1 hour pilot of a travel television show I would like to pitch, therefore needed a good quality picture. With this many hours of video, what do you think is the best way to capture it? In HDV then transcode to DNxHD? (and then keep it in DNxHD??) .... or, capture as downconverted DV25 and then batch capture at the end? (and if so is this a very difficult process?) .... and someone else mentioned to "capture all material in native HDV and then transcode your keeper takes to DV25 for editing, then at the end relink a copy of your sequence to the original HDV. The last step in this case takes almost no time since all HDV footage is already captured."

Pleeeeaaase tell me what you think I should do as I'm itching to get on this!

Thanks!!

 A lot of what workflow you choose is dependent on how much storage space you have. Here's a storage calculator that will help you decide. But given adequate storage space, I would capture in HDV and then transcode to DNxHD for the entire post process.

If all of the media is HDV wouldn't the easiest thing be to just edit the whole thing in HDV? Save on the time transcoding and save on extra drive space.

Maybe if there are lots of effects you will gain some system performance during editing, if the DNXHD codec is easier on the processor.

If you do have lots of effects maybe you might transcode your final sequence to DNXHD before rendering your effects and outputting.

But it seems IMHO you would spend a lot of time for not a lot of gain by transcoding 50 hours of footage.

Campbell

"... wouldn't the easiest thing be to just edit the whole thing in HDV?"

Depends on how much horse-power the Avid has.  HDV can choke some systems, while DNxHD is native to Avid.

After working on several HDV productions with a lot of footage, this has worked for my workflow.

Capture HDV and do a rough cut ( cuts only) with all of the material that I will need for the final edit.

Transcode to DNxHD to work on the final edit, with FX, color correction, etc.

Output files for approval.

I know that you might have to go back for a few files, but this workflow cuts down on the transcode time and the extra HD space you need for DNxHD. Everyone has different needs, but this has worked for mine.

I find that with HDV, if you rough cut in Green/Yellow mode, the picture is fine and the Avid can handle the material just fine. At least on my system. The DNxHD is harder on the harddrives and I need to upgrade my harddrives to give the system better responsiveness.