Editing Recommendations - color correction

Hey folks,

I am editing my HDV footage in Final Cut these days. For the most part i have been happy with the 'native' hdv editing workflow. It is efficient from both a time and dive space perspective.

The one area that I am concerned about is color correction. In my DV days, I had this down pat. In HDV I find that with well lit scenes and modest color correction, i have no issues. However, when I am shooting deeper with less light, banding and artifacts appear frequently with even modest color correcting. (I am using the 3 way color corrector). My goal is usually to get the color correct when shooting, but as we all know, with WB limitations, this is dificult objective.

Right now I am working on my cocos footage and building a sequence that was shot over multiple days. Each consecutive day both light and vis were steadily decreasing. In piecing the days footage together, i must color correct to they have the same look and feel. I am quite familiar with techniques in color matching and the like. The footage was shot around 30 meters so my iris was popped wide. This leaves very little room for adjustment without creating artifacts.

My question is this:

Should I build this project in an alternative format that may be more forgiving with color correction? I have considered upressing to DVCPRO HD60i (or 720p) using Medai manager in FCP. This consumes more drive space but for this project it is worth it. Should I consider other alternatives, stick with HDV b/c DVCPRO HD will make no difference?

thanks

-shawn

Hey Shawn, thats one of the drawbacks to editing raw m2t as it does not handle CC to well.

I also have the same problem using Premiere Pro and Aspect HD plugin.

It works like FCP and Lumiere HD plugin...that it convets the m2t as it comes in to a easier codec to edit in.

I found using Aspects realtime CC caused banding in some shots, while the standard Premiere Pro's CC worked great, but have to render.

Also for best CC not only do we need to convert the m2t to a better codec, we need to be editing in 10 bit and not 8.

Shawn,

If you read my previous posts, I suggest you use the HDV Apple intermediate Codec capture on FCP. The big problem for you is that you are editing on a laptop, so the big codec is pretty demanding on drive speed...

Good inpu guys.

I tested and looks like the AIC files are about 25% bigger than the HDV files, so I think I may convert to using these via media manager. As for 10bit, i doubt my little macbook could handle that! I will see how the AIC goes. Would you guys stick with 1080i on capture or go to 720p?

Shawn

I would stick to 1080i res.

I was also on the Matrox site looking at one of their expansion cards and you can suck in the HDV but you then edit in DV mode in realtime then you can just open up a HDV project and it will have all the same edits in HDV mode done. Cool I think...not sure if it changes to a special codec as it comes in though.

Cool sounding card. Final cut lets you do the entire project in dv then recature and build in hdv...but that is a long process. Since I am Macbook hardware, i must go with software solutions. Wags, would you use AIC if you were in Final cut, stick with hdv or use something huge like dvcpro hd?

I think the best way would be to suck in the same shot twice using both methods, add CC and look at the result.

Also if you can, see if you can test different m2t encoders once you finish your project. For Example my testing on the PC found that Main Concept Pro encoder puts out m2t files better than Aspect HD does. Also I found encoding straight from the timeline out to your format is better than HDV to (AVI,DV,QT) to DVD,m2t etc.

Underwater footage really tests out encoders and stuff.

I will take a shot at this and see what happens. The color correction issue seems to be one of the main issues with HDV.