HDV-SD conversions

This came up in conversations last week in the Socorros and I thought I would put it out there. If you are shooting in HDV but want to make an SD sequence from it..what is best?

1) Edit in HDV and copy and paste it into a new SD sequence

or

2)Log and Capture your HDV footage directly into an SD sequence.

If #2, what U.S.A settings would you use?

I have been editing in HDV and just creating a new SD sequence on the Mac but, heck, maybe I can learn something new.

Steve B)

Hi Steve

Until now I've been using two options. I've edited in HDV or AIC and then just copy and pasted the footage onto a SD timeline for either miniDV or DVCAM export to tape. I've also outputted from the HDV/AIC timeline through compressor to create a SD MPEG2 file for DVD. There 'could' be a quality issue here with the conversion on the timeline, but to my eyes at least I've never noticed it and both options seem fine. Of course if there is a better way of doing all this then I'm all ears.

As for capturing in SD then my theory at least is that if you edit in HDV you have HDV footage that can still be downconverted, while if you edit in SD and then need an HDV version of your project you need to start from scratch.

Cheers, Simon

Well if you had a PC and were using EDIUS you could just change the HDV timeline project settings from HDV to DV then either firewire out to the camera as mormal DV or play the timeline and it will firewire out to DV in real time as the timeline plays.

I did this once for a DV tape that was use for in a TV doco.

Since I always log and capture my HDV footage as HDV, it seems a better choice to then bring those clips to a SD timeline sequence which would go out to tape. I thought there was a way to do it in the new version of Compressor without losing quality but I am not seeing that option.

Steve B)