HV30 hdvsplit Problem - Help Please!

[George Tyndall]

I wonder where the HV30 would stand on downconvert in the camera? Others tried gave mid-scale (5) efforts at best. Time for some testing, if I get some time!

As I said in my reply to Jack, I am going to create a DVD using the downconversion method then post the result here.

[George Tyndall]

Probably a conflict with other software George....

Actually, I can live with using the camera's LCD screen for Preview. for the following reason: Unlike with the HDVSplit Preview Window, on the LCD I can display the time and date data and thereby be certain which particular clip HDVSplit is currently recording to my hard drive. This is important to me because, with my hard drive's window open beside the HDVSplit pane, I am adding info to the title that HDVSplit has created so that I can more easily identify the particular clip at a later date. I am doing this "live," by which I mean, once I've started, I let the "capture" process run without stopping before the end of the tape. I'll post more about this later.

Thanks for your reply.

[Ken Jarstad]

Re: Ken's thread on better video...

I wonder where the HV30 would stand on downconvert in the camera? Others tried gave mid-scale (5) efforts at best. Time for some testing, if I get some time!

Bob

The author of that topic gives in-camera downconvert a 5 rating on a scale of ten. My HV20 downconverts look very good and my speculation is that the Canon DIGIC DV II processor gives supperior downconvert images. It takes 1440x1080 pixels in a 4:2:0 array and reduces it to 720x480 pixels in a 4:1:1 array which, technically might only mean throwing away unneeded pixels but I'll bet that processor has a "smart" algorithm that makes assumtions about the b&w and color channel information that is much more acurate than you would normally expect. That is why many professional videographers have, sometimes grudgingly, admitted that HDV video looks better than they expected from the technical specs.

According to that article on the DVinfo forum you can get a much better conversion quality to standard DVD with a Cineform codec. I think we Canon HV owners are getting better than a 5 of 10 rating for an in camera downconvert but there is no doubt that there are improved work flows available.

[George Tyndall]

I wonder where the HV30 would stand on downconvert in the camera? Others tried gave mid-scale (5) efforts at best. Time for some testing, if I get some time! Bob

I performed that experiment yesterday. I could not see any difference whether I 1) created the SD DVD from a "downconversion" in camera or 2) exported the HD video on Premiere 3.0's Timeline as DV AVI to Files and Folders, then burned a DVD from that file. There was no difference in quality--in both cases the quality was MARKEDLY INFERIOR, when the DVDs were viewed on a SD TV, to what I see when I view the origina HDV tapes on my high def monitor.

At the moment, I am struggling with a third attempt to export a 34-minute HD video on the Premiere 3.0 Timeline to my 1TB hard drive as WMV 1080i. It seems to be happening, but I don't know if it will ever complete--it's already been rendering for 5 hours, and there are still 3 hours to go (Pass 2 of 2) (On the first two attempts, an error message popped up.)

I was hoping to have a catalog, in WMV format , on my 1TB HD for all my video creations, but I am beginning to wonder whether that is possible. Am I going to have to go to the expensive Blu-Ray disc burner/expensive Blu-Ray media route? In comparison with having all my creations available in WMV format on my Hard Drive for viewing on my HD monitor, that option is not even slightly appealing.

[Ken Jarstad]

I performed that experiment yesterday. I could not see any difference whether I 1) created the SD DVD from a "downconversion" in camera or 2) exported the HD video on Premiere 3.0's Timeline as DV AVI to Files and Folders, then burned a DVD from that file. There was no difference in quality--in both cases the quality was MARKEDLY INFERIOR, when the DVDs were viewed on a SD TV, to what I see when I view the origina HDV tapes on my high def monitor.

I do believe that is the very point of that article, George. An HD timeline in Premiere does not get downconverted with the video quality we would expect.

As for "MARKEDLY INFERIOR" - compared to what? That is why the rating scale. The point is that very few people have spent the money for hi-def DVD burners and players. Downconverting in HDV camcorders provides us with excellent quality std-def video that required an expensive pro camcorder just 3 or 4 years ago. I play my std-def DVDs on a Sony upconverting DVD player into a 32 inch flat panel and they look very good.

Someday the prices for hi-def burners, players and media will be more affordable and more folks we know will then have it. And the prices for the quad-core monsters needed to chew through it will make processing times more reasonble, too. Meanwhile, there are work flows that can produce better std-def images than we are seeing. Cineform, last time I checked, was in the region of $500. Also, some folks claim that one of the Adobe products does a good job. Some claim that Nero Vision does a superior job. I haven't seen it yet. I will wait for a while.

[Ken Jarstad]

I should edit, rather than quote myself!

[George Tyndall]

Post deleted by George Tyndall