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The emergence of the HDV format, offering high-definition
quality video on a MiniDV cassette, has enabled a number of exciting
new applications for video professionals who couldn’t afford the high
cost of HD equipment. New three-chip professional camcorders from JVC
and Sony have made HD production possible for more people than ever,
and facilitated some innovative ways to use the technology.
After the euphoria of breaking into HD production wears off, HDV
production poses some specific questions that need immediate answers:
what do I do with my HDV footage now that I’ve acquired it, and how do
I mix it with the other formats I’m working with?
Avid helps you meet both of these challenges. When Avid says "HDV Done
Right," it means providing the tools and technology you need to work in
the real world, natively incorporating a variety of format types and
third-party programs to help streamline the production process.
Sidestepping all of the hype surrounding HDV, Avid understands what you
want to do and gets you where you want to go.
To meet the challenge of what to do with the HDV footage you’ve acquired, Avid Xpress Pro ®
software now offers native HDV support, allowing you to capture and
edit native HDV in real time just as easily as it does with DV. And
unlike many of its competitors, Avid doesn’t make you wait for time-
and disk-consuming renders to much larger file sizes before you can
start editing.
Avid Xpress Pro lets you capture from the camera with full control,
including batch capture, directly to your bin and drop it straight onto
the timeline.
Avid also helps you meet the second challenge- combining your new HDV
footage with the other formats you work with- thanks to their unique
Open Timeline. Simply add the footage you want to use to your timeline
and edit it in its native format, in real time. You can mix your HDV
footage with other HD formats such as DVCPRO HD in the same sequence.
Working with irreplaceable archive footage, stock media, or footage
from recent models of SD cameras? You can even combine your HDV footage
with SD media, including DV25, DV50, and even uncompressed SD footage
(with Avid Mojo ®). Other systems will make you render
footage to a common format before you can even begin editing. Avid
Xpress Pro saves time, disk space and image quality by letting you edit
the formats of your choice together, natively, in the same sequence.
Need even more format support? Avid has also developed a special
transfer mode that takes 720p/30fps material and converts it into the
720i/60 and 1080i/60 standards for inclusion into these types of
productions.
No matter how you’re working with HDV- as a single format, or in
concert with all of the other HD, SD, and film formats you work with-
Avid is committed to making it as easy, efficient, and cost-effective
for you as possible. Avid systems have a history of supporting whatever
format their customers require and the rapidly expanding universe of
options makes that Avid advantage more important than ever.
HDV WORKFLOW DONE RIGHT
Looking at three common work scenarios and how Avid addresses them,
it’s clear that with Avid Xpress Pro, you’re ready for anything:
Acquiring In HDV And Going Back Out To HDV Tape.
Avid Xpress Pro has everything you need to start and end with HDV.
Simply acquire your footage over IEEE-1394 (also known as iLink or
FireWire), edit in real time, and send your project back out over the
same cable. If your projects include titles, composites, and
animations, you’ll be able to take advantage of the groundbreaking Avid
DNxHD codec for mastering quality HD in the same bandwidth as standard
definition media. Your projects will look better and be easier to work
with. (For details, see sidebar eblow "In an HDV Workflow, Avid DNxHD Keeps Quality High.")
Acquiring In HDV And Outputting An HD SDI Stream.
As easy as it is to finish your HD productions in Avid Xpress Pro,
seamless integration across the entire Avid product line means that you
can quickly, easily, and affordably use the same tools used for the
world’s highest-end productions. Collaboration with systems such as
Avid Media Composer ® Adrenaline™ HD is painless- as easy
as providing a digital project file- so that your finished HDV project
can be sent back out over HD SDI to the HD format of your choice.
Acquiring In HDV And "Publishing" To An Optical Format (E.G., Blu-Ray & HD-DVD).
Next generation DVD formats such as HD-DVD and Blu-ray are just around
the corner, and Avid is looking ahead. Already with Avid Xpress Pro,
users can encode directly to WMV HD, MPEG-2 HD and H.264 using the
included Sorenson Squeeze Compression Suite software. These are the
file formats for next generation players. These files can either be
used for direct playback on a PC or Mac from a current generation DVD
or hard drive, or these files can then be imported into next generation
authoring software, such as those currently being demonstrated by
Avid’s DVD partner Sonic.
Again, it’s about practical solutions to real world problems. If you
want to edit and handle HDV footage as easily and intuitively as you
always have in the standard-definition DV world, Avid has the right
solutions and the familiar timeline interface to see your HDV project
through to the end.
In an HDV Workflow, Avid DNxHD Keeps Quality High
Avid DNxHD™ represents the world’s first HD post-production format for
mastering quality HD in SD bandwidth. It provides a great way to
cost-effectively create high-quality copies for distribution.
As many professionals would agree, HDV is an excellent acquisition
format, but not adequate for mastering. It normally will not hold up to
most multi-generation effects, graphics, and titles added in the
postproduction process without quality loss. What’s needed is a
higher-quality codec for rendering files. This is where Avid DNxHD
excels. Included in all of Avid’s HD editing products, Avid DNxHD
encoding was created specifically for the real world of postproduction.
Other companies will suggest converting to uncompressed HD to preserve
quality. However, this requires lots of storage (extra cost) and makes
networking problematic (extra time). Uncompressed HD is costly for real
time performance and too large for portable editing. Using Avid DNxHD
means you can have the quality of uncompressed material at data rates
that are compatible with virtually all NLEs, including laptop editors.
The reduced bandwidth of Avid DNxHD encoding- it offers HD quality
while requiring approximately 20% less storage capacity than 8-bit
uncompressed SD material- enables single editing systems to work in HD
with a simple 4- or 8-way drive stripe set or even a single drive.
Employing the innovative Avid DNxHD software codec also offers a great
way to collaborate with other users of Media Composer Adrenaline
systems in a mastering-quality format. HDV files processed with Avid
DNxHD can be easily shared across a networked HD environment with the
Avid Unity™ MediaNetwork system. By delivering full raster and full
mastering quality HD in the same bandwidth and storage footprint as SD,
users get real-time performance on the drives they are already using
for SD production- even on their laptops. This is Avid’s way of paying
attention to your company’s workflow and bottom line. Because at the
end of the day, that’s what it’s all about.
For more information, visit www.AVID.com