HDV Done Right

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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