Re: Capturing Pro Res or HDV

Hi All,

I am just getting into editing with HDV. I have read the articles on Ken's sites and other forums and purchased the HD Survival Handbook listed on this website, but am confused as to which settings to use. I film with Z1U's (1440 x 1080i resolution). An event I recently filmed, I captured my tapes with my Z1U via firewire as HDV. I recently bought a Mac Pro and a Black Magic Intensity Pro card along with an HDV "clamshell deck" to capture my footage. I haven't edited the footage yet, so I decided to do a trial and error with the capuring and sequence settings again.

I see you can capture HDV via firewire, but I decided to use the Intensity Pro settings. I captured via HDMI cable from the clamshell plugged into the Intensity Pro Card using non-controllable device setting. I didn't see a capture setting for 1440x1080i Pro Res: I only saw one for 1920x1080i HQ Pro Res. So I captured a few minutes of two different tapes and put a multiclip together. I noticed that upon playing the footage and cutting live between the two cameras, the footage would suddenly stop playing. So I rendered the mini timeline I constructed. I notice that if I add my cuts after I render, I get the "green status bar" not the blue one that tells you no rendering is necessary.

If I want to capture as Pro Res, which settings do I choose for sequence and capture settings? Also, I check the Sequence Settings at the top scroll bar and saw that QT Video Settings was set for Apple Pro Res 422 (HQ). Is that where you check to see if your settings are correct in addition to the Final Cut Pro File Menu under sequence and capture settings? Is capturing HDMI via the Intensity Pro Card a good method for capturing HDV, or am I stretching the video to conform to 1920 x1080 when it;s actually 1440 x 1080?

Thanks,

Scott

A few more questions on this:

Someone suggested I cut and paste my HDV captured footage into a Pro Res timeline. Is this recomeneded? If so, do I change the settings under the Audio/Video settings first, close FCP open it up again and then create a new timeline with the Pro Res settings? Any advantage to capturing via HDMI over HDV firewire? Any other suggestions?

Thanks,

Scott