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July 03, 2006
Avid and 720P Workflow
In today’s world of broadcast you need to be thinking ahead of the curve. The main issue today is that most stations that want HD also want the SD down convert, or, you may want to shoot in HD for archive purposes without and HD output.
If you are stepping up to HDV and you want the advantages of shooting progressive HD footage, then you have a few extra steps you need to take when editing in Avid if your output is standard definition. I now shoot with the new JVC HD-GY100U. This phenomenal camera takes high quality 720P pictures with vibrant color and clarity. You have the option of shooting in HD or DV, but I have opted to shoot in 720 30P. This makes for the highest quality image and allows me to archive all of my footage in HDV.
The main problem I run into is that my final output needs to be SD. There are many ways around this issue but I have discovered the best one that works for me. If you edit in the 720P mode in Avid you cannot output to 30i, which is a huge issue once you are done editing your program. The GY100U has a built in down convert to SD but it stretches the image. So, I use that camera's SD down convert and make a copy of my raw footage into my Sony DSR-11. I then bring that footage into the Avid and use the reformat effect to return to the 16x9 format. Making this conversion has its own set of problems (no DV scene extraction, etc.). This takes one extra step but I still have my original footage in HD format for future use.
Posted by MovingPicture at July 3, 2006 07:25 PM