Capturing from the HV30

Having spent my half hour on Yonge shooting with the brand-new HV30, it was time to capture. I’m using Final Cut Studio 1, so Final Cut itself is version 5.0.4 on my 1.6 GHz G5 tower. I connected the HV30 to the G5 via the Firewire 400 port on the front panel, with my capture drive plugged into the Firewire-800 port to keep the two devices on separate busses.
Setting the in and out points for batch capturing is the same as regular DV, but doing the batch capture itself seems to run into timecode errors on a regular basis. I seemed to hit an error every other or every 3rd capture, but clicking on OK sent FCP back to work and it would capture everything okay during the 2nd or 3rd attempt. The capture window for HDV is different than the one for regular DV, and you don’t get the image mirrored in FCP as you capture. Not a big deal as I normally watch the camcorder’s flip-screen during capture.
Capturing the first shot, the 24p, took no more time than usual, once I’d gone through the first timecode error message. Putting the clip on the timeline prompted a red render line across the top of that window, so I started to render. FCP said it would take 9 minutes to render the 30-second 24p clip, but I think it was closer to 4 minutes. Exporting said clip to QuickTime (without conversion) took seconds—it must spit out the render file pretty much as is. Here’s the 24p footage after Youtube got its hands on it:

I exited FCP and set up a new project in order to capture the same clip using Apple’s intermediate HDV codec. The 30 second 24p intermediate clip didn’t require rendering, and the export prompted a warning of 11 minutes, which was probably less than 2 minutes in total. Here’s what the lower-res 24p footage looks like:

Exiting FCP again, I set up a 30p project file. As with 24p, FCP indicated rendering was needed. The 30-second 30p clip generated a 2-minute estimate but actually took about a minute and a half to render, so it’s clearly less complicated for FCP compared to the 24p clips. I’m no engineer, but I’m guessing that it’s easier to pull the 30p data off the 60i tape feed from the camcorder. Exporting the 30p clip took a few seconds. And here’s the clip:

The next setting was the plain-Jane HDV, the 1080i format. Capture wasn’t a problem, and putting the clip into the timeline prompted the red render line. FCP initially reported 12 minutes to render, but the counter fluttered between 10, 11, and 12 minutes in the first 30 seconds or so. In actual time, the rendering took about 10 and a half minutes, so for 1080i, FCP guessed fairly accurately. Again, the export to QuickTime took 4-5 seconds, and this is what it looks like:

Capturing a clip shot in regular 60i standard-def DV was problematic. The easy setup choice for DV didn’t work—I kept getting timecode errors. I went in and played with the manual settings (mostly by selecting something else and then going back to the proper setting), and it started to capture. I got the audio rate mismatch error message when it was done, so I’ll have to go back and try to match what is undoubtedly not a 48k sample rate on the camcorder. Strangely, I had to render the clip once I plopped it into the timeline—clearly it’s not pure DV or I’ve missed a setting somewhere (the clip appeared fine in the viewer, but was a tiny square in the middle of the Canvas view before and after rendering). I went back to the manual the next day and realized I had left the HV30’s export setting at HDV instead of switching to standard-def DV—I’ll do a another test with the other setting to see how it turns out. Exporting this first attempt to QuickTime took just a few seconds. Here’s what it looks like (don’t squint too hard):

Finally, I set up a FCP project to compare the 24p and the 24p Apple Intermediate codecs. FCP didn’t seem to like me mixing the two on the same timeline as the image sizes changed when I dropped the 2nd type into the timeline. I set up some graphics and some split-screen action to compare. Rendering took about 2 minutes, and the export took less than 5 seconds (clearly, those render files are going straight into the QuickTime files). Here’s the comparison as it appeared:

This clip took very little time for Compressor to convert to the Youtube settings as detailed at Ken Stone’s site (here’s the article that I followed to set up Youtube 4:3 and widescreen presets) compared to DV clips (it takes at least 3 hrs to render a 2-minute DV clip, so the two formats are clearly quite different). The other HDV clips took much less time than past DV clips I’ve converted using these settings, too.
The Youtube website itself took longer to upload those clips, so any speed gains in Compressor seemed offset by slowdowns with YouTube. I had assumed that HD footage would take longer for both steps, so it’s a fair tradeoff.
Next time, I hope to have my 2nd field trip tests and results, this time to explore the different manual and preset options, and to try setting the export settings to DV for the old-school shots.

The New Camcorder

And the winner is….

I went with the HV30, the front-runner of my little contest. The DV Shop had the best price I’ve seen (and I’ve bought a lot of stuff from them in the past and I like the store).

I would have shot an unboxing video… if I’d had anything to shoot with. I got the camcorder home, unpacked it (everything that was supposed to be in the box was, happily, there), installed the battery, and left it to charge overnight.

The HV30 battery is a different beast than the Ultura’s battery, so I won’t be able to carry over the old batteries, which still provide me with many hours of power after nearly 9 years of use. When I buy extra batteries for the HV30, I hope they last as long as the Ultura's did!

On the other hand, the HV30’s 43mm lens threading allows me to carry over a few things. My 46mm Canon wide-angle and telephoto lenses will fit on the HV30 once I get the proper 43/46 stepping ring (I’d been using a 27.5/46 stepping ring for the Ultura). And I’ll still be able to use Cokin filters, once I replace the filter-holder ring with a 43mm ring, so I'll be able to use my circular polarizer (the HV30 has neutral density filters built in, but I can add extras as needed).

After setting the date, time, and time zone (all the North American zones represented by American cities, so my HV30 thinks it’s in New York!), I set out to test it. I was looking for something with a lot of movement to better compare 24p, 30p, and the 1080i modes, so I went over to Yonge Street and shot from Beltline bridge overlooking the subway and Yonge.

I brought the manual to figure out where settings were hidden in menus to get started, but the camera is well designed, and I had no problems figuring how to operate it after reading the manual, particularly the menu items listings.

The manual warned about mixing formats on the same tape, so I put gaps on the tape between the different shots. I let the camera roll during the red light on Yonge so I could get a consistent shot for each to compare, and the subway added movement on the other side of the screen at random moments.

I kept the HV30 in the cine-look recording program for all the shots, as well as the daylight white balance setting (for sunny outdoor shooting), just to make comparing the different formats more scientific. I’ll play with exposure, shutter speed, and other settings in a future outing.

After about a half hour, I’d shot footage in the 24p, 30p, and 1080i HDV formats, and I also shot some standard definition 60i DV as well.

Next time: the first capture.