I am looking into high quality cameras like the HV20 and HV30 which film in HDV I believe, but I have heard that format is very hard to edit on low spec computers. Does anyone know like minimum specs on this or what? The best computer at my home has a Pentinium 4 2.66, and 1gb of ram, and Intel 82845g graphics, anyone think this is enough? I also have a Dell Inspiron e1505.... 1.6 cpu
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Editing HDV Possible Problem
- Thread starter Andr3w
- Start date
It doesn't sound like it will be enough for "native" HDV editing (that is editing in M2T or MPEG files), but if you purchased a codec like the CINEFORM NEO SCENE (www.cineform.com) you might find that you can edit the files okay in Sony's VEGAS or Adobe PREMIERE PRO.
Cineform takes the MPEG2 files and creates an AVI with full frames that allow it to be more easily edited with a lot less loss in quality than native HDV editing.
Cineform takes the MPEG2 files and creates an AVI with full frames that allow it to be more easily edited with a lot less loss in quality than native HDV editing.
I have used my Canon HV20 footage with that codec (you have to buy it) from Cineform and it makes it so much easier to edit, plus it uses the camera specific 24P format very well too.
I personally use Cineform for most of my editing on features and documentaries and almost all of my HDV shoots.
I personally use Cineform for most of my editing on features and documentaries and almost all of my HDV shoots.
If you can spare an extra $500, the Sony HD1000u might be something to consider, as it does have more capabilities than any of the consumer models, it's a surprisingly cheap prosumer model. I would recommend Premiere Pro for editing HDV, it reads it fine and works well with it.
You definitely need more RAM though, what's your OS? I strongly recommend 4GB RAM which comes cheap on tigerdirect.com, here's a link to a great deal on 4gb ram (2x2gb).
I would strongly recommend moving up to a core 2 quad processor and windows 7 64-bit (once it's released), or even vista 64-bit as it has become the fastest platform for video rendering (until 7 is out that is). Premiere Pro CS4 was developed to run best on windows vista and 7 64-bit editions especially.
You definitely need more RAM though, what's your OS? I strongly recommend 4GB RAM which comes cheap on tigerdirect.com, here's a link to a great deal on 4gb ram (2x2gb).
I would strongly recommend moving up to a core 2 quad processor and windows 7 64-bit (once it's released), or even vista 64-bit as it has become the fastest platform for video rendering (until 7 is out that is). Premiere Pro CS4 was developed to run best on windows vista and 7 64-bit editions especially.
Native HDV editing has several inherent problems. HDV is using the MPEG2 codec which means there are very few whole frames, just key frames and the pixels that change between them as shared data. This means that when you make cuts in between keyframes, the computer is killing itself with CPU and memory trying to compensate.
Regardless of the NLE, depending on the settings, a different codec that converts the MPEG2 to something with whole frames, will make editing much easier on the system, as well as maintain quality of image during transitions, titles, color correction or any image adjustments. CINEFORM does a great job for Premiere Pro, but Avid has their own codec, as does Apple's Final Cut Pro.
Regardless of the NLE, depending on the settings, a different codec that converts the MPEG2 to something with whole frames, will make editing much easier on the system, as well as maintain quality of image during transitions, titles, color correction or any image adjustments. CINEFORM does a great job for Premiere Pro, but Avid has their own codec, as does Apple's Final Cut Pro.
So, I take it if I use Premiere Pro to export the mpeg2hdv footage to Microsoft DV AVI, and import the new file to the project, it should run the CPU a lot less, but it will take more hdd space, as AVI is pretty much uncompressed...have you edited HDV AVI? I just want to know how much a difference it makes in editing performance once adding special effects from AE and such...cus even SD AVI really works the hardware in AE, and with some effects in PP...
When you edit HDV natively in Adobe Premiere Pro, it is inherently an *.MPEG file. In order to get the HDV back out to tape you'll need to convert it to an *.M2T file.
If you export the MPEG file to a standard Microsoft DV codec *.AVI file (AVI is just a "wrapper" and doesn't tell you anything about the codec, much like *.MOV), it will be just an SD file.
An "HD AVI" can also mean any codec used to compress the AVI, so the file size will vary from codec to codec. Some are more compressed than others. Yes, some are huge and uncompressed is enormous, but others like MJPEG or CINEFORM are much more mild, but still larger than SD AVI files.
CPU juice and more memory will help with After Effects (and Premiere), but they might still work, but with a slower render time.