I'm on HDR-HC3.
For a project, I was toying with the idea of shooting standard def or DV instead of HD 1080 , as the file sizes of the HD Raw clips seemed so huge in inital test. I think 10 minutes of HD comes out to what about 5GB per every 10 min or so, correct me please. Still lot of hard drive space.

So I just shot one minute at HD and one minute at DV.

The HD was about 200mb.
But the DV was also about 200mb.

So I'm a but puzzled. what's up with that?

Also the HD was 1920 x1080
The DV was 853 x480

The DV had a very rectangle window almost like a 16x9, not a 4:3 TV look as I was expecting, did I do something wrong?

The DV footage also looked grainier and way more jaggedy on edges.
I mean it looked a lot worse.

Lastly, the DV, with stop and starts is seems is able to capture in one chunk, unlike the HD which breaks up clips on stops and starts which I hate (getting lot of little clips)

Any clearification on this greatly appreciated. thanks.

Well, I have measured DV-AVI (D25) at about 218 MB per minute. Or about 13 GB per hour.

HDV is about the same because it is compressed in MPEG-2 while DV AVI is compressed less (actually compressed 5:1). NTSC DV AVI should be 720 x 480 in 4:3 or 16:9 . The individual pixels are not square; they are squeezed differently depending on if it is 16:9 or 4:3 aspect ratios.




Rich

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DV and HDV are the same size, as Rich pointed out above. They're just compressed differently. So there's never any advantage to shooting DV on an HDV cam.No, the HC3 shoots DV in 16:9 Wide Mode unless you tell it not to. Page 66 of your manual.Yes, it's supposed to. That's why they invented HDV.Usually it's the opposite, depending upon the capture software you use. You can do DV scene detect based on date and time but not HDV. If you don't want it broken into clips then tell your editor not to.

Dang, thank AC:

Well the whole point was I was debating weather or not to continue this small project on my HDR-HC3 with full HD or just go with standard Def.

The whole issue being the incrdible amount of HD disc space that HD requires.

So what you are saying is that shooting in DV mode on this camera does not produce smaller file sizes? ANd hence, if I want standard video, I have to go back to the store and buy standard def camcorders?

That said if Rich is correct in that 1 hour at HD is about 13 GB, what would that hour take up on my hard drive with a good true native "standard def" camcorder?

With a great new quality standard def camcorder, the image the quality could be excellent. much better the the DV on the HDR-HC3 right?
And if what you say it true, why the heck have DV on this camera? It just bring up the option to err to it and all that i-link stuff such a nuisance no?

On issue of broken up clips. I've been told on the Final Cut boards (which I use FCP 5) that it's inherent in the HD footage that the starts and stops will be captured a single clips. No choice in the matter.

Finally, AC, what is you opinion on this? These projects are not life and death, but I thought that HD would be a good future- proof idea. But the hard drive cost is a killer no? Even with cheaper rates these days, I can see Terrabytes of money gettings sucked up. (and I like to back up everything by nature with two backups)

Why aren't you puzzled that the same cassette fits one hour of DV and one hour of HDV? Different compression methods.
This is bogus info, player shows the resulting frame rescaled to PAR 1 (Pixel aspect ratio), not the original one. Original frames are:

* 1440x1080 for HDV with PAR 1.33
* 720x480 for DV regardless of aspect ratio, of which only 704 horizontal pixels are used.

Widescreen DV has PAR 1.212, "fullscreen" DV has PAR 0.909.

So here you have it: 1440x1.33 ~ 1920, 704x1.212 = 853.
This is widescreen SD, just like widescreen DVD movies. Widescreen SD video was not popular in the U.S., but is widely used in PAL countries.
Vegas 6 and Ulead VS11P capture HDV in one chunk which I hate, I prefer separate clips. I guess, this is because I haven't learned how to properly use trimmer in Vegas

Repeat after me: DV and HDV are the same size, DV and HDV are the same size, DV and HDV are the same size, DV and HDV are the same size...As I said above, it's a non-issue, as HDV doesn't take up any more disc space in its native form than SD DV.Correct. Shooting in DV mode on any camera does not produce smaller file sizes.No, DV is DV. The HC3 shoots very nice SD DV -- better than the best regular DV cams. And the files are exactly the same. DV is DV.They're the same, so 13GB. DV and HDV are the same size, DV and HDV are the same size, DV and HDV are the same size, DV and HDV are the same size...Wrong. Downconverted HDV to DV, as well as DV shot in an HDV cam, is usually better than DV shot in a DV-only cam.Beats me. Some people don't have enough PC horsepower to edit HDV, where there is indeed a difference from SD DV. So you could shoot DV or just downconvert from HDV to DV on capture.Do you mean each start and stop defines a single clip, or that all starts and stops are captured together as one long clip? It should be the latter. HDV stores date and time info (not timecode) differently than DV. DV scene detect often uses date and time breaks to decide where to split scenes. As this data is not accessible in HDV, it will capture as one long clip. But there are utilities that can do this anyhow, some based on content. HDVSplit is highly recommended and is free. Adobe Premiere Elements can split scenes retroactively based on content. Don't know about the Mac.No. No, no. No, no, no. It's no different than DV. The only time it comes into play is when you use an intermediate codec like Cineform to "decompress" your HDV footage, which blows HDV up to about 60 GB per hour. But if you're not doing that it's a non-issue. The Apple Intermediate Codec may expand your HDV as well, but I'll let the Mac experts address that. I can't remember if that comes into play with FCP or iMovie or someting else.

But Hard Drives are ridiculously cheap. It's a non-issue.

Thanks Jockey and also AC or course.

"The HD was about 200mb.
But the DV was also about 200mb."

I was assuming that if you shot in the lower DV quality, you would get a smaller file. (more on this later...)


"Also the HD was 1920 x1080
The DV was 853 x480"

Ok, but why am I seeing these numbers on playback in Quicktimes inspector? I don't understand that still. Why doesn't QT just show what you say is the real numbers? How can I see real numbers in QT?

What does PAR mean?

Why do you prefer the capture in one chunk, maybe I'm missing the benefits of that idea.

AC! thanks!
I cannot believe what you are saying, that Standard Def Video and HD are the same size? Why? Becuase an editor was helping me a while back was said that footage shot on a standard def camera like Canon GL1 or a "pre" HD small camcorder is up to 60% smaller file sizes? this is BS? Wow. And I've heard this before a lot. this is just a common misperception?

On the Mac, in Final Cut, you always get a new clip every time you released the start button on the camcorder and restarted. So will often see little clips, chunks, do you prefer this?

"The Apple Intermediate Codec may expand your HDV as well, but I'll let the Mac experts address that"

Well let me know becuase this is what I have to set it to to capture, and I think it may be coming to that large size. To capture through FCP, which I do, how much does one hour take on hard drive compared to standard def shot with standard def camera capture to FCP with NTSC?

At 60GB/hr, or if it is drastically more even if Terrabyte are $300 each, it thousands and thousands of dollars more potentialy

BTW -- does this forum offer e-mail notification? I cannot find anyplace to achieve that, and hence always come back late to my posts.

1. Go to "User CP"

2. Go to "Edit Options"

3. Look at "Messaging & Notification" then look at "Default Thread Subscription Mode" select your choice.

4. Save changes at bottom.




Rich

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Yes, I know. But as we've all said, that isn't true, at least with HDV tape. It is true with an HDD cam that has various quality settings and with still cams.

Rather than just repeat what everyone has tried to tell you, I'm going to suggest you spend some time on the many Apple/Mac/Final Cut/iMovie forums around the web including here. Go back and read six months' worth of posts, and then if you still have questions, do a search. Also, please read the manual for Final Cut and if it's online, do a search for "Apple Intermediate Codec" or "AIC." You'll find all the answers you need.

Edit: Here, I did it for you. Took about four seconds. Read this:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301599

It points out that:

1) DV and HDV are the same size
2) You can choose to edit native HDV (m2t) files in Final Cut
3) Or you can convert to AIC, in which case the file sizes do grow to three or four times their original size. But this isn't required and the choice is yours.

Even at the "de-compressed" size, you could store 20 hours of tape on a 1 Terabyte drive. How much are you capturing?
Depends what I'm cutting. I never use any form of automatic scene detect. If I'm doing sports, I'm only using about 10% of what I shoot, so I go through each tape, manually mark the in and out points of every clip I think I might use, hit "batch capture" in Premiere, and go have a cup of coffee while the PC does the rest. Saves a lot of disc space even though the tape logging takes a while.

The last project I just finished was a six-camera shoot of a musical, so I needed every frame from every cam to cut between. So I just captured the entirety of about 18 tapes as one long clip per tape, and went back later and grabbed pieces of about 12 more for coverage.

AC
when you say HD tape you mean
the mini DV tape I'm recording on?

Ok the piece said:
The drawback of this codec is that it requires three to four times as much bandwidth and hard drive storage space as MPEG-2 HDV.

But you are saying I could capture in native HDV I can save 75% of hard drive space. Maybe I'll explore that on the FCP boards, what is your quick opinion?

As capturing all the tape footage, I wonder, is there a way to tell the computer you don't need what was not used and delete from hard drive?
Otherwise, the laborious log and capture you usually do I assme save hard drive space better, but is a real wear and tear on the tape and deck or camcorder.

Still curious on this question: thanks!
"Also the HD was 1920 x1080
The DV was 853 x480"

Ok, but why am I seeing these numbers on playback in Quicktimes inspector? I don't understand that still. Why doesn't QT just show what you say is the real numbers? How can I see real numbers in QT?

What does PAR mean?

PS AC
Finally,
So you are saying that if I got a Canon GL1 and captured it into FCP that that footage would take no more space in general that footage shot on my Sony HDR-HC3. thanks (and would not look as good)

Pixel Aspect Ratio

And three good references:

http://www.doom9.org/index.html?/capture/par.html
http://www.3ivx.com/support/par.html
http://www.afterdawn.com/glossary/t...spect_ratio.cfm

Rich

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Any DV AVI video shot on a MiniDV camcorder will be about 13 GB per hour of video recorded on the tape.

Any HDV video will be about 13 GB per hour of video recorded on the tape.

"(and would not look as good)" we aren't talking about which looks better or which one is easier to edit and which one is 720x480 pixels vs 1920 x1080.... "Not look as good" is subjective and depends on a lot of factors. You gonna put it on YouTube? Then it probably does not make any difference.



Rich

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What Rich said.