HDV: Hot But Not Ready To Come Out Of The Oven Yet

I just came back from a seminar on Final Cut Pro 5 and Broadcast Video Solutions over at Tekserve on West 23rd Street. Very cool shop. Kind of a place were all the Mac heads who can't deal with the Soho Store go to work and play. Tekserve=Iggy Pop where the Apple Soho=Clay Aiken. Need I say more?

It was a very interesting seminar that dealt with the advent of HDV. If you don't know what DV has done for the creative world and beyond look around you. DV has made it possible for many people to make films, have careers and deliver all of that mental growth stunting home video of kids throwing themselves off of rooftops in all it's insane and inane glory. DV has done this. What HDV will do should prove to be truly great. It can deliver gorgeous footage with amazing resolution at a very affordable price for all who are ready to work with it. The day for this new buzz technology is now, sort of. Final Cut Pro 5 allows us to take in HDV footage natively and edit it on the timeline at the same data rate as DV, around 3.6 MByte/sec. That means that one stream of video will run through your system no problem, 4 streams still good. This is truly revolutionary but that's where the coolness ends and the chaos begins. Because HDV is not the same animal as DV, FCP 5 deals with it differently. It originates as a complex MPEG-2 compression scheme that doesn't take well to non-linear editing applications. Apple says it can be done and I believe it can but be prepared to study up and throw on your battle gear when dealing with it. Right now, HDV is in it's infancy but in the right hands and a little time it's integration with Final Cut Pro 5 will be responsible for some beautiful images and opening up more doors like it's predecessor format, DV.

The seminar also touched on uncompressed video cards such as the AJA line and the Decklink family. Both have advantages and need to be considered when dealing with the possibility of editing analog originated material such as Beta SP and working in a 10-bit uncompressed workspace.

If you're in Manhattan and are a looking to be treated like a human being check out Tekserve at 119 West 23rd Street.
(Note: I do not receive any perks from Tekserve in any way, shape or form for this plug but I am definitely open to the possibilities.)

More HDV info can be found at HD For Indies