Making the leap out of HDV. The only question is when.
As noted, you're almost all in favor of getting out of HDV as soon as possible. As also noted, some of you are capturing straight to uncompressed, primarily for the deeper colorspace. (Plenty of disagreement on why uncompressed captures are attractive or even wise. Hey, it's a summary.) You've also been capturing to DVCPRO HD for the benefits, perceived or otherwise, better performance with an i-frame codec, improved rendering times, and better-looking pictures.
But for that capturing to DVCPRO HD? Unanimous posting that this is now a no-go.
Aside from the fact that native HDV performs pretty well in FCP, DVCPRO HD was never designed to be an intermediate codec. It's a deck codec and camera codec that just happens to be relatively easy to edit says Graeme Nattress. Now you can say that editing DVCPRO HD is more practical etc. etc., but it is in no way a highest quality route. And that's why I'm so pleased about ProRes, so people can now use it as a properly designed, full raster, high quality intermediate codec and stop using DVCPRO HD which was never designed for it.
What about capturing HDV to ProRes? First, says Shane Ross, you can't do it over Firewire: You'll need a capture card to do this. Just like you need one to capture HDV as DVCPRO HD. To capture any format as any other format (except for offline RT) you need a capture card.
Jerry Hoffman points out that ProRes won't make the HDV "better." However, anything else you add to the sequence will be better... i.e. graphics, titles, stills from digital cameras etc...
Actually, the Apple Broadcast Formats doc says on page 14 that ProRes "in some cases, may be higher quality than native HDV files." With no disrespect to Apple intended, we're more inclined to take Jerry's word for it.
There are many, many posters who note that you can capture HDV natively, and simply drop it into a ProRes sequence. You can even use that ProRes sequence as the place for all your formats to merrily coexist: HDV, DVCPRO HD, HDCAM, uncompressed - you name it. No need to transcode any of them. That's the new super-timeline feature in FCP6 for you, says Graeme. All old rules have now changed.
Of course, we're still learning the rules. JeremyG says with a shrug: If you watch the FCP6 Demos on the FCS page on apple.com, ProRes422 is not mentioned as a codec that will play multiple resolutions/frame rates/codecs in real time. Virtually all other codecs are.
Of course, Apple's Broadcast Formats doc doesn't suggest using ProRes as a playback format for anything but uncompressed. For any other format, they suggest it's a render codec. So perhaps they didn't demo a workflow they don't encourage.
Sean ONeil has his own shrug to add to the mix: One of the reps at the Apple booth told me that new multi-format timeline feature will not perform very well with HDV, and that I would want a quad or eight-core Intel Mac to do it. Even then she recommended not doing it at all.
Oops. We haven't heard many reports from you about trying HDV in mixed-format timelines, especially with ProRes thrown in the mix. Obviously something to shake out later.
PS. We've heard some people wonder if the mixed-format timeline in FCP is demo demagoguery. Nope. Every other major NLE, and nearly all of the minor ones, have supported mixed timelines for years. Even Final Cut Pro supported mixed-format timelines with the dearly departed and sorely missed f Pinnacle Cinewave.
The specifics of how mixed-format timelines work vary from app to app. Some handle different frame rates, some don't. Some handle mixed audio sample rates. Most don't. All handle mixing HD and SD, but make different choices about how resolutions and letterboxing/center cut, etc. are handled. You'll want to start by reading the manual, then keep talking to each other.
But, as has been proven for many years, in many applications on both Mac and Windows: it really, really works.
PPS. The Broadcast Format doc makes us wonder you can only get real time playout of a mixed-format timeline that includes HDV and ProRes after its rendered. Page 27: you can play back the entire sequence, including the Apple ProRes 422 codec render files, in real time. Makes sense to us, but we thought it deserved highlighting. No doubt there's going to be some rendering. We just don't know how much yet.
PPPS. Just so there's no question here: most (but not all) of you are certain that native HDV capture is the way to go. Skip AIC. Skip DVCPRO HD. Just render to ProRes.
PPPPS. Of course, some of this changes once we add a little Color.