Con-/Prosumer Codec History

[Felix K.]

I wanted to ask you guys something.

How do the different HD codecs compare to the old mini-DV standards? I e.g. shot a lot on my Canon XL-2 which was supposed to be a good SD camera but I haven't really worked with any of the HDV, H264 or AVCHD stuff.

How do they compare, how did they evolve. Colorgrading, resizing etc...
How do the DLSR from today compare to that? There is a lot of critisism in the forum here because they are compared to REDRAW which, to me, is on a different level.(therefore the "consumer" title")
(That will change with Scarlet, I'm sure. But until it comes out let's leave that aside, ok?)
So please let this thread be about the codecs that are not RAW and let's discuss the comparison to RED in the other threads *pretty please*

Would be nice to hear your opinion on that. What kind of experiences did you have with Sony, Panasonic, Canon, JVC and all the others?

 

[Mick Jones]

As an editor I find that working with HDV is something that I avoid. It seems like a nice enough prosumer acquisition codec, but a bit of a dog to edit with and ingest... especially if you encounter TC breaks. With footage I get from AVCHD cams it's a Pro Res Transcode.

If you try to edit with h264 then it's a nightmare so best to transcode to an edit codec. I'm a fan of AVCintra & Apple Pro Res. For the past year I have been doing post on a production that shoots AVCintra (3 month shoot, so lots of footage) and comes into Final Cut Pro as Pro Res HQ. I think AVCintra is pristine quality. I haven't been able to fault it. The codec was chosen more or less for us as it is a BBC production and they approved it. And then colour grading it in Pro Res HQ it stands up nicely. We also resized the AVC intra footage. We shot 1920x1080 for a 720 finish and it really held up nicely on the re-size. The same can't be said for the recent resize attempt I had with DVC pro HD for an SD finish. But I think that is more to do with the chips in the 502 not being full hd.

 

[Wesley Scoggins]

I know for Crank 2 (which used a lot of HDV and AVCHD cams) they took the HDV tapes to the post-house each night, and had them transfer it all to HDCAM for the editing masters.

But they said they didn't work directly from those, because most larger posthouses simply aren't equipped to deal with Prosumer gear.