HD For Indies

For the sake of argument here, let's say you're someone already familiar with DV editing. DV is great - the quality is pretty darn good, it's relatively inexpensive, it's a pretty mature technology such that there are a lot of options for cameras, editing, etc. You can viably edit on your laptop if you have to, and your desktop computer can thoroughly rock for around $5K including a nice NTSC preview monitor. Now let's say you want to move up to HD for possible feature work. How much more does it take?

THE COMPUTER ITSELF:

While even laptop computers can now comfortably edit DV footage, the file sizes and quantity of data to be transferred for HD is fearsomely large. Avid sells their systems that are HD capable for small home prices. In the last year or two, the very fastest desktop computers available could just barely handle it.

THE COMPUTER MONITOR TO SEE IT ON

DV is only 720x480 pixels. Pretty much any monitor is sufficent to see that. Want to work with HD at full size? Be ready to spend over $1000. Want a 16:9 or so aspect ratio computer monitor screen? Whether CRT or LCD, be ready to spend $2000 to $3000 for a screen capable of at least 1920x1080 pixels.

STORAGE REQUIREMENTS

Well, for starters, the files are stupendous in size. DV is a compressed file format - some detail information is lost for the sake of keeping the data rate low. DV is about 3 1/2 megabytes per second, something well within the capabilities of even the lowliest hard drives sold today. That works out to around 12 gigabytes per hour of footage. What is called uncompressed video runs about around 21 to 23 megabytes per second, or about 76 to 83 gigabytes per hour of footage.

At present, HDV doesn't edit natively. And if you want to project an image on the size of screen used in theaters, it behooves you to work with uncompressed footage. What is the preferred format for movie bound HD? 1080p24 10bit. Huh? What's that? That's 1920x1080 pixels, 24 frames per second, 10 bits per channel (red,green, blue) of color. Uncompressed 1080p24 10bit runs about 110 MB/sec, or just under 400 gigabytes per hour. Want to edit two streams uncompressed for a real time transition in your editor? Your drive system needs to be capable of two separate data transfers of 110 MB/sec, so 220 MB/sec, with dual simultaneous data transfers as well. (More on what that means later).

Damn.

And regular hard drives can't do this. Regular drives these days can do 30-40 MB/sec if they are pretty fast. As a matter of fact, not even 4 regular hard drives can do this. If you look at the recommended specs, they are suggesting high speed SCSI drives. Or at least systems with high speed (Ultra320 SCSI) systems that interface over SCSI even if they are using ATA (same kind in your computer probably, but theirs are faster) drives. OK, more on this later. Moving on:

INTERFACE:

With DV, you can jus plug a FireWire (or iLink, or IEEE 1394a, all the same thing) cable between your camera and computer's built in port (or $50 add in card). Whee, lookit go. That's all there is to it. But with HD, it's not so easy. Even the "low" end cards were $5000 to $10000 until very recently (in 2003). Avid STILL charges over $100K for their realtime capable HD editing systems (if my info is still up to date). And the cards usually input and output HD SDI, which stands for High Definition Serial Digital Interface. This is what HDCAM decks spit out and read in. It's a great format - digital, high definition, crisp, clean easy. And expensive.

DECKS:

HDCAM decks have cost about $80K and up. Maybe they are down to $60K now, I haven't looked in a while, but that's still pretty pricey.

MONITORING:

A good/decent NTSC preview monitor can be had for about $1000 and up. If you're on the cheap, an awful lot of indie productions have been done by running plain TVs off of the camera's s-video output, or off of a hardware codec, like the Sony DVMC-DA2.

Want a multiformat studio monitor from Sony that will take an HD-SDI signal? Those start around $5500 and go up from there. Oh, and the HD-SDI board that goes in the monitor so it can accept the HD SDI signal? It's another $3500 or so.

So this has been, to say the least, rather disheartening for the typical independent producer. All this hype about gorgeous digital high resolution imagery you can edit on your computer is unreachable. Impractical. Hasn't mattered for 99% of the folks out there.

However....

...stay tuned for the next exciting edition....