HD For Indies

So after figuring out that encoding back to MPEG-2 (native HDV format) from the Apple Intermediate Codec (AIC, what Apple converts HDV to when capturing from tape) is NOT a realtime process, the next natural question is how long does it take?

A quick poll of readers got this back:

Mac: dual 2.0 GHz G5
encoding time ratio: 6:1 (it takes 6 minutes to encode to HDV MPEG-2)

Mac: dual 1.25 GHz G4
encoding time ratio: 10:1 (10 minutes to encode one minute of AIC to HDV MPEG-2)

Mac: Mini 1.42 GHz
encoding time ratio: 15:1 (15 minutes to encode one minute of HD resolution AIC back to MPEG-2 for HDV layback)

A dual 2.5 GHz G5 might nudge that a little closer to 5:1, but it's clear that 1080i60 HDV footage takes a long time to cook. Important to remember when you're on deadline.

So if you're prepping a 30 minute piece, you'd need at LEAST 3 hours to get it to tape (on a dual 2.5 GHz G5, and maybe not even that fast), and as much as 8 hours (or more) if on a baseline config machine, like a Mac Mini. The absolute baseline is a 1 GHz G4, such as a 1GHz G4 PowerBook. I bet it could take as long as 10 hours or more on that Mac, with it's slower bus and slower drives on top of the slower processor speed. (But that's conjecture.)