HD For Indies

Lumiere HD - Edit HDV on Final Cut Pro - Beta Download

I just got an email from Frederic Haubrich of LumiereHD that they have a downloadable (for paid customers) beta version of LumiereHD for 720p24, p25, and p30 for the JVC GY-HD100.

A bunch of other cameras and framerates are supported as well.

This is significant news, this is the first good solution to edit 24p HDV from the JVC that will work with Final Cut Pro. Their solution uses an offline/online workflow, and gives you lots of choices in how you want to work.

The one thing it does NOT do as yet is let you online your MPEG-2 footage in FCP 5.0 - a surprising missing feature, which I hope they'll resolve in the shipping version. This is just a beta, after all.

But for best results, you can offline in DV (or whatever codec you want), and do an online where you render out the results. You could always just use Media Manager and/or Compressor to convert that HD MPEG-2 footage to uncompressed 10 bit video and have some realtime performance that way as well.

So my hesitation in recommending the GY-HD100U is now somewhat allayed - there IS an editing solution for 720p24 footage, although it is not (yet) as simple and elegant as I'd like to see it be.

This may well end up being like last year, where LumiereHD is the only solution until NAB (April 2006) when Apple will hopefully get on the ball and have a native solution for this format.

But for $179, that's a bargain to have a solution 6 months early.

From their website:

Capture from following HDV devices:

- JVC GY-HD100 (720p30, 24, 25)
- JVC BR-HD50 (720p30, 24, 25)
- JVC JY-HD10U (720p30, HDV SD)
- JVC GR-HD1 (720p30, HDV SD)
- JVC GR-PD1 (HDV SD50p)
- JVC CU-VH1(720p30, HDV SD)
- SONY HDR-FX1(1080i60)
- SONY HDR-FX1(E) (1080i50)
- SONY HVR-Z1 (1080i50/60)
- SONY HVR-M10U (1080i50/60)

Converts the captured HDV clips into QuickTime friendly HD MPEG-2 video format via batch processing.

• Offers editors their codec of choice (DV, PAL, DVCPRO HD, etc.) to edit in Final Cut Pro's timeline, with all of the real-time benefits -- such as transitions, FX, and composites, without rendering. Also provides real-time playing and NTSC monitoring in DV.

• Automates the complete migration of captured HDV footage into Final Cut Pro, including:

- Generating XML File
- Importing clips
- Anamorphic (16:9) setting
- Merging of audio & video
- Online process optimization (Onlining is not yet supported in FCP 5.0)

• Encodes HD output from Final Cut Pro into HDV MPEG-2 Transport Stream and transfers back to HDV cameras and decks (not yet supported with JVC GY-HD100 & GY-HD50 in 24p & 25p)