How do I know if VSProX2 captured my video in HD?

symp4devil · Post by **symp4devil** » Wed Mar 25, 2009 11:54 pm

Probably a silly question but.....if I have HD digital video tape and my Canon HV10 is connected to pc via firewire....how do I know that the video captured in VS Pro X2 was captured as HD?
I've read other posts that suggest using other apps to do the video capture and then do the editing in VS....again, how do you know that the video was captured in HD when using these other apps?

My goal is to capture the video in the highest resolution possible with the source material being HD digital tape.

Thanks!

Black Lab · Post by **Black Lab** » Thu Mar 26, 2009 12:57 am

Right click on one of the clips and check the properties.

Post by **Ken Berry** » Thu Mar 26, 2009 2:19 am

You also have to be sure, of course, that the camera itself is set to output HDV as opposed to having it set to output as standard def DV which your camera can also do. But this is done only by changing the camera's internal menu from its default HDV setting.

symp4devil · Post by **symp4devil** » Thu Mar 26, 2009 4:33 am

Thanks. Guess I should have stated my question, what are the properties of HD video? Is Mpeg-2 24 bits 1440 x 1080 HD?

symp4devil · Post by **symp4devil** » Thu Mar 26, 2009 4:38 am

oh, and another question. If the output is to a standard DVD does it matter from an image quality perspective if the video is captured as DV or HD?

Post by **Ken Berry** » Thu Mar 26, 2009 4:58 am

HDV is always 1440 x 1080i mpeg-2. As Henry Ford would have said, "you can have any colour [Model T Ford] as long as it's black"!

As for your follow-up question, I am not if there is a definitive answer. I personally download and edit in HDV format as I am also preparing final video for display in both HDV format and conversion to an AVCHD hybrid disc on my HDTV via a Sony PlayStation 3 (which is an excellent Blu-Ray player). I happen also to then convert the same project from HDV to a final SD mpeg-2 for burning to standard DVDs for distribution to friends and family who don't yet have Blu-Ray players or even, in some cases, HDTVs... The quality of the DVDs produced this way are marginally better than ones produced from my SD mini DV camera ... though I would not call them markedly better, and they still suffer from the fast pan glimmer you get with all high def cameras on horizontal panning which is done too quickly.

Given that workflow, I have not had occasion to download my HDV as SD DV, so I can't comment on the quality issue that way. But I don't imagine it would give you any worse quality than you would get from an SD mini DV camera.

symp4devil · Post by **symp4devil** » Thu Mar 26, 2009 11:25 pm

thanks. the video files captured via hdvsplit and VSX2 both were 1440x1080. thanks again.

Post by **Ken Berry** » Thu Mar 26, 2009 11:38 pm

Even more to the point, I use HDVSplit, and as its name suggests, it captures *only* in HDV format and merely splits the incoming video by scene. You are not even offered any possibility of another format. Works very well too!

metmot · Post by **metmot** » Thu Apr 02, 2009 3:59 am

Ken Berry wrote:Even more to the point, I use HDVSplit, and as its name suggests, it captures *only* in HDV format and merely splits the incoming video by scene. You are not even offered any possibility of another format. Works very well too!

Ken

I agree that HDVSplit works pretty well but.. What's up with that .m2t file extension? Why not just call it what it is? Is there a reason for this? Some of my programs don't like that file naming and I have to change the extension to .mpg before they recognize it and it can be a pain in the rear if you have a bunch of files.

If you know the answer to this I would be much obliged. Or any insight for that matter.

Thanks,

Post by **Ken Berry** » Thu Apr 02, 2009 4:39 am

Well, all I know is that it is meant to indicated m(peg)-2-t(ransport stream), and is meant just to distinguish high definition mpeg-2 from standard definition mpeg-2. To complicate matters, there is also .mts which is mpeg-4 transport stream AVCHD when still in the camera... but which becomes .m2ts when downloaded to the computer!

And I guess the simple explanation is that the different extension all describe different formats -- though, like you, I too have occasionally had to rename the extension with a simple .mpg to get it to play in certain programs...