HD Video Formats

There are loads of different HD formats - as they are digital it is reasonably easy to switch between them. Some formats are supported only by certain programs so if you decide - for example - to film using the new Sony XDCAM EX format, make sure your chosen program can edit it!

HDV records onto tape - normal mini DV tapes (although HDV grade tape is available if you want to minimise errors).
HDV uses DVD style, MPEG2 compression to get 1 hour of HDV footage on a tape - with 4x the picture information DV would have put on the same tape.
There are two formats of HDV - 1080i (used by Sony and Canon) and 720p (used by JVC). 1080i is generally supported by all programs. Most variations of 720p are supported by most programs, although Premiere’s support for 720p @ 25 fps is patchy and if filming at this rate you should use Cineform or an RT.X2 for good results. Neither are full HD size. Avid Media Composer still does not support 720p @ 25fps.
You record the footage onto the computer via FireWire just like DV footage. However, in it’s “native” MPEG-based form it is harder to edit than DV footage as it is composed of partial frames. A modern computer can do this but realtime playback of effects is limited. It also varies depending on the system you choose - a Matrox RT.X2 with Adobe Premiere in a modern system edits very much like DV footage and can do 3-4 layers of video in realtime. Without the Matrox card Premiere will play effects in preview quality only.
An alternative route is to convert the footage to a more usable format, called an “intermediate”, either during capture or afterwards. Canopus Edius and Cineform Aspect HD (a plug-in for Premiere Pro) do this and can also achieve good realtime playback of effects. Canopus Edius gives the best realtime performance of all the systems we sell. Adobe Premiere Pro, Avid Xpress Pro, Avid Liquid and Sony Vegas all edit the native files, with various levels of realtime playback.
Whilst editing you do not get output through FireWire (as you would with DV) instead you only see the picture on your computer screen. If you add extra hardware, like the Canopus NXe or Matrox RT.X2 you will get full quality output when editing, which is practically a must to be able to properly judge focus on shots, or do colour and image correction.
When you have finished editing you need to record the results back to tape. To do this you must re-encode everything, even straight cut material, into a new file and then record. The speed of this varies between systems - Canopus Edius is the fastest, normally taking 1 hour to make an hour long file, then a second hour to record it. Premiere with the Matrox RT.X2 is almost as fast, with most other systems take 3-4 hours per hour footage.
You may also want to save the files to Blu-ray or Windows media. See the relevant sections on our site for more information on how to achieve this.

AVCHD is an HD format based on a variation of MPEG4 called H264. This footage is even more compressed than HDV (15mbs as opposed to 25mbs for 1080i HDV). This format is very new so people are buying the camera only to find that they are having problems editing it!
The video is stored as files on a hard drive or removable card, and it is these files that are not readily accepted by most editing programs. As a workaround, you can record the footage into the PC by either a component cable connection (possible using an AJA or Matrox card), or, if using a some Black Magic cards, HDMI. HDMI input will give a better quality as the signal is digitally transferred. Once on the PC the footage will in a more 'neutral' format, so editing it will be like editing any other footage.
A couple of programs support AVCHD files directly on the timeline - Canopus Edius supports most types, and Sony Vegas supports Sony’s variation of AVCHD (though not Panasonic’s version).
However, when you try to edit the footage the response is pretty horrible, so you are better off converting the files to a more usable form (like Canopus HQ). Canopus have a utility to do just this.
Avid and Premiere do not support these files, and probably will not for some time. Panasonic created a utility to convert their AVCHD files to DVCProHD which can be edited in both programs. This is a free program, available from the Panasonic website. There is currently no way to convert Sony AVCHD files easily for use in these programs, so you have to capture via component or HDMI, or use a different program.
After editing AVCHD, you do not put your final result back to the camera but store in some other format. Blu-ray is the logical choice.

We tend to refer to this format as Panasonic P2, but in fact P2 is the name of the cards on to which the cameras normally record the video data - the video is stored in DVCProHD format for high definition (and 'regular' DVCPro for standard definition).
DVCProHD is much less compressed than HDV - every frame is stored as a complete frame - so it is easier to edit. Less compression means that it takes up more space, of course. In High Definition the DVCPro HD codec supports 720p (at 25 and 50fps), as well as 1080i resolutions. This makes it more flexible than offerings from Sony, Canon or JVC.
DVCPro is Panasonic’s standard definition format with 2 varieties. DVCPro 25 is similar to DV in quality (slightly better, some say) and DVCPro 50 is higher quality – similar to DigiBeta.
The BBC are currently using Panasonic DVCPro HD as their chosen format for filming HD series (they do not accept submissions in HDV format for broadcast, as they consider the footage to be too highly compressed).
The video is normally recorded onto P2 cards - very similar to a computer PCMCIA card. The cards are 8GB in size - how much footage will fit depends on the format in which you record - approximately 32min for DVCPRO, 16 min for DVCPRO50 and 8 min for DVCPROHD. You copy footage onto the computer for editing. The P2 cards are currently £800 each + VAT. Alternatively you can buy a special Panasonic FireStore drive (available for £1,090 +VAT) that has capacity for 1 hour 40 minutes of DVCProHD @ 1080i.
Panasonic DVCPro HD is supported by:
• Edius 4 Broadcast
• Premiere Pro 3.1 (released October 2007) - better still with the Matrox Axio LE
• Avid Media Composer
• Apple Final Cut Pro
The cameras also store low resolution “proxy” version of the video on the P2 cards. Some programs let you edit the low res file, and later swap to the hi-res versions. The advantage is the low res files can be copied quickly off the card and you can start editing faster, only later copying the hi-res files from the cards to achieve a full quality version. Support for proxy editing does vary so if you need this in your workflow please ask for more details.
Whilst editing you need a card like the Canopus Edius NXe or Matrox RT.X2 to display the footage properly on an HD screen.

XDCAM is a Sony format that captures video footage onto a 23GB optical disc similar to Blu-ray. The discs are in a dust-proof caddy and are rewriteable. When plugged into a computer the camera is seen as a network device, and the footage is simply transferred to your PC's hard drive via the editing program.
Cameras start at £10,000 and decks start at about £5,000. Footage can be recorded onto discs in a variety of different qualities. XDCAM is very similar to HDV - it records at 1440 x 1080 but with 3 different settings: the best quality is 35MB/s Variable Bit Rate IBP MPEG; the second is standard 25MB/s HDV option; the third a lower quality 18MB/s variable bit rate HDV setting. You can also record standard def DVCAM on the disks. You get about 1 hour at the top HDV setting or 2 hours of DVCam.
In addition to the full quality file, XDCAM records a low quality MPEG4 proxy file that can be used for offline editing or quick review purposes.
The major differences between XDCAM and HDV are that XDCAM can be less compressed, records onto disc rather than tape, and the cameras - while more expensive - are much better quality.
XDCam records footage into MXF files, not the AVI format normally used for video footage. This may cause a problem taking the footage into different programs which do not support MXF import.

The best choices to edit XDCam are currently Adobe Premiere Pro (though this program can only export XDCam format if used with an Axio) and Canopus Edius Broadcast.

A new version of XDCam, called XDCam-EX is also available. It is similar to XDCam but records on to memory cards, which can be plugged straight into a PC with an Express cards slot (found on new laptops).
This format can record video up to full HD resolution (1920 x 1080) and is therefore better quality than standard XDCam. It should also be better quality than DVCProHD, which does not currently record at the full HD size.
As it is new, support for this format is only just coming into the main editing programs. Canopus Edius Broadcast has just been updated to handle XDCam-EX, and Premiere Pro now has inbuilt support (albeit with the same export limitation as normal XDCam, unless used with the Matrox Axio). We also expect Sony's own Vegas software to be updated soon.