[melliott1963]

OK, I know I've given advice before on video editing and package, but now I'm after some information about HD.

If I was to go and buy a Sony HC3, I know that I'd also need to upgrade my version of Vegas (v5) to v6 which supports HD editing.

I also know that I'd need an HD television.

But what I don't know (although I suspect I can guess), is the DVD side of things. Am I right in assuming that you can't put an HD film on a standard DVD and play it on a standard DVD player? If so, is this where I'm now going to have the problem of which to go for - Blueray or HD-DVD? Is there much choice at the moment? Or is the answer to just 'downgrade' the video to SD and wait until the situation sorts itself out and then re-edit my HD footage at a later date?

What do those of you who already shoot in HD do?

Thanks for any help.

[alpine101]

Well, you can keep your material on hard disk and use a suitable video card to get it to the component inputs of your HD tv, or you can downsize to standard WS DVD. Or you can wait for the HDDVD players and PC drives to appear. There are media pcs, some quite small which are specifically intended as video feeders.
At present, I just watch on a PC, or move to a standard DVD.

[senu]

Hi

Have a little read of this
You can shoot in HDV and then downconvert in-camera to DV for editing and get to DVD as normal footage. The down converted material though not HD is by no means a "degraded" PQ as such
An HD TV will let you see the material as HD and though great to see is not an immediate "must have". your Hd footage on a normal TV should look fine (.... for now)
However if you get past the software or hardware HDV editing constraints you can

1) Transfer it back to tape and view footage off the camcorder
2) leave edited HD footage on PCs HDD and stream it to an HDTV if you have an HTPC setup or your PC is capable
3) go with blu-ray by getting a Sony viao PC/laptop which has blu ray support, get a BD blank disc and watch it on it for now
4) burn your edited hd material as mpeg2 to normal DVD. It will play on a say a Toshiba HD-DVD player ( such as is now available) as a "Mini" HD-DVD

I would personally just shoot all material as HDV, edit (use for now as down converted DV) or if edited as HDV, record back to tape and wait until the HD technologies become more mainstream. Early adaptors tend to pay a premium for kit and end up being unwitting beta "testers" of new hardware and all its bugs
You can output to wmv-hd on all software that can edit HD watch in on a laptop and output to a TV ( Im sure you knew that )

[alpine101]

I'm hoping some DVD players that support DIVX-HD appear, so that I can avoid getting forced down the HD-DVD or less likely, Blue Ray route.

[melliott1963]

Thanks for the replies.

It seems I was correct in my assumptions.

Fortunately, I'm more than happy with what my Sony TRV33 gives me at present. We're planning a family holiday to Florida in 2008 and I thought that this would be a good excuse to upgrade to HD.

Hopefully by then things will have sorted themselves out (standards-wise) and prices will have come down.

At least I now know what I've got to save for - Holiday, new Camcorder, new TV, new DVD, upgraded software . . . .(gulp!)

[rhubarbe]

www.z500series.com
http://www.pixelmagicsystems.com/pro...d_mediabox.htm

These are HD NMP (Network Media Players). I have a Z500 and use it to stream WMV HD clips over a wired LAN from my PC over HDMI connection to my HDTV. They also play MP4, DivX, ect etc.

They work a treat.