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HDV : HD for the Masses Will you be editing HDV anytime soon?

What kind of hardware is required to edit HDV?
With HDV editing, the more horsepower your computer has, the better. Because the HDV image is bigger than a standard definition DV image, you are going to need a lot more horsepower in all respects, from the amount of RAM and hard drive space, to the graphics card that will push all that data to the screen, to the CPU's processing power. Minimally, a Windows based editing system should have a 3.4GHz Pentium 4 processor with 512MB RAM and a 160GB hard disk drive to start off with. It is recommended that you add a second hard drive to serve as your data drive, and 1GB RAM would offer better performance. You will also want to have at fast graphics card as well. For Macintosh editors, a G5 processor with 512MB RAM and a 160GB hard disk drive would be the recommended minimum configuration. As with the Windows side of things, a second hard disk drive dedicated to all the HDV footage that you will capture is also recommended. keep in mind that you are going to need a lot of storage space.

Below is a chart (courtesy Adobe Systems) of the varying flavors of DV and that of HDV

Width x Height	Frame Rate	Type	Mbps	GB per Hour
720 x 480	29.97	DV25	25	11
720 x 480	29.97	DV50	50	22
720 x 486	29.97	8-bit 4:2:2	168	74
720 x 486	29.97	10-bit 4:2:2	210	92
1280 x 720	29.97	HDV720 30p	19.2	8

What software applications support the HDV format?
There are a few consumer level nonlinear video editing applications that support the HDV format. Apple Computer recently revved its iMovie application to support HDV, and now it is called iMovieHD. Windows users can edit HDV format video on such applications as Magix Movie Edit Pro 10.

Apple Computer's iMovie HD

Expect applications such as Adobe Premiere Elements and Ulead VideoStudio to offer support for the format as more consumers purchase the HDV camcorders. Professional level applications such as Adobe Premiere Pro, Sony Vegas, Apple's Final Cut Pro, and Pinnacle Liquid Edition also support the HDV format as well via plugins, which make the HDV editing process less cumbersome. These applications also support uncompressed HD as well, HD that is captured on cameras that cost starting at around $60,000 and go up from there. Obviously these are professional level solutions, but it is nice to know that consumers can purchase HDV camcorders for the cost of a nice computer.

Conclusion
HDV is still in its infancy and the HDV camcorders that are currently available cost about the same as the first FireWire DV camera introduced by Sony 10 years ago. While the HDV format will surely be popular with professional videographers in the near term, the price of the cameras are still relatively high given the fact that 3 CCD DV cameras can be had for less than $1000 by some manufacturers. Regardless, HDV seems poised to be the future format for consumers and prosumers alike. When more manufacturers start to ship new cameras in the HDV format, and as more and more HDTVs make their way into American households, you can expect that consumers will be supplementing those big screen HDTVs with their own HD content. By the time HDV camcorders come down to a price point that consumers won't balk at, say sub-$1000, computer processing power should be at a point where it won't be so challenging to edit HDV on a home computer.

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John Virata is senior editor of Digital Media Online. You can email him at jvirata@digitalmedianet.com

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