VIDEO PRODUCERS: Who has made the jump to HD? Pros & Cons?

will be editing my first HD will let u know how it goes

yes the quality has improved but the detail is to much looks like i will be hiring a makeup artist

DWB back channel me through my email I can help not gonna post here, far too many people have no clue how to shoot good HD and I dont want to argue about it

DWB, oddly enough, it's the web companies that I film for that are insisting that I film in high-definition (hdv), not the traditional porn companies that release movies on DVDs, at least so far. That's why I was forced to upgrade to a Sony hi-def videocamera and a new dual-core computer and software last year. And it is a good thing that I did upgrade, because I just came back from the shows in Vegas with a couple of more jobs including a big ongoing one and they all need to be filmed in high-definition!

I find that hi-def filming requires a lot more light, and care in lighting, and in makeup as well, than standard definition. But most importantly the post-production is the real hassle. It takes a LOT more hard drive storage space for the files. And it takes a LOT more time to deinterlace the clips, in my case with the Aspect HD plugin in Adobe Premiere to make them look right (there's a technical explanation but suffice to say the vids look perfect only when deinterlaced). And finally it takes hours and hours to render the finished videos to wmv or quicktime, unlike with SD which happened faster than real time even on my old P4.

Unfortunately for all this extra work and a five or ten fold increase in post-production time, most clients will want beautiful looking videos for the same price or perhaps a very small premium over SD if you are lucky. So no more cranking out scenes overnight, each one is now a long process and I probably need a new dedicated encoding machine and a new assistant just to do that.

So if you are filming for your own sites, film in HDV if you want to marker better quality video like the other programs, but be prepared for a bit of a hassle. Eventually even consumers will expect it, and you will have to jump on the bandwagon, like it or not, especially when the HD-DVD and Blue Ray wars are decided and everyone has the set top players.

To me if the action is hot it doesnt matter. Most hdv on the net sucks its just bigger picture. My friend shoots for real tv fulltime and 90 percent of his shoots are beta cam. Porn embraces HD because its another buzz word to sell footage.

i bought an hd cam when they first came out because i do a lot of editing. ive yet to have one customer send me an hd tape. and i dont have a client list of chumps either ;p

Im planning in 3 yrs going to HD and will probably go to real hd not hdv.

You wanna trade clients? I wish I could keep filming in SD just to make the work easier and faster, but both my existing and newest customers- including some very popular webmaster programs- are insisting on HDV whether I like it or not.

oddly enough real HD (as oppossed to HDV) is much easier and quicker to post

OK heres a good tip for ya #1 throw away every filter and wide angle lens uyou own EXCEPT maybe a circular polarizer.

The single most important thing you need to know to shoot HD that looks good is COMPOSITION. all the lighting, makeup, scrims, gels, barndoors, diffusion or whatever else you can think of will not help a poorly composed HD shot.

and whatever temptation you may have to use that fucking wide angle lens on a 16:9 HD closeup...avoid it....matter of fact you need to rethink what close up means in HD

hey jim hows it going. Do you remember filming a solo in my penthouse balcony in south beach about 7 yrs ago? Its glenn from ny hope all is well!

dwb my boys have a tough time handling regular camcorders...lol

Hey Glenn, I do recall that, probably one of the Playboy's "Sexy Girls Next Door" shoots that I filmed back then. Life is good, and I just had a tremendous week in Vegas. Now back to work.

I think you're selling the HD thing a bit short. Implying that HD a fad, or buzzword, means that it doesn't have any real substantial difference/upgrade to the current video 'standard'. I am not sure that is the case.

The average surfer is going to notice the difference between a 1280x720 at 3800Kbps, and a 640x480 at 1500Kbps. That's the bottomline. If you are shooting hot content, it makes sense to provide the best format availiable. Currently, this is HDV.

Also, the pulled screencaps are great for making galleries.

yep exactly..wish you well brother!

there is HD, HDV, DVC Pro HD.. A lot of companies want you to shoot in HD and the next thing they want you to do is down convert it into small wmv's with an average or low bit rate. True HD will kill your bandwidth and most companies want to keep that low.

Personally for the web I think SD is not a big deal at all untill technology will allow us to deal with smaller file sizes. Dor DVD productions it is not bad to shoot in HD,

I just got a new Panasonic HVX - 200 about 6 months ago and I LOVE the fact that I can shoot in every frame mode you can think off in SD or DVC pro HD or DVC pro 50.

Just my 2 cents.

Sebastian

the biggest benefit to HD i see is the true 16:9 aspect ratio for those people who will actually watch it on a snazzy new flat panel. even the detail that a cheaper prosumer 3ccd camera pics up is amazing, and the real cameras that are capable of 24p/1080i show unforgivingly what is there. jim gunn is right, the file sizes can be huge, so have a good storage/backup system because it will take up a lot of space on your drives after a while, no matter uber your rig is. i also agree with mikesouth, composition is the biggest factor with HD- no amount of traditional set lighting or lenses will mask ass craters.
that's what after effects is for. 30fps can get tedious though.
or if it's going to end up as compressed video on the web you can always just compress it until the fizzle masks the horrible back acne.
i've heard of putting vasaline on the lens... but i hope that was a joke.

i prefer the panasonic dvx-100, the cannon xL-1 is nice too but is heavier.
holding 3 pounds more (with a steady stick) over time sucks.
go out & play with the camera, try different lighting, measure the lux, try light changes, see what it can do. white balance is your friend. lay off the zoom button. and don't forget to get a min of room tone!

sorry I dont think hdv is that great and the avg surfer is on old computer with a old monitor and a shit connection. Hot content could be shot on hi 8 and it would sell. Hot is hot, also shit on HD is still shit.

Don't underestimate how many people have broadband now and consider that those are the people that spend money on a full priced monthly subscription porn site with exclusive content anyway. So true enough about quality content, but let me tell you, after speaking to dozens of porn company and webmaster programs owners between the two shows last week, all I heard was hi-def, hi-def, hi-def. So unless you are only filming for yourself, it's a must nowadays for a producer to be conversant in.

I'd actually be interested in hearing about other peoples workflows, what cameras and editing apps they are using, plus how they encode and deliver their files, frame sizes, bitrates, formats etc.

I have no idea what you are talking about dude, you must have seen some really bad hd clips... in my opinion they are amazing, I'm sure most surfers would feel the same way, once they see some HD clips, they will want more...

There is no money in HDV so move on please.

I'm shooting with the Canon XH-A1 camera, set on 1080/60i. I take that native footage into an AVID Xpress Pro HD with MOJO. I don't know about other systems, but the AVID doesn't support exporting QTref's for HD, which is great for encoding because I can export a 1 hour video in SD in about 10 seconds. But with the HD it takes about an hour for every 5 minutes of HD that I export at 1280x720 @ 4000kbps.

Once I have the 1280x720 .mov file I use Sorensen Squeeze to convert those clips to other sizes/formats. It doesn't take long to convert the .mov to a .wmv if the image size is 640x360

Since this is new for us, I'm not sure what frame sizes we're going to settle on. Right now we offer members

WMV 1280x720 @ 4000kbps
WMV 640x360 @ 2000kbps
WMV 320x165 @ 1000kbps

Quicktime 1280x720 @ 4000kbps
Quicktime 640x360 @ 2000kbps

Flash Video 640x360

I've never used any screen grabs for stills. How do you grab the frames from your footage? The only way I know that I could do that is to export a still from the editing timeline. I guess I should try that and see how they look.

Someone on an old computer and old monitor is less likely to buy a membership than someone on a fast new computer and the ability to enjoy an hd clip. HD is the way, embrace it now or be left behind very soon. Thats the bottom line. There is a learning curve to it just like any new technology, and there will always be those that cling to what they know, rather than step up and try to get ahead of the crowd.

Hd lighting lighting lighting. If you have a perfect model there are no worries, otherwise body makeup is important. We just started using it, helps alot.

Quickest way to do a few is open your clip up in vlc media player and there is a screenshot option. You can also grab a program called frameshots it works very well.

I loaded that VLC on my old machine and it caused problems with my other programs. I like the vlc, it just didn't play well with others. This AVID software is fantastic, but it is very sensitive when it comes to sharing resources on your computer. I probably should have stayed with the mac version instead of switching to the pc. So much for saving a buck.

PS, any word on new content? shoot me an email, hollywood [at] frogbucks.com

Doing a shoot tomorrow Let me see if I can find the pics she sent us and Ill email a few over. Ill do a quick test in vlc I havent tried to see how well it does with hd footage yet hehe.

I am considering going to HDV, but i am still leary. I also shoot a lot of photography, and most of the times my still camera is turned to portrait style (vs landscape). When I shoot video, i tend to want to use the video camera more diagonally, some call is shooting "dutch", with HDV, the frame is even wider, but most of my subjects are people/couples who are more long than wide..it would be great if HD was avail in 3:2 format...

In not very long every single moving image will be captured and broadcast in HD. So its either adopt now or adopt later. It's no different than black & white vs. colour.

Secondly - what im hearing from most people is that shooting HD is forcing an increase in production quality - lighting, make-up etc.. heaven forbid that porn be shot with quality production values in mind