Edius and Sony FX7: I look for info about HDV Video Capture. URGENT!

[Ulisse]

Hi, I'm sorry the urgency but now I am very anxious.
I have just finished the editing of my first important project in HDV. I use Sony FX7 (PAL - 1080i -16:9) and Canopus Edisu 4. I have captured 6 videotapes in my HD but I have just noticed in the folder of my project ".avi" files only. Why?
Should not I see ".m2t" files? Does Sony FX7 shot in av onlyi? I have configured my camera fine, I am sure! Will my project be lacking in quality?
Thanks for your info.

[GrassValley_KH]

If they're AVI files, they've been captured with the Canopus HQ codec, and not the native MPEG-2 TS format. This means that an on-the-fly conversion occurred during the capture.

Is this a problem? The footage won't be any different (save for providing better realtime editing performance at the cost of more hard drive space...which you clearly have).

[Philip]

Hi, I'm sorry the urgency but now I am very anxious.
I have just finished the editing of my first important project in HDV. I use Sony FX7 (PAL - 1080i -16:9) and Canopus Edisu 4. I have captured 6 videotapes in my HD but I have just noticed in the folder of my project ".avi" files only. Why?
Should not I see ".m2t" files? Does Sony FX7 shot in av onlyi? I have configured my camera fine, I am sure! Will my project be lacking in quality?
Thanks for your info.

The files are probably CanopusHQ if your project was set to capture and upconvert to HQ.

If however your camera was set to downconvert to SD out of the camera you could have inadvertently been working in a SD 16x9 project all along. If you were in an HDV project and your cam was set to downconvert to SD I think you would have run into problems before now.

One way to know for sure is check the file sizes. If the avi file sizes are about 3x that of standard DV (40gb / hour) then you have edited in the HQ codec and you have nothing to worry about.

[Ulisse]

If they're AVI files, they've been captured with the Canopus HQ codec, and not the native MPEG-2 TS format. This means that an on-the-fly conversion occurred during the capture.

Is this a problem? The footage won't be any different (save for providing better realtime editing performance at the cost of more hard drive space...which you clearly have).

Yes, you are right. I have configured Edius 4 with Canopus HQ codec. I did not know that codec captures in .avi files.
I'm sorry my inexperience. If I have to edit a different project, can you tell me if it is better to configure Edis 4 with native MPEG-2 TS format?
I think MPEG-2 TS files have a little bit more image quality. Do I make a mistaken?
How have you configured your Edius?
Thanks

[GrassValley_KH]

If you have the hard drive space, I definitely recommend Canopus HQ AVI over the native MPEG-2 TS format - you aren't really losing anything, and it gives you more realtime power - MPEG-2 is compressed, and the CPU needs to decompress each stream just to play out, let alone apply any effects, etc.

[pjsssss]

I don't think you will see a bit of difference in the HQ files. The quality is excellent. We do all of our HDV in HQ

[Ulisse]

I don't think you will see a bit of difference in the HQ files. The quality is excellent. We do all of our HDV in HQ

Thanks a lot for your precious news. A last question please. If I like to preserve un avi file in the time, is it better to save that file with Canopus HQ AVI or MPEG-2 TS codec?
Thanks again.

[Ulisse]

But if I like to save a film from Timeline to Hardisk and to preserve it for much time, is it better save it with Canopus HQ AVI or MPEG-2 TS codec?

[GrassValley_KH]

It really then becomes a question of hard drive space - MPEG-2 TS will take up much less room than Canopus HQ. It's also more "portable" in that virtually any future NLE would have to support MPEG-2 TS as a minimum. Canopus HQ will always require an EDIUS product be installed on the same system.

[iibw]

I always edit using Canopus HQ, then archive the completed timeline to m2t which is stored on my hard drive. m2t files are much smaller than HQ.

[Ulisse]

Tahnks for your suggestions!

[GrassValley_BH]

Canopus HQ will always require an EDIUS product be installed on the same system.

Or ProCoder 3, or the HQ decoder codec...

But Kenneally's point is still correct - MPEG-2 is much more portable, especially since there's no Canopus HQ codec for non-Windows systems.

[xmanflash]

Thanks for your suggestions!

Just to add to it - the TS files captured directly from the camera will always be the best quality version, anything else is converted, although in HQ the quality will be more than good enough..

[Ulisse]

Just to add to it - the TS files captured directly from the camera will always be the best quality version, anything else is converted, although in HQ the quality will be more than good enough..

Therefore do you mean in general TS files are a little bit better quality version than HQ the quality? I mean image quality.
thanks

[GrassValley_KH]

It's purist thinking - the native data on the tape is untouched, the Canopus HQ converted data is considered a "2nd generation" copy - but you would need a big magnifying glass to spot the difference visually.