What is HDV?

High Definition Video, or HDV to give it its shortened name, is a consumer video format which is set to replace DV in our camcorders and desktop video editing applications.

HDV is the video format used in Sony's HD camcorder and shares some characteristics with HDTV.

One of its key features is that it allows high definition footage to be stored on DV tape and transferred to a Mac or PC via FireWire. To do this, the captured video has to be compressed significantly and this is achieved by encoding the footage using MPEG-2 before it's stored on tape.

HDV supports the 1080i (50Hz for PAL, 60Hz for NTSC) and 720p resolutions and has a 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio.

The format was originally developed by Sony, Sharp, Canon, and JVC who joined together in September 2003. In January 2005, Apple announced that the latest versions of its two consumer video editing applications, iMovie and Final Cut Express had support for editing HDV footage.

Despite the fact that it is intended as a consumer format, camcorder prices are still significantly higher than those of DV camcorders, and the level of processing power required to edit hgigh definition footage is beyond most consumer-level PCs and Macs. However, as support for the format improves, camcorder prices will fall and consumer desktop computers will catch up with the required processing power.

HDV is not the only HD video format. Apple's Final Cut Pro HD supports Panasonic's DVCPRO HD which is aimed at professional video editors. Final Cut Pro HD doesn't support it, however a plug-in is available from Lumiére which allows Final Cut Pro to edit 'high definition video' footage.