Mixing DVCProHD and HDV footage

I have an HD (720P) shoot that I'm doing where I'm shooting an interview and some B-Roll using a combo of cameras (Panasonic HVX200 and JVC GY-HD100). I've shot with both cameras before, but only really edited footage from the HVX.

Now mind you, this shoot is specifically for *EXPERIMENTAL PURPOSES ONLY*.

I am doing this because I have an extra camera for the weekend and I wanted to see what it would be like to have to edited the 2 formats together. This is not anything I'm getting paid on or anything like that, I just want to strengthen my editing experience with seeing if I could trouble shoot through a situation like this. I am looking for advise/suggestions, though, from anyone who could provide it. Any suggestions of what I might want to/need to do for set-up before shooting (not basic camera set-up but some obscure setting that may be easily overlooked)? Will I actually be able to edit footage from the cameras on the same timeline (FCP 5.1.4)? What would be the best suggested timeline to edit on (ie, a DVCProHD P2 timeline set-up or HDV timeline set-up)? Will I have to go though Compressor with like the HDV footage to be able to edit it on a DVCProHD timeline? Any additional input/suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks guys.

Steven Gladney

P.S. Additional information: Shooting 24P

Sometimes the obvious is hidden in plain view.

first thing to do is set your RT settings to "unlimited"

you'll get pretty clunky playback of off-format material,
but it will play.

you can still work the shots in the viewer, of course.
so you can set in/outs there no worries.
but once you cut it into the timeline it gets clunky.
so render as you go might be a good workflow

what settings you chose to edit in depends on what footage you have most of.
(and delivery requirement, but you don't have any).

of course so-called B-Roll can actually wind up being the body of your show.
you'll have to think that one out depending on the nature of your piece.

everything will look better in the end if you shoot the same frame rates.
if you shoot the same frame rates, you can pretty much get by without having to recompress the off-format material,



of course FCP6 has beefed up the RT for off-format shots so you can now work with mixed formats.
one big problem still: mixed frame rates are not handled well.
just a simple dropping or deletion of the frames to adjust.

another problem. FCP6 does a simple re-scale of the material to fit the sequence frame-size.
ok sometimes, but when you're cutting 480 shots into a 486 timeline, it's would be a lot better to just place them centrally with no scaling.
(listen to me talking like i know abut this NTSC stuff!.. i read this on another list!)


cheers,
nick