final cut help

Hi guys, I am currently creating a sequence on final cut pro with imported widescreen hd footage and normal sd footage, and am planning on exporting to compressor then dvd studio, however when i play back the footage there seems to be letterboxing occuring, both horizontal and vertical. If anyone can help solve this problem it would be greatly appreciated. thank you

You gave too little information for us to know what you want to do. Are you trying to edit in an SD timeline but mix in HD clips? Edit in an HD timeline but mix in SD clips? What kind of HD? What kind of SD?

Either way you'll have to either letterbox (if you're fitting 16:9 footage into a 4:3 frame), or blow up the footage (pan and scan, basically). But without knowing what you want as your end product, we can't tell you how to "solve" this.


www.derekmok.com

I'm not sure what the timeline is, i guess i want the best quality final production so would it be best to have a hd timeline?

The camera i am capturing off is a Sony HDR-HC7E which is High Def 1080i and also a Cannon XM2 which is SD.

Is there a way to incorporate these two footage types without loosing quality?

thank you

You want to read this and read it carefully. This assumes you have FCP 6.

[www.kenstone.net]

Pay close attention to the item; Mixed Format Editing.

Michael Horton
-------------------

hi, yes thank you for the document. However i am aware that you can manually change a widescreen frame into 4x3 frame and vice versa, however much quality is lost. Is there a way where everything can sync in together?

> you can manually change a widescreen frame into 4x3 frame and vice versa, however much
> quality is lost.

Not if you put HD clips into an SD timeline. But you still haven't told us what formats you're working with.


www.derekmok.com

If i put HD clips into a SD time line does this mean i could not create a HD DVD? The formats i am working with are Pal HD 1080i off a HDR-HC7E camera and Pal DV off a cannon xm2.

> If i put HD clips into a SD time line does this mean i could not create a HD DVD?

If you really need an HD DVD (and by this point, I don't know why you'd want to, considering it's a dead format) then you'll need to edit in HD. But that means you'd have to blow up all your SD footage, and it'll be a really big blowup because you'd have to turn the SD clips into letterboxed 16:9 first, then blow it up to be anamorphic, and then take the hit from having to blow up the picture to fit an HD frame. Usually in blowups abuot 115 per cent is all you can get away with, and the leeway is even less with the DV format; blowing up PAL DV to fit a 1080i frame would be well over 200 per cent. Your picture will fall apart.

If you really need to do that, you should research approaches towards blowing up SD to HD. It's a topic that's been discussed many times in here.

Shane and Mike, I think we may want to add that into the FAQ. Mixing SD and HD now more than qualifies as a Frequently Asked Question, I think.


www.derekmok.com

And when it goes into the Wiki we need something like this pic to explain the size differences



As you can see - there is a world of difference between your SD DV and your 1080. To make them match you either need to blow up the small SD, which will cause pixelation, or reduce the size of your 1080, which means you're no longer in HD.

Excellent diagram. Sadly, formats are outpacing us! I worked with a producer last year who had this over her whiteboard -- plus 2K and 4K specs as well. Very useful.


www.derekmok.com

Yeah - but not my diagram - I nicked it for demonstration purposes

It's a bit mind blowing the first time you realise though how much bigger those screen sizes are. It's a loooootta space for a little 720x576 picture to have to fill.

Thats a great diagram Jude.

Michael Horton
-------------------

please ad to the diagram the size difference when anamorphic is selected on 4/3 and 3/2 TLs.

""" What you do with what you have, is more important than what you could do, with what you don't have."

> > > Knowledge + Action = Wisdom - J. Corbett 1992 """"

[And when it goes into the Wiki we need something like this pic to explain the size differences ]

Oh, I like that and I want it.

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>Excellent diagram. Sadly, formats are outpacing us!

Haha... NTSC frame sizes are all over the place too... Came across the size for NTSC digital beta written as 640x480, dvcproHD is 1280x1080 as opposed to PAL's 1440x1080..

Add: PAL SD size is written as square pixels, whereas NTSC DV is written as non-square..

Now this is going to cause more confusion. Hmm..



www.strypesinpost.com

not really stypes. As far as a diagram goes all you need is a ntsc diagram separate from a pal diagram, instead of combining the 2 into one.

""" What you do with what you have, is more important than what you could do, with what you don't have."

> > > Knowledge + Action = Wisdom - J. Corbett 1992 """"

So does that mean my hd camera is useless to me since i'm changing it back to sd? I've seen films in hd where the entire screen is covered, Even when i capture footage from this camera onto final cut 16:9 letterboxing occurs, how do you make it so it fills the whole screen, do you have to do this manually?

What format exactly are you shooting? Is it shot in an anamorphic format? Are you working in an anamorphic sequence?

hd 1080i pal, i'm not sure if its shot in an anamorphic format...? is anamorphic 16:9 (widesreen)?

ENGER:

yes it is. I believe that 16/9 = anamophic

when you put one of your clips on the TimeLine, load it to the viewer, click on the motion tab , and go down to the distortion, click the little triangle, then look at the parameter named aspect.

Is it 33.33 or -33.33?
2 things can be done here. if its -33.33 then you can set it to 0 or +33.33 to get it to fit. 0 works for me when pulling 3/2 footage into an anamorphic TL.

the other thing is,, why do you want hd footage in a sd timeline?
I think you should put it in a native tl. In fact if you open a new seq. and just drag a clip into the TL fcp6 will do the settings for you. Then you can edit the project and after that you can worry about the sd or hd part.
Putting hd footage in a sd timeline saves nothing. when you captured footage as hd, then thats what it is, and it does your processors no help to treat it other wise.

There is this prores thing that i have not worked with but i am sure someone here can help on that. Prores 422 is supose to allow you to work on hd footage but only taxes your processors as if it were sd footage.
I don't know if you can properly color correct with prores but i am sure there are workflows for this.

""" What you do with what you have, is more important than what you could do, with what you don't have."

> > > Knowledge + Action = Wisdom - J. Corbett 1992 """"

On a few of my timelines the clips with horizontal letter boxing have -25 in the distortion tab, however when dragging the exact same clip into a different sequence, no letterboxing appears and the distortion is on 0.

I don't neccesarily want hd footage in a sd timeline, it's just i have two different cameras, one hd and one sd.

There is a control on my hd camera that allows you to change from hd to film in dv. Also a control that transfers hd to dv when playing footage on computer. But if i did this there wouldn't be any hd, isn't hd much better quality than dv?

Just to clear up (again) 1080 is not anamorphic. SD 16:9 PAL is different to 1080.

The reason you're getting different results is that your two timelines have different settings.

You need to decide if you're going to work in HD or SD. It's still a good idea to have shot in HD because it future proofs the footage. SD is dying, especially in PAL countries.

oh ok. So i currently have about 75 percent of my footage on sd and 25 percent on hd, do you suggest I recapture all my hd footage again in sd?

jude knows what she is talking about.

choices:
1.Work in a hd TL and fit the sd.
2. recapture the hd as sd.
3. work in a sd TL and just fit the hd.

all of these will get u there. even an up res wont make the sd footage look like hd neither will it in the reverse either.

""" What you do with what you have, is more important than what you could do, with what you don't have."

> > > Knowledge + Action = Wisdom - J. Corbett 1992 """"

When selecting your workflow, the key is to find the fastest method that will ensure quality outputs. Two of the most important factors to consider are- 1) What your final deliverables are, 2) what the predominant footage is shot in.

To clear up the confusion: There is PAR (pixel aspect ratio), and there is DAR (display aspect ratio). In PAL SD, there are 720x576 video pixels (note they are NOT square pixels). That is displayed as 4:3 on TV. When shown in 16:9, they are essentially the same amount of video pixels (720x576), which are displayed as anamorphic (16:9).

In HD, 1080p is stored as 1920x1080 (with exception of different codecs and frame sizes). The pixels are not displayed as "anamorphic" (which also means they are displayed as native square pixels). Usually reduced pixel counts in HD are used save on storage.



www.strypesinpost.com

>As far as a diagram goes all you need is a ntsc diagram separate from a pal diagram, instead of
>combining the 2 into one.

Not really. They can (and should) be shown in the same diagram to illustrate frame sizes. I'm just pointing out that the NTSC DV frame size is in video pixels, whereas PAL is written in square pixels (they both should be in video pixels to avoid confusion). The diagram also illustrates why PAL is sometimes a preferred format to NTSC as there is a higher vertical pixel count (576 to 480 or 486).



www.strypesinpost.com

>Prores 422 is supose to allow you to work on hd footage but only taxes your processors as if it
>were sd footage.

No it doesn't. ProRes was designed to help save on drive space as uncompressed HD takes up tremendous amounts of space (133 MB/s for 10 bit Uncompressed at 1920x1080 vs 23 MB/s for ProRes HQ). As ProRes requires compression/decompression, it taxes your processors more. It is largely due to space constraints that makes ProRes a practical choice for many production houses.

>I don't know if you can properly color correct with prores but i am sure there are workflows for
>this.

It was designed for roundtrip workflows within FCS (note: color correction), and it doesn't fall apart even after generations of renders.



www.strypesinpost.com

Now, back to the topic.

Enger, what is your SD footage shot in? Is it 16:9 or 4:3? If you have that much SD footage, you may prefer to edit in SD, as upscaling will cause your footage to take a massive hit (pretty much the point of the discussion).

If you're on FCP 6, drop one of the SD footage into a new sequence, Final Cut will ask if you want to match the sequence settings to the clip. Select "Yes" and edit away.

The letterboxing/pillarboxing occurs when you insert a clip with frame/aspect settings that do not match the sequence. Final Cut will then scale the clip accordingly to match the sequence and preserve the aspect ratio of the footage.



www.strypesinpost.com

ok, my footage is shot in 4:3. I will recapture it all as dv footage instead of hd. Thank you very much for your help.

> my footage is shot in 4:3.

Unless you have a center crop option (which is unlikely off many camcorders), you should transcode your footage as HD in prores (or you could just stay in HDV, FCP will eventually conform the HD clips to your sequence codec which will be DV). Then, after you insert the footage into the timeline, scale it back up and adjust so it fits the frame. You can pan and zoom as much as you want. You don't lose quality unless you scale more than a 100%.



www.strypesinpost.com