Best format for archival footage to cut with HD principal photography and Prores 422 sequence?

I'm working on a documentary which was shot the EX and RED cameras. The footage has been brought in as Prores 422 1280x720. I'm now bringing in lots of archival material from a variety of different sources (mostly TV footage), and am wondering about the best codec and size to bring this material in as. This is an offline edit.

I'd like to minimize the use of drive space if at all possible, and cut down the amount of render time and the need to resize footage in the sequence.

I realize this is a bit of a holy grail I'm searching for here but I'd appreciate any tips from people who've traveled down this road. Thanks.

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I'd like to minimize the use of drive space if at all possible

then you'd capture as Standard Def: ProRes NTSC or PAL

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I'd like to... cut down the amount of render time and the need to resize footage in the sequence.

then you'd capture at ProRes 720x1280, matchng your other footage!

realisticaly, you'll have to re-frame the 4/3 footage to fit your 16/9 frame.
and you cant really do that while capturing,
so i'd say capture as SD.

FCP will scale it for you as you cut it into the sequence,
but you'll have to decide how you want to fit it.

you might like to create and save some motion favorites
< Final Cut Pro Tutorial - Saving Favorites (Movie)>
you can trigger these with keyboard shortcuts, too.

also you should get plenty of RT playback with simple re-sizing of SD footage.
render during downtime by having auto-render switched on.

simple re-sizes may well be the green "Preivew" type of RT,
which i think need to be ticked in Sequnce Menu > Render Selected, if you want AutoRender to deal with them.


2 points:
i am assuming with all this that you will re-capture this footage when you do your on-line.

an important question is if you have compatible frame rates?


nick

Thanks Nick.

> realisticaly, you'll have to re-frame the 4/3
> footage to fit your 16/9 frame.
> and you cant really do that while capturing,
> so i'd say capture as SD.

Do you mean capture as, sayn DV NTSC?

Yes .... we'll have to recapture the footage when we online. Our existing sequences as 23.98, so I'm guessing that when I bring in the archival I should transcode it to the same framerate? I don't much experience mixing framerates in FCP but have been told that the results can be erratic.

John

You're not only mixing frame rates, but you're mixing interlaced footage with progressive footage. You will likely have issues with quality as going from 60i to 24p is not ideal.

Depending on how much footage you have, I'd be tempted to uprez and frame convert all the SD footage, but since it's a documentary, my guess is there's probably a lot.

You can put SD interlaced footage into a 23.98 sequence without too much trouble. It may look crappy, but just know that going in and live with it since this is an offline edit.

When you've achieved picture lock, separate all your SD footage and uprez and frame convert it to your finishing codec.

Andy

What Nick and Andy said. Archival footage can bring a grocery list of hassles.... overall, I would like to see all archival footage preprocessed to match the original production format *first* to avoid headaches like frame rates and resizing on the job, but since you're in storyline editing, not online, and everything will have to be redidged at higher rez, what has been suggested may be the best workflow. If you know which online facility you're using you might check ahead on best practice.

- Loren

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