A big Mess - Help!

Hi,

I'm working on a project that the camera person shot with three different cameras. With two of the cameras, he used the same format settings so I have set up my sequence setting accordingly. It's hi def - 1920 x 1080, 30fps. Working with footage from these two cameras with my current sequence setting is not a problem--everything plays back in real time and it looks great.

The problem is mixing the footage from the third camera into my master timeline. It was shot using a Sanyo Xacti which makes MP4 files that FC does not like. But another bigger problem is that this footage was shot a different size and frame rate. 720 x 1280 - 60 fps. I've tried using MPEG streamclip to up-convert to 1980 x 1080, using the Apple Pro Res 422 HQ codec. After I do the conversion and bring it into my timeline, I still have to render the converted footage and it's strobing. For every one minute of converted footage, I still have to render and it's taking 5 minutes of render time per one minute of footage.

I've also tried bringing the Xacti MP4s into Premiere Pro and converting it to Apple Pro res from that program, but the output is really horrible looking.

Please help me figure out how I can convert this footage to work with my other footage and sequence setting. There are several hours of important interview footage that was shot using this Sanyo Xacti Camera that has to make it into this show.

Does anyone have any suggestions. I'm completely lost here.

Please let me know if you need additional information to help guide me.

Thank you.
Shelley

Shelley
MacBoo Pro 2015
16 GB Ram
OS X 10.13
Premiere Pro CC

Your 1920 x 1080 has presumably been ingested as codec ProRes HQ. Your 1280 x 720 you're calling .mp4 is actually in codec H.264.

The 1920 x 1080 footage you're calling 30fps could be either 30p or 60i. The 1280 x 720 footage you're calling 60fps must be 60p. The 60p will be changed to 30p by throwing away half the frames. Or the 60p will be changed to 60i by throwing away half the lines from each frame.

Try the following. Use MPEG Streamclip to resave the .mp4 files as .mov files without re-encoding. (If it takes more than a few seconds per minute of footage it's re-encoding.) Then bring the .mov files into Compressor. If your 30fps is 60i then follow the two-step instruction given in http://www.lafcpug.org/phorum/read.php?1,278436,278441#msg-278441. If your 30fps is 30p you might be able to get by in one step.

Dennis Couzin
Berlin, Germany

> Use MPEG Streamclip to resave the .mp4 files as .mov files without re-encoding.

If you're using MPEG Streamclip, it's going to re-encode. Open up the MPEG-4 (which is not necessarily in H.264 codec -- MPEG-4 is also a wrapper and a codec -- but these days most MPEG-4s are in H.264) in QuickTime Player and do a Save As into .mov.


www.derekmok.com

> If you're using MPEG Streamclip, it's going to re-encode.

Not true. File > Save As... > MOV in MPEG Streamclip produces an H.264 .mov file from an H.264 .mp4 file in 1 second/minute of 720/50p footage with my so-so system. That can't be re-encoding.

The Sanyo Xacti's .mp4 files are AVC/H.264. I haven't any, so can't verify that MPEG Streamclip will re-wrap these as .mov without re-encoding, but it well might.

(I'm not a great fan of MPEG Streamclip, but do avoid QuickTime when possible.)

Dennis Couzin
Berlin, Germany