HDV clip convert to SD

Hi all: Thanks for all your great past advice. I am working on a documentary in 4:3 SD and just received some HDV material I would like to use in this production. I converted through FCP 7 by bringing it into the timeline, enlargening the clips to fit the 4:3 format, then saving each clip using EXPORT, QUICKTIME MOVIE. The conversion is decent but not not great; there is barely noticeable overall breakup when the clips pan left to right. Can you suggest another conversion method, or is there one?

MacPro Intel 2.16 GHz 2 Duo
OS X 10.6.8
FCP 7

You're still doing this wrong. You have 1920x1080 pixels to use. Why would you want to confine them to a 720x480 frame, re-export, and then have only an SD clip to use? You lose all flexibility in reframing when you do this. Just edit them into the timeline. Conform their frame rates first to the rest of the footage (use Compressor -- but don't abandon the HD frame), because FCP doesn't do a good job at this.


www.derekmok.com

That makes perfect sense. Now why didn't I think of that?! Danke!

>Conform their frame rates first to the rest of the footage (use Compressor -- but don't
>abandon the HD frame)

It's HDV. That won't work with Cinema Tools due to the long GOP compression. If they have different frame rates, then you'll need to transcode with Compressor. That or edit with Premiere which is a bit more intelligent with mixing frame rates.



www.strypesinpost.com

I shouldn't have written "conform". Should have written "convert". "Conform" is a general term (I just had to conform a whole short film by hand/by eye, so the word's in my head), but has a more specific application when it comes to frame rates.


www.derekmok.com

When I receive an HDV tape there are two ways I can handle it-

1) throw it in most any Sony HDV camera and downsample to ProRes or NTSC with Center Cut) as opposed to Squeeze or Letterbox setting)
Andrew Balis a while back provided a nice set of presets to capture HDV to different codec flavors.

2) Capture as HDV and use Compressor as mentioned above.

- Loren

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