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Shooting for broadcast-any advice?
Except when I interned at a public access station, I’ve never shot something primarily for broadcast, mainly internet. I’m shooting a live event with at least four HD cameras. I’ll be mixing in footage shot on other people’s cameras from the last twenty years for a tv show, which will be kind of an endeavor. For one thing, I’ll be shooting in 24 fps and hd, and I imagine I’ll be dealing with older footage that’s 30 fps, interlaced, and in standard definition.
First of all, will preserving the aspect ratio of any 4×3 footage while rendering the project to 16×9 be an issue? Will I be forced to blow up and crop the 4×3 footage? I know I’ll be forced to either letterbox or add vertical bars to the sides of 4×3 footage, but will that be all, and I can export everything in a 16×9 video?
I know rendering for broadcast will be different and I’ll have to deal with broadcast safe colors and luminance, but I just mean for shooting is there anything I should do? Should I even try to keep a 4×3 safe area while shooting, or is that futile?
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3 Replies
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Angelo,
I would definitely NOT shoot in 24 fps if it is an option. This is the biggest thing I see. As far as combining footage and all that, I would put my Broadcast Safe filter on the Video bus, that way the whole project is taken care of. You can color correct individual events so they look good without having to worry about ranges.
Jeff
Windows 7 64-bit, ASUS P6X58D, i7 960 3.20GHz, 24.0GB DDR3, 12TB connected storage
http://www.narrowroadmedia.com -
I agree with Jeff on NOT shooting in 24p.
Broadcast is still 29.97 (or 25 if you’re in PAL territory) so stick to it and avoid potential headaches.As far as using SD 4:3 footage, what I’ve done in the same situation is to drop an event on the timeline, duplicate the video track, open Pan/Crop on the upper event and resize it to the original aspect (720×480) and apply a Gaussian blur (try Medium for a start) to the lower track.
Apply a soft Border FX to the upper track if you want to make it blend in better.
Try it and see if you like the look.
If you do, then do a Copy – Paste Event Attributes on subsequent SD footage.My HD cameras have dual 4:3 and 16:9 marker displays and I still keep critical footage inside the 4:3 markers as I have no idea if the viewer is watching it on a 16:9 set or a 4:3 set.
Better safe than sorry 🙂 -
Thanks. What would the issue be with rendering all the footage to 24 fps with pull down? Isn’t that how movies are broadcast? I already have a bunch of footage I’ve shot over the last few months which may be incorporated into the show and is 24 fps.
I’ll test out your method with some SD footage I have, Mike, but what exactly would that do? Would that just crop the 4×3 footage to look like 16×9?
http://www.scenethroughglass.com
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