• Sony Cameras

  EX-1 HD to SD – Final Cut Studio 2 Editing Techniques

  Posted by Kevin Jones on January 16, 2009 at 12:03 am

  Hi All:

  I would like to learn some EX-1 HD to SD Final Cut Studio 2 editing techniques others are using.

  I regularly shoot EX-1 HQ 1080i footage.
  In Final Cut Studio 2, I create a Basic DV Firewire timeline.
  I import the HD footage and drop the HD shots into the DV SD timeline for editing. After editing and rendering, I send the finished project out my Mac via firewire into my DSR-20 DVCAM deck onto DVCAM tape for distribution.

  This typically works OK, but like most people I would like to do anything I can to improve the look of my final project as it appears in SD DVCAM.

  Thanks and I look forward to hearing any comments, suggestion and tips you might have to offer.

  Kevin Jones

  Rafael Amador replied 17 years, 3 months ago 5 Members · 5 Replies
• 5 Replies

• 

  Don Greening

  January 16, 2009 at 8:06 am

  HI Kevin,

  Have you seen this tutorial yet?

  https://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/ex1_sd_output_young.html

  – Don
• 

  Rafael Amador

  January 16, 2009 at 11:06 am

  Hi Kevin,
  As long as you keep going to DVCam, you won’t be able to get much quality.
  There are many ways to improve the quality of the picture from an EX-1. But when you work in a compress format as XDCAM add quality means to render in a codec better than the original.
  That means bigger files. If you want archive in SD, I think the best option is PhotoJPEG at 75%. Is 422 and the files are smaller than DV.
  About the system of the Ken Stone website, sorry to say that I don’t consider a method that suggest using QT Conversion.
  Cheers,
  rafael

  http://www.nagavideo.com
• 

  Michael Slowe

  January 16, 2009 at 11:17 am

  Rafael, I am puzzled when you suggest that it is a bad idea to master to DVCAM. Assuming that we don’t master to HD what other tape codec should we use? I edit with Media 100 in HD (1920 X 1080i), conform the edit to Motion JPEG 2, re render in that codec and make my DVD’s. I then want a tape master and have to master in DV to my DVCAM DSR 20 deck – I have no other choice do I? As a matter of interest the picture quality of these DVCAM masters when I have shot in HQ with the EX1 are superior to that which I obtained with shooting in DVCAM on the DSR 300.

  Michael Slowe
• 

  Steve Connor

  January 16, 2009 at 11:44 am

  Kevin,

  we edit in the native XDcam EX codec but set the render codec to ProRes. When the edit is finished we render out a self contained Quicktime file as a master.

  Then when we need SD copies on tape we drop the master into a DV sequence and render out to tape.

  Any DVD’s or web files we need are then taken from the HD master file which improves the quality of output

  Steve Connor
  Adrenalin Television

  Have you tried “Search Posts”? Enlightenment may be there.
• 

  Rafael Amador

  January 16, 2009 at 11:51 am

  Hi Michael,
  The choice for storing in tapes is quite limited.
  Is clear that is time to migrate to other formats.
  I’m archiving in BluRay. HDs are cheap now.
  Also data DVDs can be a solution. You can put half hours of SD Photo JPEG 75% (I repeat: 422) in a data DVD. Around one hour of almost Digital Betacam picture in a double-side DVD. Not too bad.
  Rafael

  http://www.nagavideo.com

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