• Apple Final Cut Pro Legacy

  Cutting my reel. Several Formats in one timeline. What format should timeline be?

  Posted by Pierre on March 10, 2007 at 7:26 pm

  I’m cutting my reel together.
  I’ve got these formats to deal with.

  1. Viper footage downconverted to DVC-PRO HD 1080 23.98P (2:37 aspect ratio)
  2. Footage Captured off a DVD (4:3 Aspect Ratio)
  3. 720P DVCPRO (16:9) aspect ratio

  I’ll deliver my reel two ways.
  1. Standard Def DVD
  2. Online

  Should I upconvert the standard def to 720p or 1080p and cut in an HD timeline (only to go back to standard def dvd).
  Or if I should downconvert the HD to a Standard def timeline and cut there?

  Also, what’s the ‘best’ way (given my situation with the standard def dvd footage) to make it look “better” (match the hd more closely) I’ve heard “instant hd” works well.
  PS. I understand the “garbage in garbage out” idea… but I’m between a rock and a hard place and am forced to deal with this footage the way it is.
  I’m trying to make a “silk purse out of a pigs ear”.

  anyone ideas.
  thanks,
  Michael

  John Pale replied 19 years, 6 months ago 3 Members · 4 Replies
• 4 Replies

• 

  John Pale

  March 10, 2007 at 8:17 pm

  Downconvert your HD stuff to SD, since your final product will be SD anyway.
  Your HD stuff will look good and your SD stuff won’t get significantly worse.

  Use Compressor to downconvert your HD stuff (or get it done at a dub house), use MPEG Streamclip to extract the DVD footage.

  Edit in a 8 or 10 bit Uncompressed SD Timeline, if your drives can handle it.

  No sense upconverting the SD, only to downconvert it when you are done..
  If you were going to make an HD master, I might feel differently.
• 

  Pierre

  March 10, 2007 at 10:02 pm

  John-
  thank you very much.
  I’ll report with my progress.
  Michael
• 

  Chris Poisson

  March 11, 2007 at 1:33 pm

  John,

  Why not just put the HD stuff in the SD timeline, let FCP scale it and fix the aspect ratios in the distort tab? Frame rates can be dealt with using Nattress Standards filters, so what am I missing here?

  I just did a reel yesterday from mostly HD footage in exactly this way and it looked great.
• 

  John Pale

  March 11, 2007 at 5:14 pm

  [Chris Poisson] “Why not just put the HD stuff in the SD timeline, let FCP scale it and fix the aspect ratios in the distort tab? Frame rates can be dealt with using Nattress Standards filters, so what am I missing here?”

  Why bother with all that rendering (not to mention the purchase of filters), when all he has to do is batch convert them in Compressor? Much easier to actually do real editing if everything is the same codec… I suppose if he is just putting in clips and not mucking around with them much, its pretty much a wash, though. Your way will work too.

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