-
DVCproHD 16:9 to Beta SP full screen 4:3
I know therehas been alot of discussion on this subject, but this actual
situation I have missed:I’ve shot DVCproHD 1080i 60 and need to finish online for Beta SP full screen 4:3
I have FCS2 (FCP6) working from my Dual 2.7 G5 / Decklink HDpro card and will be
keep all thing in 4.2.2 8 bit.Q). to get the best quality from my HD footage (DVCproHD) do I just
make movies from my p2 import in native HD (DVCproHD 1080i60) timeline.
Then create a 8 Bit unconpressed Timeline and just pull the HD movies in and center at will ?Is this what is called Center Cut and is this the best way to conform this kind of HD 16:9 to SD (4.2.2) 4:3 ?
Thanks for your help in advance.
Dane
drppost.com -
9 Replies
-
I just finished a project like this. I edited everything in an HD 720 24P timeline. I wasn’t going out to tape so I just exported ref movies and made a SD DVD. In DVDSP you can choose to keep it 4:3 or Pan-Scan so it’s 4:3 or 16:9 depending on the playback unit.
If you want to go out to tape you can drag the sequence (or exported movies) to the SD timeline and render. You’ll probably have to zoom the footage up to fill the frame (which will cut off the sides).
We have a Matrox MXO which is another option. It will downconvert the HD in realtime to component SD which you record. I can’t tell you the quality difference between using the MXO compared to the SD timeline as I’ve never tested this. Most of my clients want DVD, not tape. But visually, the SD out of the MXO looks terrific.
John
Dual 2.5 G5 4 gigs RAM OS 10.4.8 QT7.1.3
Dual Cinema 23 Radeon 9800
FCP Studio 5 (FCP5.1.2, DVDSP4.1.1, Comp2.3, STP1.1, Motion 2.1.2)
Huge U-320R 1TB Raid 3 firmware ENG15.BIN
ATTO UL4D driver 3.50
AJA IO driver 2.1 firmware v23-28
Pro Tools HD w SYNC IO, Yamaha DM1000, Millennia Media HV-3C, Neuman U87s, Genelec Monitors, PrimaLT ISDN -
Looking at all the angles, your approach is good. Basically, HD material put on an SD 4:3 timeline will letterbox by default. Then you scale it up and adjust each clip right or left if you like.
Speaking of “each clip”, you might want to select all your clips on the HD timeline and copy and paste into the SD timeline. You’ll have to scale them all up (create a motion favorite) to eliminate the letterbox and then you can center the clips if needed by turning on the wireframe in the canvas and then shift dragging them left or right. Or pan them with a motion effect if that works for the shot.
I was just reviewing this in the FCP6 Manual under “Combining SD and HD Material.” An alternative is to drop the HD sequence into and SD sequence, but think about the consequences of that.
Maybe Shane Ross will chime in. He’s written a lot about these combinations and his blog might be informative on this.
-
That’s the way Dane. If you can keep it letter-boxed, the best for the quality of your picture. Just drop your HD sequence in top of a 8/10b Uncompressed 4×3.
rafael -
As you can see, Dane… There are many ways of doing this. The easiest method if to edit completely in DVCProHD, master in DVCProHD and use the machine to down-convert to SD 4:3 for you to your BetaSP machine.
I do this every week using XDCAM HD to BetaSP.
_______________________________
Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com
https://blogs.creativecow.net/waynecarey -
Wayne is right. The best quality you are going to get is to let the Decklink HD Card do the conversion. You can either hook up a DVCproHD Deck to it and capture “Center Cut” into uncompressed 8-bit codec, then you’re already in an SD edit work flow. Or you can do as suggested above, especially if you don’t have a DVCproHD deck, and bring in your P2 card clips, edit in a DVCProHD timeline, Then when you’re done, make the Decklink HD Pro hardware convert it to the “Center Cut” uncompressed 8-bit signal into a Beta Deck.
Hardware conversion gives you much better quality than software conversion any day!
Matt James
Freelance FCP Editor
Denver, CO -
[Peacejames] “Hardware conversion gives you much better quality than software conversion any day!”
Hi James, you are right, but this is something that I don’t understand. In the end a video-card is only running some software. In theory anything that you can make by hardware you should be able to do it by software. More slow sure, but with the same quality. Do i’m wrong?
Cheers,
Rafael -
[rafalaos] “In the end a video-card is only running some software.”
I second that Rafael, while agreeing that the hardware probably is king in this particular case. I know my AJA Kone LHe makes a really great downconvert from 720P 60. It’s super clean and the progressive frames are converted precisely to 60i fields.
The only thing is that it sounded like Dane wanted to individually center the HD shots for optimal cropping in 4:3. He could do that in the HD sequence, making sure not to let black edges enter the 4:3 area, but it might be a better creative experience to put the material on a 4:3 timeline and adjust the centering there.
We could all wish that one day we won’t have to think about all these formats and conversions, but that’s what they pay us the big bucks for!
-
[Dane Silzle] ”
Q). to get the best quality from my HD footage (DVCproHD) do I just
make movies from my p2 import in native HD (DVCproHD 1080i60) timeline.
Then create a 8 Bit unconpressed Timeline and just pull the HD movies in and center at will ?”Does the card not do this in realtime during output? The AJA Kona boards supports realtime downconvert of HD to SD in Letterbox, Center Cut or Pan and Scan. This gives you the best quality downconvert since it’s hardware based, not software and it’s realtime.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Broadcast and independent productions.All Things Apple Podcast! https://cowcast.creativecow.net/all_things_apple/index.html
Read my blog! https://blogs.creativecow.net/WalterBiscardi
-
I think you might be wrong Rafalaos. I haven’t ever physically taken one apart, but from what I understand, there are actual hardware chips that are doing the conversions, within a Kona card for example. There is Not software doing stuff inside a card like the Kona. It’s actually hardware. That’s how it can do the conversions in real time as it’s happening.
At least in my own experience, trying to downconvert by putting an HD sequence into a SD seuqnece then rendering, still gives you artifcating and I can see the “uneasyness” of the filter trying to shift the fields (HD is upper, SD is lower) within the software. Yes it works. But I recommend letting the hardware do the job. In my honest oppinion, it looks 100 times better.
Matt James
Freelance FCP Editor
Denver, CO
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up