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HDV 16:9 into a SD 4:3 canvas
I shot some HDV 1080i footage using a monitor that allowed me to intentionally see the 4:3 ratio even though I was recording the 16:9 widescreen. I knew I could crop the wide shot in post to give me what the monitor was showing, so the left and right sides of the wide shot contain outside material we do not want in the finished clip. The video will be shown on a 4:3 projection screen, and the client does not want a letter box. It must take up the entire 4:3 screen.
After capturing the HDV footage, I dropped it into a 4:3 SD sequence, and was disappointed how it was far less crisp then the native footage. I know this is in part due to the fact I’m going from HDV to SD, but it almost looks worse than my native SD footage. Rather than dropping the widescreen master clips into a 4:3 sequence, is there a way to just export a higher quality 4:3 file for a DVD from the native 16:9 HDV clip? I’ve tried many tests in Compressor, but I keep ending up with distorted, stretched out 4:3 shots in a 16:9 frame.
Here’s two screen shots, the top is the wide screen HDV clip, as you can see we shot for a 4:3 output as the sides of the frame are off the stage. The bottom shot is the lower quality I get from dropping into a 4:3 SD sequence.
Again, if there’s a way to export directly from the wide shot and tweak the settings to give me a better looking 4:3 clip, that’s what I’m looking for. The video is only 15 minutes long so I have lots of data space on a DVD.
Any advice is greatly appreciated!
Ben
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4 Replies
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[Benjamin Jones] “fter capturing the HDV footage, I dropped it into a 4:3 SD sequence”
There are a zillion flavors of SD in FCP, what precisely was the SD sequence, DV?
If yes, open new sequence and set it as ProRes before putting in you HDV material and scaling appropriately. And, of course make sure you have “Full” checked before rendering.
It is also possible to do a “center-cut” in Compressor, but it’s not easy if you don’t know all the controls. I have a long render going now, so try this first and report back, and if it’s not good enough I’ll help you with Compressor later.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.
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Are you looking at the SD footage on an external broadcast monitor? I’ve down converted DVCProHD to DVCPro 50 in the past, and yes, the SD footage does look crappy on my computer monitor, but when I look at it on my external monitor, it looks awesome. So, make sure you are looking as the SD footage on a broadcast monitor.
Robert J. Grauert, Jr.
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Thanks David, the SD sequence is DV. I think the ProRes does help the sharpness increase.
One last question- I’m in a time crunch, and have 10, 15 minute videos to get through Compressor before Saturday morning. I just finished setting them all up in the new sequences you advised, but render time will take about 40 minutes for each video. I started sending them to Compressor without rendering since I know it’s going to take a while to go through Compressor. Will it go faster if I render the files first? I figured that Compressor will do it’s job whether FCP has rendered it out or not. Thoughts?
Thanks again, looks like it’s going to be a long night!
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If you drop any HD footage into an SD sequence it will look horrible unless you render it. Test it by performing a “Full” render on one of the HD clips in your timeline and it should look great.
For example, I just edited a three hour program of a show that was shot in a theater. It was shot with one HDV camera and the camera operator never zoomed in any closer than a head-to-toe shot. I created a 720X486 ProRes 422 sequence and dropped the HD footage into it. I then chopped it up with the razor blade and then scaled the shots to create medium and close up shots. It now looks like the program was shot with multiple cameras.
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