• Apple Final Cut Pro Legacy

  Capturing with the Canon XH-A1 from SD 16:9 footage

  Posted by Chris Odell on July 29, 2009 at 5:30 am

  Interesting dilemma here…

  So I was recently thinking that since the XH-A1 is a 16:9 native camera then capturing in anamorphic mode through FCP might not be preserving the best image quality. I also noticed that Canon claims the camera shoots a 1440×1080 SD 16:9 image, that seems crazy since I thought dv couldn’t be that size. So I asked Canon and here is the response…

  “You are correct. The resolution should be set to 1440×1080 for 16:9 SD
  video. Anamorphic capture would stretch the image, so you would not
  want this setting enabled. Also, verify that the frame per second
  option is set to 27.97. If it is set to 30, then frames would be
  skipped.

  We hope this information is helpful to you. Please let us know if we
  can be of any further assistance with the XH A1 camcorder.”

  So I tried capturing with a 1440×1080 custom capture setting and it still forces the clip to be 720×480 anamorphic. Anyone else know this workflow at all?

  Thanks

  Chris Odell replied 17 years, 1 month ago 2 Members · 2 Replies
• 2 Replies

• 

  Jan Bliddal

  July 30, 2009 at 1:42 pm

  I have the same Camcorder in the PAL version and I have captured 16×9 PAL fotage via the DV anamophic easy set up. It worked flawlessly. Try that setup. Remeber your camcorder as to be set up as DV not hdv, but you can se it on the light on the wheel at the site.

  Let the machine work for you. Not you for the machine
• 

  Chris Odell

  July 30, 2009 at 5:38 pm

  it’s not that i can’t capture the footage, it’s that i don’t want to lose image quality. If I understand anamorphic correctly it stretches a 720×480 image and since the Canon XH-A1 is a native 16:9 device then I wouldn’t think stretching wouldn’t be a good thing, no?

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