• Apple Final Cut Pro Legacy

  Frame size discrepancy (Mac and FCP and Premiere Pro CS5)

  Posted by Ed Romero on February 21, 2011 at 4:35 am

  I have some footage that shows up on my Mac as 1920×1080, via the “Get info” option.
  But, when I open the footage(already in mov format) in FCP 7, the frame size is 1440×1080.
  If I create a timeline with the 1920×1080 frame size and add the footage, it does not fit the full frame…
  Also, I opened the same footage in Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 with the same results…
  Why is this happening? Is the footage not 1920×1080? If so, why does the Mac read it as 1920×1080 and my editing software as 1440×1080?

  P.S. I received a hard drive with the footage already in mov format, so I am not sure how it was transferred/captured onto the hard drive.

  Thanks.

  Ed Romero replied 15 years, 2 months ago 2 Members · 5 Replies
• 5 Replies

• 

  Ed Romero

  February 21, 2011 at 8:43 pm

  Anyone?

  Any suggestions?
• 

  Jeff Greenberg

  February 23, 2011 at 3:23 am

  Ed,

  By any chance are you using an HDV camera? All editorial tools want to manipulate the raw pixels of what’s captured – and HDV is 1440×1080.

  QuickTime is showing you the ‘playback’ quality of full 1080 (not what it’s storing), but visually the way it’s playing back the footage to look correct. It’s actually stored at 1440×1080, but if you played it back like this, everyone would look skinny and tall.

  QuickTime is applying an ratio conversion for the pixels to appear correct.

  I have a much more thorough explanation, but (depending on you) this might be enough.

  Best,

  Jeff G

  Apple Master Trainer
  Avid Cert. Instructor DS/MC
  Avid & Color Videos Vasst.com
  Compressor Essentials Lynda.com
• 

  Ed Romero

  February 23, 2011 at 5:04 am

  Hi Jeff,

  Actually that might be the case. But I just received the footage on a hard drive so I am not sure what it was shot on. (I’m going to try and figure that out)
  If it was shot on HDV, what is my best option? Can it be fixed?
  How will this affect the video when aired at full HD?

  Also, I’m interested in hearing the more detailed explanation. 🙂

  Thank you.

  Ed
• 

  Jeff Greenberg

  February 23, 2011 at 12:01 pm

  There’s nothing to fix because, It’s not broken.

  Longer version:
  Let’s talk about SD – that will make the HD talk easier.

  All SD is 720×480 (or 486). 720 horizontal pixels. Both 4:3 ratio and 16:9 ratios. This constantly causes confusion with people.

  Remember legos? I had some legos that were 3 wide, and some that were 4 wide.
  Imagine a line of 720 three wide legos.
  Imagine a line of 720 FOUR wide legos.

  Which is longer (the four wide.) But there’s the SAME AMOUNT of legos in each line! But the 4 wide line is LONGER because it’s not square! (All pixels in SD are non-square.)

  You’d fix this if you went to HD, right? They did. They made all the blocks perfectly square.

  And then came the prosumer cameras, where Sony and Panasonic chose to use non square pixels to make cheap enough (and compressed enough) pictures.

  All editorial software would like to store the raw pixels and distort as necessary to display. This way they’re only handling and processing what you shot – but displaying it correctly (just like they did with anamorphic SD.)

  When you air this in HD, it will ‘take the nonsquare pixel ratio’ into account and it will appear correct in broadcast – 1920×1080, but what was shot, stored and processed is only 1440×1080.

  Whew.

  Best,

  Jeff G

  Apple Master Trainer
  Avid Cert. Instructor DS/MC
  Avid & Color Videos Vasst.com
  Compressor Essentials Lynda.com
• 

  Ed Romero

  February 24, 2011 at 4:29 am

  Thanks again Jeff!

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