• Apple Final Cut Pro Legacy

  Sequence settings, formats and aspect ratio

  Posted by Lynsey Allett on June 23, 2011 at 8:28 pm

  Hello,
  I’m currently editing a music video that is a combination of stop-frame animation shot on an mini-dv cam (PAL/4:3) and footage shot on a Sony HD handycam (16:9). I wasn’t totally sure of what to set my sequence settings to so have opted for Apple Intermediate Codec 1080i for now. What is the best way to now add the additional PAL footage to the HD timeline? I’ve had a play but the stop-frame footage looks a little pixelated in places.

  Many thanks,
  Lynsey

  Jeff Greenberg replied 15 years, 2 months ago 3 Members · 2 Replies
• 2 Replies

• 

  Chris Tompkins

  June 24, 2011 at 10:44 am

  That 4X3 animation is NOT going to look good in a HD sequence.

  I would convert that Sony HD handycam footage to Prores before import into FCP.

  Maybe have the 4X3 animation less then full screen with a background to help.

  Chris Tompkins
  Video Atlanta LLC
• 

  Jeff Greenberg

  June 27, 2011 at 11:07 am

  Just to add to what Chris said…

  You’re blowing the PAL stuff up 6x – it’s going to look very pixellated. You might want to consider trying compressor to upscale these items (it’ll take a long time, requires decent knowledge of compressor and you’ll have to run experiments on the upscaling algorithm to see how satisfied you are with the results.)

  Never use AIC if possible – always use ProRes.

  Best,

  Jeff G

  Apple Master Trainer | Avid Cert. Instructor DS/MC | Adobe Cert. Instructor
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