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4:3 SD in a 16:9 HD project?
Here’s my issue. Have a fair amount of 4:3 SD footage to integrate into a 16:9 HD project.
Using my HD timeline, it’s easy enough to enlarge the footage to fill the frame, and then select what section (top or bottom – or a bit of both)) that I will crop out. But, of course, the resolution suffers considerably.
Wondering what successes, if any, folks have had with this type of thing.
have Redgiant’s Instant HD, but this seems to want to zoom too far and only seems to degrade the image further.
Thanks.
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5 Replies
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Bumping the footage with hardware is best. Terranex is probably the best. Then the capture cards with upconversion chips in them. AJA, BlackMagic’s higher end gear do this on the card or in the box (Io HD) etc.
Jerry
Apple Certified Trainer, Producer, Writer, Director Editor, Gun for Hire and other things. I ski. My Blog: https://blogs.creativecow.net/Jerry-Hofmann
8-Core 3.0 Intel Mac Pro, Dual 2 gig G5, AJA Kona SD, AJA Kona 2, Huge Systems Array UL3D, AJA Io HD, 17″ MBP, Matrox MXO2 with MAX Cinema Displays
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We capture our archival Digi Beta footage with the AJA Kona 3 for use in our HD projects. Great card.
Victor
http://www.editvictor.com -
The one issue with using the Kona/BMD hardware is that you can’t custom crop the footage (you stated you were doing that).
Have you tried Compressor? With the Frame Controls setting the resize to “Best” you can get some pretty nice results. It’s a bit tricky, and non-intuitive, but you can custom crop the footage.
I have not used Red Giant Instant HD..but there are several plugins out there (Boris has one) that do the same thing. They all have demo tryouts. You could also give Motion a try. From what I have seen, its scaling is a bit superior to FCP.
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Although I can certainly see how good hardware would maximize the HD conversion of SD footage. How does one choose what part of the frame I am keeping? Also, how much improvement would i see over simply re-sizing in an HD timeline in FCP and exporting?
thanks,
m
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I’d think one would choose the best 16:9 composition one would get from a given 4:3 image… that won’t be the same from shot to shot don’t think.
That said, you will get a better upconversion using hardware for sure. When you see 4:3 images that appear to be HD on a plasma tuned to an HD feed, it’s very likely they were SD upconverted through a Terranex box.
Using the frame controls etc will help I agree… still not as good as hardware I’m afraid.
You could offline with the SD material, and when you’ve locked picture, have someone with the terranex do this for you in a file to file transfer, then just cut in the HD versions. It’s an offline/online scenario that way.
Jerry
Apple Certified Trainer, Producer, Writer, Director Editor, Gun for Hire and other things. I ski. My Blog: https://blogs.creativecow.net/Jerry-Hofmann
8-Core 3.0 Intel Mac Pro, Dual 2 gig G5, AJA Kona SD, AJA Kona 2, Huge Systems Array UL3D, AJA Io HD, 17″ MBP, Matrox MXO2 with MAX Cinema Displays
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