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A Real Mash Up Problem
My client has handed me a real mess. I need to create a new film from two footage sources.
1. Original XDCAM EX footage (1080P/30)
2. An SD film on DVD.I have already fallen on my spear moaning about what a mess this will be…to no avail. This is what they want.
The strategy here is to cut XDCAM footage into the SD film “bed” as little interstitial segments. The original film is about 10 minutes long. I need to cut in 5 or 6 little thirty second segments using the XDCAM footage.
The good news is that the original footage on the DVD was shot widescreen and is pretty good quality.
The other good news is that the final product will be used as web video and on iPod Touch and iPhones so “broadcast” quality is not an issue.
The bad news is that the original widescreen SD footage on the DVD has letterboxing black bars on top and bottom (like it was dropped into a 4×3 timeline and exported that way all the way through to the DVD). So it’s widescreen embedded in 4×3. Arghhh.
Now I have to mash it up. But, how?
Here is where I need some advice.
I am assuming the easiest way to get the footage off the DVD is use MPEG Streamclip or other similar tool…True?
But export it out at what settings?
Then, what settings to I use in FCP to get this footage and the XDCAM footage on the same timeline without spending the rest of my life rendering when I make a change?
And…most importantly…how do I get rid of the letterboxing on the SD footage so everything is full frame?Any advice you guys can give me is really appreciated.
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1 Reply
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[Michael Petty] “I am assuming the easiest way to get the footage off the DVD is use MPEG Streamclip or other similar tool…True?”
Correct. I would use Streamclip and render it out as ProRes, uncompressed sound, Frame Size: Unscaled
This will give you the 4×3 letterboxed video, which I would then take into Compressor and do one of two things:
1. Upscale to ProRes HD, cropping the letterbox effect as appropriate under the Geometry tab. The advantage of this method is that you’ll be working entirely in HD, which will save on rendering time downscaling the XDCAM material.
I’ve done exactly this before, upscaling 4×3 material from a DVD to HD, and honestly the results have been excellent. Just be sure to set all of your resizing controls (Frame Controls tab) to best quality.2. Convert to 16×9 by cropping under the Geometry tab, as above, but don’t upscale to HD.
The advantage here is you’re not trying to add resolution that wasn’t there to start with, but the disadvantage is that your XDCAM stuff will take longer to render. This might be preferable though if you’re only using small bits of the XDCAM.
A caveat here is that if you can cut all of your XDCAM material on a separate timeline, you could render this from FCP as HD, then downcovert in Compressor to SD to match the converted video from the DVD. Compressor will do a better job of downconverting than FCP.Personally I’d use Method 1, but the results either way will be similar because you’re only delivering to web/iPod in the end. Method 1 could impress the client by being able to wow them with the line “I converted the old stuff to HD”. People seem to like that.
Let me know if you need more details, although I imagine many of the answers should all be archived in the Compression Techniques forum.
All the best,
Alex Elkins
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