Creative Communities of the World Forums

The peer to peer support community for media production professionals.

Activity Forums Sony Cameras Best SD setting

  • Best SD setting

    Posted by Geoff Mckay on October 21, 2012 at 4:44 am

    Hello Everyone,
    This question has probably been dealt with a number of times, and I have read several threads that touch on the topic, however, I didn’t see any that were “spot on” my issue.
    I recently tried to deliver some content to the local t.v. station (shot with EX3). I shot the sequence in 1080, matched sequence settings to clip settings, I was told that the station required me to compress the final product to mpeg 2 program stream. I did this, leaving the content in HD. The stations Equipment wouldn’t recognize the footage. I altered the compressor setting to downconvert to SD, once again, no luck. Also, my video looked terrible.
    Anyone have any experience with this?
    On another note, I saw Doug Jensen ingest footage in HD, but edit in a SD timeline. I tried it, and found it to be slow,I had to render all the time, and got terrible picture quality.
    Finally, what EX settings tend to be the best for down conversion to SD.
    (I am editing with FCP 7)

    Bruce Rawlings replied 13 years, 6 months ago 3 Members · 4 Replies
  • 4 Replies
  • Michael Slowe

    October 21, 2012 at 4:20 pm

    I’ve delivered to broadcasters in two ways. In SD they wanted a DVCAM tape (SD of course) and the broadcast looked great, another wanted a file and I gave them the file in the Apple ProRes HQ codec (HD). Presumably you can export from FCP (I use Media 100) as a ProRes file so why not offer them that? If it has to be SD the downscale is critical. Don’t use the EX camera’s downscale, it is not good enough. Either do it with AJA hardware or, if it is good enough, use FCP. I don’t know how good it is with Compressor but I suspect not all that good. You are always better off shooting in HD and then going from there, the higher re acquisition the better.

    Michael Slowe

  • Geoff Mckay

    October 21, 2012 at 5:59 pm

    Thanks Michael
    This down conversion issue doesn’t seem to be as simple as I thought it would be. I will check out the hardware that you mentioned. Unfortunately, I am not sure what the capabilities are of the hardware at the station, so up till now it has been “trial and error”.
    I also re-read my post, and didn’t want to come across as slamming Doug Jensen. His method seemed to work fine for him. It even gave him the flexibility to add simulated pans and zooms. I wish I could make it work for me.
    I am going to be working with another station that edits all there stuff on final cut, so at least I will have their sequence settings. The problem is that all their cameras shoot in 4×3 SD, so the EX still gives me the issues of the down convert. If my business grows, I might consider a Nano Flash. I hear that they will allow me to record in SD. Anyone have any experience with these, are are they just hype?

  • Bruce Rawlings

    October 22, 2012 at 7:59 am

    The Nanoflash will not convert but will record the EX3 in camera down converted output. Sorry duplicated posting no idea how to delete.

  • Bruce Rawlings

    October 22, 2012 at 8:00 am

    The Nanoflash will not convert but will record the EX3 in camera down converted output.

We use anonymous cookies to give you the best experience we can.
Our Privacy policy | GDPR Policy