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Activity Forums Apple Final Cut Pro Legacy DVCProHD to BetaSP 4:3

  • DVCProHD to BetaSP 4:3

    Posted by Rob Grauert on March 31, 2009 at 10:34 pm

    Hi,

    I have a timeline comprised of mostly DVCPro HD footage. There are a couple short clips that are from miniDV. I need to letterbox the DVCPro HD – the DV footage will be left alone since it’s already 4:3.

    I need to give a self contained file to a post house to transfer to BetaSP.

    I have no Kona3, so I was going to make a new timeline with these settings:

    Framesize – 720X486
    Pixel Aspect Ratio – NTSC CCIR 601 / DV (720X480)
    Editing Timebase – 59.94 (because that’s what by DVCPro HD is)
    Compressor – The client said the self-contained file that will be used for transfer should be Uncompressed. So should Compressor be set to Uncompressed? Or should I stay in DVCPro HD 720p60? or DV-NTSC?

    After I create a timeline with the proper settings, I’ll copy/paste the clips from the DVCPro HD timeline and put them in the new timeline. I’ll probably have to adjust the “distort” parameter in the motion tab for the DVCPro HD footage so it letterboxes correctly. Then I’ll take that timeline to Compressor.

    Is there a better way to do what I need to do or am OK with this method?

    Thanks.

    Robert J. Grauert, Jr.

    Mark Maness replied 17 years, 5 months ago 3 Members · 5 Replies
  • 5 Replies
  • Bill Dewald

    March 31, 2009 at 10:41 pm

    Can you give the post house an output of your current DVCProHD sequence, and have them do the downconvert?

    Crunching it in FCP will cause a quality hit.

  • Rob Grauert

    March 31, 2009 at 11:11 pm

    Hmm…I would do that, but I have a 4:3 clip in my DVCPro HD timeline that has the black pillars on both sides…because it’s 4:3 on a 16:9 canvas

    Robert J. Grauert, Jr.

  • Bill Dewald

    April 1, 2009 at 12:13 am

    I understand – but won’t the post house be solving that by performing the center cut?

  • Rob Grauert

    April 1, 2009 at 1:00 am

    Beats me. I’ve never taken anything to a post house to transfer to tape.

    Robert J. Grauert, Jr.

  • Mark Maness

    April 1, 2009 at 4:59 pm

    You’ve just run into the issue that all of us face from time to time… What do we do?

    Here’s the thing… You want your timeline to be letterboxed for output, right? Well, if you drop DV footage into your timeline and its pillarboxed, then when you downconvert to SD, your DVD footage will still be pillarboxed and now letterboxed,, too.

    To keep this from happening, you’ll have to either upconvert your DV footage to full frame HD or just live with the square frame around your DV footage. You may have to do a little pan and scan on it to make it look right but downconverting the DV footage will look fine at broadcast.

    _______________________________

    Wayne Carey
    Schazam Productions
    https://web.mac.com/schazamproductions
    schazamproductions@mac.com

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