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Easy Pan and Scan for HDV footage?
Hello all, just got my Sony FX1 and I’m wondering about making use of the high res for simpler shoots. I need to shoot some stage shows soon and I’d like to simply lock the camera down on a tripod, frame the whole stage (only about 20 ft wide), and just get the wide shot for the duration. My hope is that I can easily pan/scan for high quality zooms of actors from this wide shot (rather than show off my rickety manual panning skills). Final output is standard ntsc 4:3 for dvd.
I know about Prem’s motion tools for this but I was wondering if there is an easy way to simply frame actors on the timeline. thanks
Alpay Kasal
Artist/Engineer
https://www.NYCRenderfarm.com -
5 Replies
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I’m not sure what you mean by “frame” the actors. I’m willing to help… I just need some clarification.
-Greg
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I should also add that you should be aware that leaving the camera TOO wide will decrease the amount that you can zoom in on while maintaining 720 pixels by 480 pixels. Also remember that the HD you will be capturing will be in a 1.2 Pixel Aspect Ratio, and the 4:3 I assume you will outputting to will be at a .9 Pixel Aspect Ratio.
Sorry for my blabbering and any pain that it may cause you. Haha.
-Greg
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oh no, all useful stuff as I try to wrap my head around this. when I say “frame” the actors, i’m referring to isolation of a 720×480 (or thereabouts) region within the hdv wide angle in lieu of actually using a tripod and zooming in and out. I thought I could do a much more pro looking job in the editing pass. what should i know about the diff aspect ratios?
thanks for the advice and insight Greg.
Alpay Kasal
Artist/Engineer
https://www.NYCRenderfarm.com -
OK, as you know, all HD is Widescreen. But what I have forgotten is that HD is square pixels… not rectangular pixels (I was tired at the time I posted haha). But, the output format you want (4:3 720×480) is viewed with slightly narrower pixels (0.9 Pixel Aspect). I’m not sure if this will be a problem, but just keep that in mind. You can probably just capture the HD content in a HD project, then create a new 4:3 720×480 project and import the HD content and be fine (without having any pixel aspect ratio problems). Maybe someone else on the boards that has done something like this before can help me answer the PAR question. I’ll keep you informed.
-Greg
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Oh and one more thing: You may want to consider outputting to [16:9 720×480 1.2 PAR] instead of 4×3… that way if you need to zoom out to get the entire stage (in the editing process) you won’t get black bars on the top and bottom of the video (because HD is 16:9). When you would fully zoom out to get the entire HD video in a 16:9 project, you would only see the entire video – with no black bars. Keep this in mind as well.
-Greg
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