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FC7 Format Issue
Hello guys …
Since upgrading to FCP7 i seem to have problems when i try to import (transfer) P2 1920×1080 content and EX1 (XDcam) on to the same timeline…
Let me start of by asking the main question …
1. What format(easy setup) should i set FCP7 to make sure both formats are working nicely together in the timeline and ofcourse also when exporting ?
2. Funny thing when i transfer video from the P2 cards it shows in FCP7 (right click) Item Properties – Format 1280×1080 but it was recorded in 1920×1080. Very strange. It does not do that with the XDcam footage. That one still shows as 1920x1080x30p.
Not sure if i am missing something … but transfering footage into FCP7 takes much longer when i use P2 content. XDcam goes 4×5 times faster. is that normal ?
Any thoughts on my issues ? Thanks in advance for any help.
Regards
Andy -
1 Reply
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Hi Andreas,
The reason your P2 footage shows as 1280×1080 is because that is the real resolution of the image. Panasonic squeezes the image horizontally to save space, and then FCP and other apps stretch it out to the correct 16×9 aspect. The reason this does not happen in your XDCAM EX footage is because EX is shot at real 1920×1080. However, if you were shooting older XDCAM HD, that’s actually shot in 1440×1080 🙂
If you want to read more about how this all works, check out Wikipedia’s article on pixel aspect ratio at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixel_aspect_ratio
As far as your timeline preset goes, I would recommend you set it to DVCPRO HD 1080i, as long as you have the disk space to store it. Since you’re working with two mismatching formats, FCP will *always* need to render either one or the other. In this case, that means the XDCAM EX footage will be rendered to DVCPRO HD.
-Michael
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