FCP for soft down-convert

[Kent Kajino]

Have you tried starting with a sequence preset that matches your 1920×1080 footage (rather than a 1440×1080 sequence)? Maybe then, FCP won’t complain that “presets don’t match”.

Then, when you do a recompress in Media Manager, FCP might accept your desired settings rather than ignoring them.

[Scott Rachal]

“Have you tried starting with a sequence preset that matches your 1920×1080 footage (rather than a 1440×1080 sequence)”

Yes, that’s how I started, but I ended up with 16×9 anamorphic footage.

I want the middle of the 16×9 frame, throwing away the edges of the widescreen picture (The footage was shot for SD 4×3 delivery, with 4×3 framing) That’s why, on my second try, I tried the 1440×1080 sequence.

I am worknig with a production company that is being dragged kicking and screaming into HD production. They normally shoot incredible, gorgeous 35mm film, transfer at a fine transfer house with a skilled colorist, and deliver footage to me on SD Digital Betacam 4×3. Any framing decisions were made in the transfer, and I would edit the footage on Avid or FCP, and deliver a finished spot.

They are being pressured into shooting HD, and I get to hear all of the complaints from this DP used to shooting 35mm film, with an optical reflex eyepiece, all of the expected follow focus, prime lenses, separate audio recorder, and a camera assistant in charge of film loading, gate checking, exposure setting and all that.

Now, he has to make sure the audio is in the camera, the pro-35 adapter makes the camera setup “Five feet long”, (He forgot to turn on the spinning ground glass on a couple of takes), he can’t see crap thru the b/w eyepiece, etc. And by the time they add all of the add-ons they are used to with 35mm shooting, the camera costs more than a 35mm rig. And the footage I get looks worse, because it hasn’t had the added value of a 3-5 hour colorist/transfer session.

All valid complaints, in my view. And for all of this, the clients expect to pay a much reduced price for the production, because “Hey, its video now…video is cheap!!!”

[Kent Kajino]

Yes, I hear it can be a problem when film people are forced to adopt video. But, for the most part, I’ve never personally met a serious producer with enough budget who chooses HD video over film, unless he’s from the broadcast end of the business. But, over in Japan, television is king, so maybe the JP video manufacturers have a warped view of the world outside in marketing their wares.

[Michael Gissing]

[kkajino] “But, for the most part, I’ve never personally met a serious producer with enough budget who chooses HD video over film”

George Lucas shot the last two Star Wars on HDcam SR, but if you haven’t met him then I can’t fault your argument.

[Kent Kajino]

hehe… no I haven’t met Lucas…
nor the other guy who shot Collateral

[Lu Nelson]

Put all your footage in to an SD 4:3 timeline, or whatever timeline matches exactly the dimensions you’re trying to get, and scale/center them all, as approriate. You can also apply color correction to them at this stage if you need to. Make sure your audio is not altered, unless you want it to be (you can raise levels, center pans, whatever). Then select all the clips in the timeline and drag them BACK TO THE BROWSER, TO A NEW BIN. This will give you a bin of new clips which have Motion, Filter and Audio settings inherited from the sequence you just dragged them out of. Then select all the clips in this bin, right click and use “Batch Export”. Select a location for the export in the Batch Settings dialog, but leave the output format as “Item Settings”. Export this and you’ll get the clips adjusted the way you want them.

[Scott Rachal]

Brilliant!