Footage taken on uneven tripod! How do I correct without losing resolution?

[Mike Weber]

Hello Bruce-

Here’s one workaround. In your sequence, rotate the clip so that it is level. Then, nest your sequence into a new sequence. Apply the Crop effect onto your nested sequence, and adjust the top/bottom/left/right parameters to crop out the black areas.

Mike

[Bruce Pelley]

Hi Mike,

Thanks for your tip.

I’m not familiar with the concept of nesting.

How do I apply your recommendation?

Would you be willing to walk me through it?

Unfortunately there’s a lot I don’t know.

Thanks for your time.

Bruce

[David Roscher]

Check out Lynda.com they have allot of Awesome tutorials, that I totally love and rely on.

To nest, you make your first sequence create the rotation and then either Render to another video file, or Place Sequence 1 into a 2nd Sequence.

The way i learned this was with ‘Multi-Cam Editing’, via a Lynda.com tutorial.

David
Media Producer
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[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Bruce,

What is the source footage format, and how will video be delivered?

If you shot 1080 for instance, but are not actually delivering in 1080, you could work in a smaller frame and then you’d have all kinds of extra resolution to play with, for instance edit in 720p and then scale away!

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Bruce Pelley]

Dave,

Thanks for reminding me about Lynda.com. I actually do not use the Multi-cam feature but typically dedicate 1 video track per camera & edit manually. In most cases that totals three.

“Place Sequence 1 into a 2nd Sequence.”

I’ll need to see what that means.

Does that mean you take the source sequence, rotate, and then stack it with a clone of the original that wasn’t rotated?

[Bruce Pelley]

Good point Jeff,

Nice to hear from your again and always appreciate your help.

Ultimately this is going to be scaled down significantly to SD for cable delivery. Yes, I admit the quality by then as broadcast is not good however I still try to produce the highest possible quality master.

That’s just how I approach editing… do the best I can.

[Bruce Pelley]

Footage is HDV 1080i.

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Bruce,

One of the things I really like about editing 1080 footage is the fact that I can zoom in and re-frame a bit without noticeable quality loss, compared to doing it SD. I think sometimes we as videographers are overly critical of quality. I know I am!! As you are going SD in the end, perhaps you could get by with some fixing in the HD sequence and the viewer will never be the wiser. Your call though 😉

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Bruce Pelley]

Hi Jeff,

What do you think of the “nesting” approach as mentioned above by Mike and Dave? In your view is that a viable solution?

Do you understand their concept?

If so, would you be willing to run it through with me so I can learn?

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Bruce,

Not a big fan of nesting, but here’s how it works. Say you have some clips cut up on the timeline, then you decide that you want all of them black and white, or all of them shrunk down as a PIP…or both!

Create a New Sequence, then in the Project Bin, find the first sequence and drag into the new sequence. Shows up as a single “clip”, but represents everything in the first sequence. So now you can add any effect, scaling, whatever, to the one clip and it affects it all at once.

So yes, this would work to crop the image after rotating, as described earlier.

I normally work with an intermediate codec and would just render out that section as a new clip, but of course if you are working with an hour or two of footage for your stage event, then probably not the best idea! Personally, I’d be happy with rotating and then scaling 2% or whatever is needed rather than having a black border – if this is a two-camera event, the border will be a distraction when switching since it will pop in and out.

I do hear horror stories of nested clips inside nested clips not exporting as expected and such. Not for me, don’t need the aggravation 😉

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers