HD and SD on the same timeline… making it look good.

[Tim Robinson]

There really is no perfect way to fill the “HD WINGS”. Here’s what most people try…

You can fill with an animated background (popular for the network newscasts) or static background

(favorite of ESPN to highlight your watching them in “ESPN HD”, but often this just highlights the space.

You can zoom in (video effects/motion/scale… if in 720 198% is about right) and then move your footage position (2nd # is for Y and is default at 360… up the number to slide the clip down, lower the number to slide it higher… if you click and hold over the numbers you can slide your mouse right-left to change it and watch the preview to get it just right)
Often when I zoom in I move my footage down to allow for clear head room on the model.

If your footage is framed too tight and you don’t want to “cut off” anything you can try one of these two things…

Just a simple zoom and leave the black space. It gives the footage an archive feel now-a-days.

A popular style now is the blur fill.

This is a great way to fill with the same colors of the footage. Often if the background is generic enough, you won’t even notice (white walls or a grassy field).

To do this just duplicate your video footage on the timeline, stacking the clips. Zoom the motion of the top clip to fit to the top and bottom of the frame. Then take the background clip, zoom in to fill the rest of the HD “wings”, then use a blur (like fast blur) to fill the space. (If you’ve already edited your timeline, just copy all and paste right above then copy/paste your effects to each clip below). You can play around with it to get it even more less noticeable (more zoom, more blur)

A couple more things you can try to smooth out the footage…
If your SD is interlaced and your HD is progressive (most are) then you can right click on your clips and click on field options… you can try either “flicker removal” or “always interlace”. For me flicker removal is cleaner. Also you may want to see what frame blending does, if your using SD in an HD project, it shouldn’t matter if “flicker removal” is checked. If your using HD in SD, it might if your HD has slower frame rates. Its default on. If your shutter speed is FAST and your HD project is slow (24p?) It may make everything very blurry. (To turn off right click on clip and click “frame blending” to turn off. If you right click again, the checkmark will be gone).

Hope this helps!

Tim Robinson
tim@erobinsons.com
Pride-Mobility-Products
Corporate Video Editor

[Tim Kolb]

If HD isn’t absolutely necessary to use as the master output, many of us choose to edit HD/SD mixed projects in SD.

If you edit in 4:3, you scale down the HD so it fits and effectively ‘letterboxes’ and then you use a simple black mask, top and bottom to crop the SD footage into a 16:9 ‘letterbox’ of its own (most 4:3 footage can be cropped in this way and simply moved up or down to get critical composition into the visible frame).

A letterbox tends to look more high-end than the pillar box look.

TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions,

[Bryan Dodd]

Thank you both for the prompt responses.

I like the idea of bringing the footage down to letterbox format, but I’m a little concerned because I didn’t set out with that idea in mind and have already put many hours into editing the footage.

Currently, my Premiere Pro sequence is 1440 x 1080 (1.333)
Within it, I have my SD 720 x 480 (0.9) footage and my HD 1440 x 1080.

Can I convert my existing work into a format suitable for the letterbox method you have described without losing what I’ve already done?

The final video will be played back on everything from older televisions to newer HD flat panel models. I am worried that attempting to “letterbox” the footage in my current wide-screen sequence within Premiere Pro might compromise the durability of the video to be viewed on different types of TVs.

Thanks again!
-BD

[Bryan Dodd]

One additional question —

If I opt not to “letterbox” the footage and continue on with the HD timeline… how will this translate on a regular, non-upconverting DVD player?

Would the HD display correctly on an HD television, while effectively “letterboxing” the footage on a regular television? Or would a regular TV chop off the edges of the video?

[Ramil Pasibe]

“Would the HD display correctly on an HD television, while effectively “letterboxing” the footage on a regular television? Or would a regular TV chop off the edges of the video?”

– so all these materials would be played using just DVDs right. If that is the case then you have no choice but to work on an SD timeline.

Regular DVD players would chop off the edges of the video – since you’re working on HD – you’ve definitely gone beyond the safe area for SD.

neither will the HD display correct you’re 16×9 aspect ratio unless you’ve started to work on a DV 16×9 setting.

I would suggest re-doing your work on a DV timeline 16×9 aspect ratio. Just to be on the safe side.

– Ramil

[Tim Robinson]

You don’t NEED to edit in a DV widescreen project. If you export your HD widescreen project to “MPEG2-DVD” media encoder will convert it to the correct size (just make sure you chose either widescreen or standard based on what you want to do)

No matter what you chose a “DVD” will never be “HD” no matter how you format it in premiere. It will either be widescreen or standard and in SD. How you set it up in media encoder to export to encore matters! The only way to get HD discs is with BluRay.

ITS UP TO THE DVD PLAYER’S SETTINGS which determines how the video displays…. either letterboxed or full screen (with the wings cut off) Most DVD players I’ve seen today will letterbox because most all your home movies are letterboxed.

You can also import your entire project/timelines into a new project, then resize.

“Upconverting” is a fancy marketing term. All it means is that the DVD player SCALES the footage to match the display. It processes the video playback so to make SD look better on HDTV’s.

My suggestion is to play it safe and edit your footage for HDTV, but don’t worry about the wings. Make sure all your graphics/text and important footage fits in your 4:3 safe area. That way your safe all around.

Tim Robinson
tim@erobinsons.com
Pride-Mobility-Products
Corporate Video Editor