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HVX200 & Final Cut Pro
Here’s are scenario: We are shooting HD with the thought that we will
re-release these projects later on in HD once they become more affordable to
author/duplicate. Right now though we are wanted to make “fullscreen” (not
letterboxed) SD DVDs and are having absolutely no luck (everything we try
looks like junk).We are shooting 720p30pn and editing on a 720p30p timeline. Of course
everything there looks great on our computer monitor. However, once we nest
that sequence into a SD timeline the quality goes to junk. Diagonal lines
have jaggies and side to side motion has all kinds of artifacts that make it
look jittery. We’ve done a lot of online research on this and people say
that this is a problem that Final Cut has and they suggest two options 1)
output to a deck or 2) use Compressor. We can’t do option 1 as our AJAs are
SD only and we get very poor results with Compressor (we tried both default
letterbox settings as well as cropping in to make it full frame). Anyone
else have a solution for this?Thanks for all your help.
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3 Replies
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Export your final 720 cut as a QT. Bring that back in. make sure it’s set to “none” fields. Put that in an SD timeline. Make sure sequence settings have “none” for field dominance. should do a decent downconvert at this point.
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You should be able to put the 720p/30 into an 8bit SD timeline and render it out. You will get a little strobiness due to the 30p instead of 60p.
We use our Kona 3 and Kona 2 to perform the downconversion in realtime as it is absolutely the best way to go as far as performing downconverts in FCP. Especially from a progressive source to interlaced master.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.STOP STARING AND START GRADING WITH APPLE COLOR Apple Color Training DVD available now!
Read my Blog!
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Export either a reference file or a self conatined file of your HD 16×9 timeline from FCP and import that into Compressor. Select the Best preset of your choosing.
Now, change these two settings:
1. Under the “Encoder Tab” – change “Aspect Ratio” to 4:3
2. Under the “Geometry Tab” – change “Crop” to 4×3 1.33:1
This produces a centerpunched 4×3 MPEG2 encode.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.
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