Kona LHi: zoom letterbox issue

[Jeremy Garchow]

Zoom Letterbox is for 4×3 letterboxed footage.

[Shane Ross]

You lose the top and bottom of the picture. It center crops the picture to fill the screen. PERCENTAGE of image lost? Got me. 25%? This is why I capture PILLARBOX, so I can choose what part of the image I crop. I blow up 33%, but that’s not how much image you lose, as I am also losing the black on the sides.

Shane

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[Nicholas Natteau]

Hi Shane that’s what i thought…25% lost of the top and bottom of the 4:3 image if it’s blown up to fit the 16:9 frame.
So if understand correctly you select “pillar box” in Aja’s control panel aspect ratio tab
and in FCP you take your unconverted pillar boxed image and scale it up manually a further 33% (133 in the scale tab) and then you determine
how far up or down you position the scene.

You said that you are losing more than 33% as you are also losing the black bars on the side. But does that matter?
I mean are you losing any information in the picture by losing the bars? Does getting rid of the pillar box bars amount to a loss of resolution and is that ok for broadcast?

[Jeremy Garchow]

6 of one, half dozen of the other.

With the pillarbox method, you are using FCP to do the rest of the scale but you also have more control of framing. With the zoom method, you are hardware scaling, but you lose framing controls.

I use the pillarbox method as well.

A Teranex will give you a better upconvert, but it’s more expensive. How much SD footage do you have?

[Nicholas Natteau]

Hi Jeremy,

Actually I have over 13 hours of SD footage. It’s all WWII newsreels that I’ll be using in two different documentaries.

I upconverted my SD footage with my LHi card selecting “anamorphic” for aspect ratio, because I didn’t want black bars on the sides. But if I need to pillar box it at some later date (because a client might prefer the pillar box look), couldn’t I just go to the “distort tab” in FCP and select “33.33” which would then give me the pillar box look?

You mentioned Teranex. Where you thinking of the mini-UDCSN up/down/cross converter? B&H sells that for $2,536. I definitely couldn’t afford the bigger Teranex units that run into the tens of thousands.

How much better would you say the Teranex mini-UDCSN is at upconverting 480i to 720p than Kona Lhi?
Would the upconversion be noticeably better if I used Teranex mini-UDCSN?

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Nicholas Natteau] “It’s all WWII newsreels that I’ll be using in two different documentaries. “

What format and frame rate is your timeline? Just curious.

[Nicholas Natteau] “I upconverted my SD footage with my LHi card selecting “anamorphic” for aspect ratio, because I didn’t want black bars on the sides. “

That is usually reserved for anamorphic footage, but what you have done is ok, you will just have to distort the footage to get it to look proper, like you have said. I would still stick with pillarbox.

[Nicholas Natteau] “You mentioned Teranex. Where you thinking of the mini-UDCSN up/down/cross converter?”

No, I was talking about the big box. What you can do is edit your piece, then take just the selects to a non-mini Teranex box at a facility that has one, then just run the clips you need through the Teranex. This will yield the best results.

Jeremy

[Nicholas Natteau]

Hi Jeremy,

I chose 720p59.94 as my upconvert destination because I shot all my HD footage with my HVX200 in 720p/24np and with my GH1 at 720p60.

[Jeremy Garchow]

I had a hunch you were working 24p.

What you could do is use Compressor to reverse telecine and upconvert the film news reels to a letterbox truly 24p 720 pollarboxed movie. You can scale the rest in FCP. You might be surprised on how good it looks.

I did a project with similar elements and the old news reels held up pretty well. Better than I thought.

[Nick Natteau]

Hi Jeremy,

But if I use Compressor to upconvert that would take forever. I’ve got hours of footage to upconvert that’s why I’m using my Kona LHi. Can I just use Compressor to reverse telecine to 24p on the upconverted footage?

[Jeremy Garchow]

Unfortuantely no as your footage will be progressive at that point (720p60).

I propose that you edit your footage, with no conform (just slam it in the timeline). Then at the end of your edit, you should do a proper conform, and conform the amount of footage that’s edited in your timeline. No reason to conform a bunch of footage you won’t use.