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Mastering out HD to SD
I am just completing my first FCP project which was a 2 hour concert shot in HD. I have to output some SD tapes for VH1 and the Hard Rock Cafe. Both want NTSC (anamorphic for the Hard Rock). I have an AJA IO HD which does the conversion on the fly, but the timebase on the sequence is 59.94 (which cannot be changed), and of course my DigiBeta is 29.97. They’re not speaking to each other, controlwise. I get a message that says ‘unable to perform edit. Please select a valid in point and try again.’ My tape is properly blackstriped and works fine with NTSC source material.
I created a new sequence at 29.97 and dropped the whole concert in, but there are one-frame gaps, a lot of them. There seem to be an average of 20 per minute over the first few minutes, so that’s about 2400 over the show. Don’t really want to fix that! Also the grphics are not scaling, they’re coming in full 1280×720. Any thoughts?
Ken Nicholson
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4 Replies
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1 – do not make any changes to Final Cut Pro. If you are editing in 720/59.94 DVCPro HD, then leave FCP set up for 720p/59.94 DVCPro HD for example. If you make any changes at all to FCP from your HD editing preset, the downconvert will not work.
2 – Use the AJA Control Panel to downconvert your HD to SD.
3 – Make your edit.
We’ve laid off dozens of 720 and 1080 shows to DVCAM and regular old BetaSP using this method. The edit always works, sometimes you get the warning that you’re laying off an NDF Timeline to a DF master, and we just click “Ok.”
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!
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Hey Ken,
You could have asked me this afternoon when you were at the station. We do it all the time. We don’t have an AJA IO HD but we have five Kona 3s an LHe and an FS1. In your AJA control leave you primary for your timeline at 720p Like your easy setup and make the secondary 525 SD downconvert anamorphic (your IO HD may have all your various outputs hot at the same time) your 59.94 timebase is dropframe just like 29.97 timecode. Black at least a couple of minutes on you SD tape to match your starting TC for your edit something like 1:00:00:00 and assemble to your master. Make sure your device control preset is set to the machine type you are mastering to.Jim Calahan
KVIE, Sacramento -
What the heck you doing trolling around this place at midnight? Sleeping in the guest bedroom again ?? 😉
Ken Nicholson
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My problem was machine control, but I found out what I was doing wrong. In my Discreet deadit*, when you print to tape, ins and outs come over automatically from the timeline. If you want to change them you can. In FCP, that doesn’t happen, you have to enter the record timecode in the Mastering sub-menu or you get nada. Hence the ‘enter valid in-point’ message. Newbie…
Shoulda asked this on the FCP basics forum.Ken Nicholson
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