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Mixing formats for doc
Hello,
I’ve just received a final cut project with 80 hours of footage using 4 different cameras and was hoping I could get some help on how to proceed. The producer wants the end product to be a 1080P quicktime with the option of going out to HDcam.
I’m working with FCP 7.0.3. The bulk of the footage was shot on a Sony EX1 formated as Apple XDCAM EX 1080p24, the frame rate is 23.98. They also shot with a Sony V1U formatted as Apple HDV 1080i60, the frame rate 29.97. I also received some footage from a nikon D90 formatted Apple OpenDML JPEG, 1280 × 720 with a frame rate of 24fps. The last camera used was a handicam MiniDV formatted MPEG2 Muxed, 720 x 404 with a frame rate of 29.97.
The most important footage is on the Sony EX1 and Sony V1U. Because of the different frame rates how should I proceed? I have cut them both into a sequence set to XDcam EX1080p24 and it seems to be OK but the render bar above the V1U footage is light green. When I cut in the nikon or MiniDV footage the render bar is red which I figured would happen. Am I using the correct sequence setting for the 2 Sony cameras?
From what I have gathered around the internet I should transcode the Nikon footage to a Pro Res codec. Is this correct? The MiniDV footage is less important and I feel may not even be used but I would like to know what I would need to do if we wanted to use some of it.
I appreciate all of your input. Thanks.
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7 Replies
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My 2c, for what it’s worth, is that you should reverse-telecine your 60i/29.97 material to 24P (you use Compressor and/or Cinema Tools can do this – sorry, can’t be more specific as I’ve never actually done it myself) before you start editing.
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Thanks Gareth, I’ll try this out.
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[Gareth Randall] “My 2c, for what it’s worth, is that you should reverse-telecine your 60i/29.97 material to 24P (you use Compressor and/or Cinema Tools can do this – sorry, can’t be more specific as I’ve never actually done it myself) before you start editing.
“It sounds like this footage is native 29.97i, not 24p over 29.97i with 3:2 pulldown. Reverse telecine is only for footage that’s 24p shot over 29.97i with 3:2 pulldown. Cinema Tools is not appropriate to use in this case. If the footage is native 29.97i, you’ll need to use Compressor to convert 29.97i to 24p (23.98). I’d recommend converting to ProRes 23.98 and cutting in a ProRes 23.98 sequence.
Enable frame controls in Compressor. Set Output Fields to Progressive, set Deinterlace to Better and set Rate Conversion to Better. Be prepared for long render times. Note that using Best settings for deinterlacing and rate conversion will not offer appreciably better results, and will have staggeringly long render times.
No need to transcode the XDCAM EX stuff, it will play nicely in a ProRes sequence.
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Thanks Alan. I appreciate the details. Now I have another question.
When cutting both the XDCAM and the newly converted Pro Res clips into a Pro Res 422 sequence the render bar is green. Is this something I should be concerned about? When I used an XDCAM sequence this did not happen to the XDCAM clip and the Pro Res clip was a lighter shade of green. I’m just trying to figure out if this is going to be an issue down the line.
Thanks
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[Andreas Fehrle] “When cutting both the XDCAM and the newly converted Pro Res clips into a Pro Res 422 sequence the render bar is green. Is this something I should be concerned about? “
It shouldn’t be an issue unless you start piling filters on the XDCAM EX footage. In that case you might get a red bar, which would mean that rendering would be required to play back the footage in realtime. The only way you would avoid green bars completely would be to transcode everything to one codec that matches the sequence settings, but it’s really not necessary unless the green bar really bothers you. The green bar is simply an indication that the footage does not match the sequence codec, but will play back in realtime without rendering.
My personal preference is to work in ProRes sequences, but others might suggest that you could just as easily work in an XDCAM EX sequence, then change the sequence compressor to ProRes only when you’re ready to export. It really just comes down to the proportion of XDCAM EX footage to everything else including graphics/text, and when/how you want to render.
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Thanks Alan! This is all good to know. I really appreciate your help on this.
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hey Andreas – what format did you deliver the project in?
I’ve been in similar situations of late off-line editing feature docs and doc series for broadcast and the feedback I’m getting from my online houses is that if we’re delivering in 29.97 and there’s both 23.98 and 29.97 footage, it’s easier to “add” frames ie. take the 23.98 up to 29.97 than it is to take frames away…
Obviously, the weight of the different formats and style of shooting of each group of footage comes into play but I’ve also encountered issues with Smoke having trouble recapturing FCP’s funny auto-pulldown as well as having trouble with 29.97 footage I’ve fed through Compressor to make Prores 23.98.
I know there’s a bunch of questions here all bundled up but maybe some else out there has some insight…
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