MIXING HD AND SD

[Walter Biscardi]

[peter crawford] “so ive created my project and sequence as apple pro res 422 HQ (SD).I,ve also clicked the animorhic box in my sequences.”

Does this match all your original SD footage? If not you may have to render each and every clip as you edit. Be sure this exactly matches your original footage.

[peter crawford] “I was told to check the animorphic box but Im not entirely sure why,
Is this right???”

Only if your SD footage is anamorphic.

[peter crawford] “I presume I can just import my new HD footage, dump it onto my timeline and fcp will automatically adjust it to match mt SD footage???”

It will scale down the video to fit in your SD timeline as letterboxed. If you want it anamorphic or center punched, you’ll need to adjust each clip as you drop them in. You’ll also need to render all your HD clips in the timeline.

[peter crawford] “What will be the effect/aspect ratio of this whole process ? ie..will my sequence/project sum everything into a SD 4:3 picture or will it be sqished or letterboxed or will it randomly change?”

If you’re set for anamorphic, you’ll end up with a squished timeline that will open up normally for widescreen playback. You have absolute control of what you will end up with, it all depends on how you position / scale your HD footage into the SD timeline.

[peter crawford] “Will the effect be the same on a 16:9 and 4:3 display??”

If your final output is a 16:9 DVD and your SD footage is anamorphic and you make your HD footage match that anamorphic setting, then the DVD will play back letterboxed on a 4:3 display and full screen on a 16:9 display.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.

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[Peter Crawford]

Hi thanks for your quick reply

Yes my original footage is digibeta which was transferred to apple pro res hq by a pro editing house.

I’ve been editing this ‘stock footage’ and am being delivered the bulk of the footage in a week or so which is shot on a canon hdv camera as 1080i 16:9 and handed to me as apple pro res hq also.(I pressume the pro res codec is best since thats what im originally working with.

Since im only in the very early stages of editing (and i can change my workflow I guess I should just ask you what is the best workflow I should go for to edit my ‘SD pro res footage together with my canon hdv pro res footage in order to end up with a project that is 4:3 (destined for DVD). And can you please tell me…aswell as the project/sequence settings that will best achieve this result..- will I need do do any manual scaling of aspect ratio or letterboxing of any or my footage to achieve this final result?

Thankyou!

[Peter Crawford]

Re: MIXING HD AND SD
by peter crawford on Jun 24, 2008 at 9:48:34 pm

Hi thanks for your quick reply

Yes my original footage is digibeta which was transferred to apple pro res hq by a pro editing house.

I’ve been editing this ‘stock footage’ and am being delivered the bulk of the footage in a week or so which is shot on a canon hdv camera as 1080i 16:9 and handed to me as apple pro res hq also.(I pressume the pro res codec is best since thats what im originally working with.

Since im only in the very early stages of editing (and i can change my workflow I guess I should just ask you what is the best workflow I should go for to edit my ‘SD pro res footage together with my canon hdv pro res footage in order to end up with a project that is 4:3 (destined for DVD). And can you please tell me…aswell as the project/sequence settings that will best achieve this result..- will I need do do any manual scaling of aspect ratio or letterboxing of any or my footage to achieve this final result?

Thankyou!