Onlining a FCP anamorphic project on an AVID

[Arnie Schlissel]

Ask the Avid editor or post house that’s bumping you up to DBeta what’s best. They may have specific requirements, or they may be very flexible.

[earltheyak] “Finally, I know our final product is going to be on DBeta. I know that DBeta can also be played in an anamoprhic stretched format. Is it more customary to deliver a finished product letterboxed, or full frame stretched anamorphic?”

That depends on the delivery requirements of your client.

Arnie
https://www.arniepix.com

[Michael Alberts]

Or go to an online facility that uses FCP.

Michael Alberts
Ambidextrous Productions, Inc.

[Arnie Schlissel]

That still leaves the final delivery question, though.

Arnie
https://www.arniepix.com

[Michael Alberts]

The last several 16×9 shows I’ve onlined at our facility required both a 16×9 anamorphic and a 4:3 center punch. We mastered all shows out to digital betacam. The 4:3 center punch was done sending the 16×9 SDI signal through an SDI aspect ratio converter (made by Eyeheight). The centerpuch was clean and sharp. I recently did 16 one hour shows this way.

Michael Alberts
Ambidextrous Productions, Inc.

[Rick Sebeck]

Michael,

By “center punch” do you mean 4:3 stretched? or 4:3 pan and scan?

I just love learning new lingo and wanted to be clear before I start using it!

-Rick

[Michael Alberts]

The producer on this particular show made sure that the camera opps maintained the talent in a 4:3 picture area. This made the final post easy. All that was necessary was a simple 4:3 center punch. This simply means the image fills the entire 4:3 screen and the left and right edges are cut off. The box can do a pan and scan if necessary.

An alternative to this process is to do the 4:3 in FCP. This show in particular was shot on DVCPro50. You could do the center punch in FCP in realtime, but that codec would have required a render before final output. There is a way in FCP to do the 4:3 without doing any blow up, thus maintaining the sharp visual detail. This requires you to adjust the Distort setting in the motion tab. It was just easier to do it with the hardware based aspect ratio converter.

Michael Alberts
Ambidextrous Productions, Inc.

[Paul Ingvarsson]

Hi Tim,

I’m mostly an Avid Symphony and DS Online editor – here is my take.

It sounds like you’re using mostly firewire and domestic kit so I would suggest the cleanest solution is to use an edl to transfer your project to the Avid so that they can reconform from there.

Although this would yield the best results as error correction in studio grade DV decks often gives better quality pictures out of an SDI O/P I am guessing you’ve already passed off this train of thought.

Second option is to output your sequence to DV anamorphic. This can be captured by the avid as normal (avid does not differentiate between 4:3 and 16:9 media). Also output your timeline as an edl (for edit point reference – Avid Symphony can automatically place add edits in a source clips based on an EDL – if you need more info on this let me know).

In Apple software there is a bold distintion between Anamorphic and 4:3 media – in most other places this is not the case. For example there are no settings on a Digibeta to select 4:3 or 16:9 – the only way to tell is by looking at the footage by eye – or reading the label someone has put on it to say 16:9 or 4:3. So yes – Digi supports 16:9 Anamorphic.

In Avid symphony there is a tool called ‘Reformat’ this is a dedicated 10 bit ARC (Aspect ratio converter) that will on a clip by clip basis – or whole timeline modify your footage to be 4:3 center cut out (that can be panned left or right to maximise the framing of your subject) or 16:9 Letter box – ie no need to hire a seperate ARC – that cannnot selectely Pan and Scan.

Hope this helps, good luck,

Paul

Freelance DS/Symphony
London

[Tom Matthies]

Paul.
Where in the Symphony is the reformat tool?
Tom

[Tom Matthies]

I found it…
Tom

[Blub06]

I don