Panasonic P2 1920 x 1080 editing in Final Cut Pro

[Hector Berrebi]

David.

the pixels when shooting DVCproHD 1080 are not square. that gives the added width to show you a full HD image

in a “true” 1080 HD file, pixels should be square.

when you place a DVCproHD 1080 file in a timeline and match timeline to clip, you are working on a 1920 size frame, with 1440 stretched pixel.

for example, if you export it as QT, and the look in movie inspector, you will see a difference between pixels, and actual size.

if you deeply want true 1920 square pixel. recompress your DVCproHD files to prores HQ. this will require drive space and time. and i am not sure how efficiant and worth it it would be.

i work a lot with DVCproHD. i know its limits, but overall, and especially when coming from a good camera such as HPX500, the results are excellent to work with and clients are happy. regardless of the stretched pixels.

new hpx300 (not sure that’s the name) shoots AVCintra on P2, which is 1920 sq pixels, AND 10 bit… you could look into it 🙂

hope this helps.

Hector Berrebi
Schibber Group
prePost Consulting

[David Rodney]

Ok, so you are saying I am doing everything right if I set up the project and sequence as DVCPROHD 108050i and just import the camera files into the project and drop them onto that 108050i timeline and edit?
I gather then I am getting the equivalent resolution as a 1920 x 1080 file purely because the 1440 pixels are not square?

Am I on the right track here?

So to export as a full-quality self-contained file, do I just use the “Same as project” settings for the output and as a self-contained file for delivery or re-compression for the net?

By the way…should the “frame size” settings remain as 1440 x 1080 or should I do a custom setting there as 1920 x 1080?

[Hector Berrebi]

yes, you are.

if you export – “Same as project” settings you are exporting a DVCproHD QT at its fullest quality (depending on what you did in your project of course).

you can deliver it as a master

print to a DVCproHD tape

or re-encode to anything you need

it is the equivalent of a QT PAL-DV coded file from a DV project.

Hector Berrebi
Schibber Group
prePost Consulting

[Walter Biscardi]

[David See] “There are no DVCPRO settings in FCP that are 1920 x 1080 unless I put them in manually. But I did see somewhere that FCP “stretches” the 1400 x 1080 image to become 1920 x 1080. But at what point in the editing process is the stretching done?
“

You leave DVCPro HD anamorphic during the editing process. FCP displays 1920×1080 on playback and during output. What you see in your Viewer and Canvas is 1920×1080, FCP does this automatically.

If you create a timeline that is 1920×1080 you’ll be stretching out the image and this will cause issues later in the edit process. Leave the image anamorphic in FCP and allow the application to stretch it out for you.

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

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