SD & HD mastering

[Walter Biscardi]

[Paul Belanger] “Do people make lower third graphics in HD
where it has good clearence for the SD screen?”

Depends on the client and application. Some clients want all their titles protected for 4:3. The shows I work on we do two completely different passes as we put the titles right on the edge of safe title in both the SD and HD shows. I prefer this so you can get the graphics “out of the way”.

[Paul Belanger] “This is going to be hard to explain to the client’s graphic designer who giving me stuff in SD anyway. I’ve been saying to give me HD graphics.”

They just need to go back and change their image size to whatever frame size you’re working in. Just have them give you two sets of graphics, one for SD frame and one for HD frame. They need to know that the font size is generally larger in HD graphics than SD graphics because the frame size is so large to begin with. Not tremendously larger, but we usually make them a few point sizes larger.

[Paul Belanger] “What to do with this? I don’t want to stretch the picture.”

You can set how the Kona 2 upconverts the footage so try some tests. I usually do let the footage stretch out because it doesn’t look overly bad in 1280×720. If I do leave it in 4:3 aspect, then I either build a graphic around it or run a moving background behind it to fill the rest of the screen.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com

Director, “The Rough Cut”
https://www.theroughcutmovie.com

Now editing “Good Eats” in HD for the Food Network

“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters