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using FCP to upscale SD to HD
I am a struggling indie film maker making a WWII documentary.
My dilemma is that I have hundreds of WWII newsreel clips I got from the National Archives on DV-NTSC tapes, and some interviews shot over 10 years ago on NTSC.
But I made re-enactments, text animations and animated maps in HD 720p. Because I intend to future proof my film. I would like to work in an HD timeline so that I could in the future export to Blu-Ray.
With this mind, is it ok to use FCP to upres the WWII clips? I know that Compressor would do a better job but the problem is that it would take ages to upscale hundreds of DV-NTSC WWII clips. For the modern video shot just a few years ago, I would use Compressor because there aren’t that many clips to upres.
I just want to know if its ok to upres WWII footage using FCP as a quick solution.
My reason for not wanting to work in an SD timeline, is that my downscaled HD animated WWII maps and text just looks poor in SD. And isn’t it also just a case of “garbage in, garbage out”? Isn’t it better to start in HD and stay in HD while editing?
Thanks very much for your feedback.
– Nick
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5 Replies
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[Nicholas Natteau] “With this mind, is it ok to use FCP to upres the WWII clips?”
Nope. FCP sucks at scaling clips from SD to HD.
[Nicholas Natteau] “I know that Compressor would do a better job but the problem is that it would take ages to upscale hundreds of DV-NTSC WWII clips”
Then invest in an AJA Kona 3 or AJA Kona LHi. It does the scaling in realtime during ingest. This is what we do almost every day.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media“Foul Water, Fiery Serpent” now in Post.
Creative Cow Forum Host:
Apple Final Cut Pro, Apple Motion, Apple Color, AJA Kona, Business & Marketing, Maxx Digital. -
[Nicholas Natteau] “My dilemma is that I have hundreds of WWII newsreel clips I got from the National Archives on DV-NTSC tapes, and some interviews shot over 10 years ago on NTSC.”
Contact the National Archives to see if you can get the newsreel material in HD. That would be a big help to you.
Arnie
Post production is not an afterthought!
https://www.arniepix.com/ -
Hi Walter,
Thanks for your feedback. I see that the Kona 3 is twice the price. Is it just becasue it can handle 2K or does it scale up SD to HD faster than the Kona LHI also?
I’ll definitely upgrade to this hardware option. Can you tell me what Kona 3 does better than LHI?
Thanks again for your feedback.
– Nick
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[Nicholas Natteau] “Can you tell me what Kona 3 does better than LHI?”
It does nothing better. It just adds capabilities for Dual Link, 2k and a few other features for high end Post work.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media“Foul Water, Fiery Serpent” now in Post.
Creative Cow Forum Host:
Apple Final Cut Pro, Apple Motion, Apple Color, AJA Kona, Business & Marketing, Maxx Digital. -
Hi Walter,
Thanks for your help. I just got off the phone with an AJA rep who recommended that I consider getting the AJA IO HD instead of the Kona LHI.
He mentioned its portability. I have two Mac Pro desktops: one at my office and one at home. I’m working on my doc-film in both locations.
He also said that the Kona LHI was really more for ingesting uncompressed video whereas IO HD would allow me to upconvert using the Apple Pro Res codec. I found this more appealing in terms of the disk space I could save using Apple Pro res. I have one Terabyte size for my media hard drive right now.
What’s your view on IO HD as opposed to Kona LHI?
Thanks again for your help,
– Nick
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