-
XDCAM HD/EX mix up!
Hi all,
My colleague has made what should be an easy fix mistake, but is giving me a headache! All our footage is XDCAM HD 108050i 35VBR and he’s edited all the sequences with XDCAM EX 108050i sequence settings. No problem, I thought – I’ll just change the sequence settings back to XDCAM HD – job done. However, when I change the sequence settings back, the footage appears anamorphosized (note I do have correct for aspect ratio checked in canvas).
I’ve tried several things – 1. Making a new XDCAM HD sequence and cutting and pasting the sequence in. 2. Making the media in the sequences offline and reconnecting it. 3. I’ve even thought of media managing the sequences to create offline xdcam hd versions, but can’t see how this would be different from 2.
If I bring in other media that wasn’t in the original sequence with the settings changed back to XDCAM HD it looks fine. It’s rather strange – usually when you change a sequence back to it’s native settings it reverts back to how it should be. It seems to be retaining the scaling from the conversion to EX which is square pixel and 1920 frame size as opposed to HD’s rectangular pixels and 1440 frame size. It seems no matter what I try FCP is still holding onto the EX settings, even though the media is HD. What am I missing here guys? The sequences are too complex to start over and we’re up against a deadline as ever.
Best,
Alex.
Alex Bluffield
Final Cut Pro Editor
W: https://www.a2bpostproduction.co.uk -
4 Replies
-
Select the footage in the time-line and “Remove Attributes: basic Motion/Distort”.
rafael -
He’s keyframed lots of Motion parameters like scale and position, so resetting them will destroy hrs of work. Still don’t understand why fcp’s not returning the sequences to their native codec without messing up the aspect ratio? Are there any other options?
Best,
Alex.
Alex Bluffield
Final Cut Pro Editor
W: https://www.a2bpostproduction.co.uk -
I think Rafael had it right.
Don’t change the scale and position. Just change the distort parameter alone when you paste the attribute to all the clips.
I don’t think Final Cut is savvy enough to change the distort parameter of all the clips in the sequence when you change the sequence settings to a codec with a different pixel aspect ratio.
Anybody confirm that? -
[Alex Bluffield] “Still don’t understand why fcp’s not returning the sequences to their native codec without messing up the aspect ratio?”
Well, unfortunately it’s because of the unintended mismatch of settings between your source clips and original sequence. You see, FCP was forced to apply a scale and distortion to each and every clip instance added to the sequence in order to make those clips display correctly … although you’ve since changed the sequence settings after the fact, that doesn’t change those scale and distortion properties that were applied, as noted, to each and every clip already edited into the sequence. Similarly, copying and pasting those sequence clip instances to another sequence, regardless or target setting, will not change the properties already attached to the copied clips.
As for options, you could pull an XML trick maybe … export the sequence as XML and then use an applescript to parse through and subtract 33.333 from the value of every Basic Motion Scale element, and to add 33.3333 to the value of every Distort element. That way you’d preserve any scaling and distortion that had been intentionally applied.
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up