[Adam Weinberg]

first thing i did! 😛

[Adam Weinberg]

this just keeps getting more and more strange: i tried to up-res the 4:3 file to 1280 x 960, not only does the file look slightly squashed vertically in FCP, but the right side of the frame is cropped off! i have double checked all my compressor settings and this appears to be a FCP bug .. it only appears cropped in FCP, but the original file (also squashed vertically in QT, even moreso) is not cropped at all.

i think all these problems are due to the the aspect ratio / the DVCPRO HD format being “anamorphic”. i’m sure if i all my media was in ProRes i would not be having these problems .. of course my timeline is in DVCPRO HD and at this point kind of needs to be.

any other ideas / thoughts?

[Adam Weinberg]

thanks for the tips .. unfortunately the background isn’t an option — i need to crop the 4:3 video to conform it to the 16:9 720P HD timeline.

if i’m going to run it through compressor, does anyone know what the best dimensions are to use for this and how to make sure FCP interprets the aspect ratio correctly?

[Adam Weinberg]

thanks for the tip, but sorry for not specifying — i need the best solution without the purchase of additional software. i have the full Final Cut Suite including Compressor, full CS4 suite including After Effects (which i only have a very basic knowledge of), MPEG Streamclip .. i of course would be open to downloading any other free software or plug-ins ..

[Adam Weinberg]

thanks for the tip — yeah, i figured out that helped things, unfortunately most of the footage i’m working with requires more subtle changes in speed ..

[Adam Weinberg]

i have tried playing with frame blending .. the problem clips just looked worse without frame blending on. and the footage is all progressive, fields aren’t the issue ..

[Adam Weinberg]

damnit, that wasn’t the answer i was hoping for! just so i understand this correctly, i thought optical flow only helped when pixels needed to be interpolated for the creation of frames?

regardless, does anyone have any tips for dealing with FCP’s apparently sub-par speed change tool? what i would ideally like to do is make a sort of “offline” edit in FCP using it’s speed change tool to get my timing right and the edits down, but then go back and properly slow down the clips the correct amount in Compressor or another program and sub them back in to the locked cut.

i do not know Motion well enough for that to be a viable solution. i do know how to use Compressor change the duration of clips, but i’m not sure what the fastest way of doing that might be if i want to conform clips to my existing “offline” edit.

[Adam Weinberg]

Hmm.. well first, I know ProRes is the preferred format but I’m often intercutting with P2 based DVCPRO HD and haven’t found any drawbacks to this workflow yet. Though media manager not being able to delete unused media is definitely a huge drawback.

I’ve manually added reel names which I thought would do the trick to allow media manager to delete unused media as I assumed compressor was adding timecode to the DVCPRO HD files. I do NOT need to recapture, just delete unused media.

I’m unsure what you mean about using Log and Transfer for these DVCPRO HD files .. I can not select DVCPRO HD files from the Log and Transfer window.

Any further advice would be very appreciated, thanks!

[Adam Weinberg]

Yup, thanks everyone!

[Adam Weinberg]

Ah, thank you! That’s what happens when you let someone else log and capture for you! Huge help Shane, I appreciate it.