[Bernie Henry]

Hi everyone,
I’ve battled with this problem now for some time. I’m editing videos that come directly from stock footage. Unfortunately I do not have a choice in the chosen footage so I end up with so many different types of formats and lord only knows what codecs. Here is a list of some of the formats I am mixing:

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/11848673/Video%20sizes.xlsx

(If you cannot open the link basically the footage varies from NTSC, PAL, HD and all different sizes from 320 x 180 up to 1920 x 1080) Most of the time I wouldn’t have to mix two such extremities but often I am mixing a 320 x 180 with a 640 x 360.

I often use a sequence setting of HDV720p, import this footage and edit (I don’t ever expect to edit without the rendering red line!) I then export to the relative size required. This is crude I know, and I can hear the tut tut’s but I really don’t know what else I can do. If I transcode all the footage before importing to FCP, I”m afraid of distorting the various footage and as no single piece of footage is more dominant than the other I aim for the best setting possible. I also need the text to look good over the video and have found that smaller sized sequence settings pixilate the text.

If anyone has any tips, disdainful outbursts or recommendations, I welcome all!