[Ged Yeates]

Hello

Just a wee clarification regarding the BBC using Premiere. Premiere is currently only being used by the BBC on news programming shot by VJ’s (video journalists who self shoot and self edit) using Window’s laptops for editing.

The bulk of their programme editing is still done on Avid and FCP suites. I film for BBC Scotland and they are exclusively Avid for in house editing though some other BBC regions and departments do use a mix of Avid and FCP suites.

Ged Yeates (Isle of Lewis, Scotland)

Ged Yeates – Lighting Cameraman
http://www.gedtv.com

[Ged Yeates]

Hello Andy

The mistake you initially made was placing the rendered file directly in the FCP timeline BEFORE ticking the 16:9 anamorphic setting on the clip.

When you place a 4:3 clip in the FCP timeline it will retain the aspect ratio, hence the pillar boxing you saw. I know you were using a 16:9 clip but you need to give FCP this information.

As Mark Spencer says there is absolutely no need to go into the FCP motion tab, in fact this will degrade the look of your title, you should always select the clip in the bin and tick the anamorphic tab there.

The confusion arises because PAL 16:9 and 4:3 are exactly the same pixel size, 720 x 576 (as you have already noted). You also noted that 16:9 has an aspect ratio of 1.42 but as I mentioned earlier you need to tell FCP this clip is 16:9 by ticking the anamorphic column in the bin window or tight clicking and choosing ‘item properties’ and ticking anamorphic in there. THEN, and only then, add it to the timeline and it will be full resolution 16:9 anamorphic.

However the simplest solution of all is that which Mark Spencer suggested, simply import the Motion project into FCP. Then tick the 16:9 anamorphic column or in item properties before you add to the timeline. You will then have the correct aspect ratio in full resolution and the ability to right click and open in ‘Motion’ (open in editor) and make any changes if required. It dispenses with a whole stage of rendering and importing.

The confusion can arise as DV footage sometimes carries (though not always) the 16:9 flag but formats such as ProRes 422 mainly do not; you always need to tick the anamorphic option BEFORE adding to the FCP timeline.

This is purely an SD issue due to the two aspect ratios having non square pixels but exactly the same dimensions. If you remember this you soon get into the habit of choosing 16:9. It’s not really a failing and requires virtually no effort to get right once you are aware of the potential pitfalls, as I say it is just one of the things that you have to be aware of when using SD. You’ll soon be doing it without even thinking about it.

Bye – Ged Yeates

Ged Yeates – Lighting Cameraman
http://www.gedtv.com

[Ged Yeates]

Hello Mark

Thank you for your swift response. Your advice was excellent, the wee video showed me exactly how to accomplish what I was after. It has added a nice touch to the job I’m working on and will now make it easier for other editors to locate the template group.

Much appreciated – Ged Yeates, Isle of Lewis, Scotland.

Ged Yeates – Lighting Cameraman

[Ged Yeates]

Hello

After my previous post I decided to stop being lazy and created the SD 16:9capture preset I mentioned, it literally took about twenty five seconds!

What you need to do is select:
Final Cut Pro drop down menu (top left of screen)

Choose ‘Audio/Video settings’

Choose the ‘capture presets’ tab (not the capture preset setting visible on this window, it must be the tab along the top of the window.

Choose the Apple ProRes 422 codec and frame rate you wish to use and then click on ‘edit’.

Next to the frame size display there is a box for 16:9 anamorphic tick this.

Give the preset a name of your choice and then click on ‘OK’.

Return to the ‘Summary’ tab and change the capture preset to the preset you just created using the drop down menu.

You will now capture the video as 16:9 avoiding the manual process of going into ‘item properties’ and ticking anamorphic. However when you begin capturing the video the window that comes to the front will be in 4:3 but do not worry as once the video is captured it will display correctly as 16:9 in the viewer window.

Bye – Ged Yeates (Scotland)

Ged Yeates – Lighting Cameraman

[Ged Yeates]

Hello

I capture SD 16:9 material regularly using my ‘ioHD’. The thing to do is not get hung up on capturing the video in 16:9 as the fix for this is to let Final Cut Pro know it is anamorphic after capture.

In your bin containg the captured 16:9 clips (which will be displaying as 4:3 in the viewer if you load one in), right click on the clip and choose ‘item properties’ then choose ‘format’ then in the column next to anamorphic click once and a tick will appear. Your viewer windows will switch the clip to display as 16:9. From now on the clip is tagged as a 16:9 clip.

Adding the now tagged clip to a new sequence should ensure the sequence is 16:9 but if you are not asked to change the sequence to match the clip you can soon fix this by clicking in the sequence window (timeline area) then press command+ zero (not the zero on the numeric keypad, use the zero key above the ‘P’ key). Alternatively choose ‘sequence settings’ by using the drop down ‘sequence’ menu at the top of your screen. Once you are in sequence settings you will see a ‘anamorphic 16:9 option, just tick the box and your sequence is now set to work as a functional 16:9 sequence.

Just capture the video as it comes and change the aspect ratio before placing the video in the timeline, this only take a few minutes to check each clip. If you do not tick the anamorphic column in the item properties it will display as a pillar boxed 4:3 image in a 16:9 timeline. So always tick the anamorphic property first.

Some video formats do have the 16:9 video tagged already so they will capture as 16:9, such as 16:9 DV captured using Firewire or HD footage. But for SD just capture and change it after and remember before editing.

Final Cut Pro can actually have a custom capture preset built by modifying a current one and you can set it to capture SD 16:9 on input. I have done this but lost the preset after a corruption and just haven’y got around to making another one as ticking each clip to anamorphic does not take much time so I’m guilty of a wee bit of laziness.

It is the aspect ratio of the pixels that is different between 4:3 & 16:9. The confusion arises because both ratios in PAL for example are exactly the same pixel size (720 x 576). However the 16:9 pixels are more rectangular in shape giving the wider looking image when displayed on a widescreen TV set. in PAL 16:9 pixels are 1.42 ratio, 4:3 pixels are 0.9 ratio but both contain the same number of pixels. Computer displays use square pixels so a 16:9 image from SD video will look tall and thin. This is often compensated for when outputting video for computer display by changing the pixel dimensions, typically on PAL 1024 x 576 or 720 x 405.

Hope this helps – Ged Yeates (Scotland)

Ged Yeates – Lighting Cameraman

[Ged Yeates]

Hello

I just saw a newly released update for Final Cut pro 7 a rather small file of 1.8MB released today 30 October 2009 but it has not resolved the issue of field tearing on interlaced video when speed changes with ease curves are rendered. I really thought it was my lucky day but it was not to be.

It does seem to be related to the 7.01 update as I checked a couple of speed ramps with ease curves I rendered in version 7.0 and they look fine.

Bye – Ged Yeates (Lighting Cameraman, Scotland)

Ged Yeates – Lighting Cameraman

[Ged Yeates]

Hello

I’ve taken a critical look at the problem I’m encountering when rendering variable speed segments with ‘ease’ curves and it is definitely the field order that is being reversed which is the cause of the visual jump at the end of a speed ramp.

As I mentioned this does not seem to occur on ‘linear’ speed ramps just those with an ‘ease’ curve and only when rendered.

Bye – Ged Yeates (Lighting Cameraman, Scotland).

Ged Yeates – Lighting Cameraman

[Ged Yeates]

Hello jeremy

You wrote: ‘I hear that, but you can capture an upconverted pillarboxed version and do the ARC in the timeline. Pretty easy. ‘

I must be honest and admit I’ve never tried it that way. I’ll definitely give that method a go.

Thanks – Ged Yeates (Scotland)

Ged Yeates – Lighting Cameraman

[Ged Yeates]

Hello Jeremy

I have attempted to do the aspect ratio changes in the timeline but the resulting video is always poorer quality than doing it using hardware.

Also, the BBc and other UK broadcasters have now specified that up-converted SD video or aspect ratio converted in SD is not acceptable from software and should be converted using a broadcast quality hardware solution.

I’ll admit I got into all of this in a rather involved way on a recent edit involving a lot of archive material shot on Beta SP and I have tried out just about every way of converting I had on my system from timeline renders through various software solutions the best of which was ‘Resizer’ from Digital Anarchy. However the up-conversions and aspect ratio changes from the ‘ioHD’ always looked better.

The other reason I prefer to do it using the ‘ioHD’ is it can be done in real time whilst digitising video saving quite a bit of time later.

But the bottom line is the BBC’s demands for hardware conversions when up-converting from SD to HD

Ged Yeates (Scotland)

Ged Yeates – Lighting Cameraman

[Ged Yeates]

Hello

Another workaround is to ‘move sideways’ so to speak and employ software such as ‘MPEG Streamclip’ which allows you to take video files directly from a DVD and output them to the codec of your choice (in this case I’m assuming you want Apple ProRes422).

If the DVD is commercial or copy protected this solution will not usually work but ‘internally’ produced DVD’s or client supplied DVD’s should work fine. It’s a method I’ve used several times and saves all the interface headaches of HDMI and going analogue and is done transcodes than real time.

The video quality is of course limited by the encode quality of the DVD so it looks pretty similar to capturing through a video input (digital or analogue).

MPEG Stream Clip can be downloaded of the Web. There are other software alternatives available as well but I mention this one as I find it works hassle free for my own workflow needs.

Bye – Ged Yeates (Scotland).

Ged Yeates – Lighting Cameraman