[Rich Rubasch]

Jeremy….cool workflow and one I hadn’t tried. Worked very well. I will still argue that the 10 bit uncompressed advanced conversion out of compressor keeps the most sharpness, but it does not allow me to pan and scan the clips on a timeline. And sure enough, my 4×3 graphic held up as a 4×3 in and out of the footage.

Keeping that one in my back pocket, and it has made this whole thread very worthwhile!

Kind of made my day, actually…thanks Jeremy.

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media

[Rich Rubasch]

In all the tests on the same clip the best looking clip was the 10bit uncompressed using advanced conversion our of compressor. Off tape, the 10 bit and Pro Rez looked identical but both added field or interlacing jitter…the advanced downconvert I chose frames and the clip is nearly perfect, and better than anything else I tried.

At long last we cut in 720p native and talked the client into making the end graphic letterbox as well. This way we stayed 720p all the way and will output an HD master and dub downconverts to the Betacam letterboxed right out of the deck.

Still, the original revelation is this…saying that FCP can use HD footage in an SD timeline and be able to use that extra resolution is not really a great workflow if you want great picture quality.

Using advanced format conversion to create new clips is a great way to downconvert 720p or 1080i material to SD, even better than having the deck or the Kona do it, at least in my tests.

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media

[Rich Rubasch]

Not exactly….I have a 4×3 standard DVCPro50 SD sequence. We drop in the 720p footage and it automatically scales to 75% and displays letterboxed. The end frame of the spot is full frame 4×3 720 x 480 graphic filling the screen.

Footage letterboxed, end frame full screen.

With that workflow, the idea was to drop a Photoshop mask where the black letterbox area is and then scale the 720p footage under it from 75% to 100%….in theory. I always assumed that this would work. No different than using a 1200 x 900 still frame in FCP and flying it around an SD window.

I understand all the downconverting, and pristine, and all that. Just not in this workflow. At least not exactly….

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media

[Rich Rubasch]

I don’t know Walter….not a real solution. The idea is that you can bring in 720p60 footage into an SD timeline and have the luxury of pan and scan on the footage. Any kind of downconvert locks you into the SD frame size.

It also reveals a significant flaw in the basic FCP hardware/software structure that scaling footage on the timeline is a pretty crappy proposition and not exactly “pro” if we are talking broadcast quality.

We sell the fact that we can take HD footage and move it around in an SD frame….I have found that even AE is not great at interpolating it. Now, admittedly, the advanced conversion to 10bit uncompressed was a very acceptable result in the end, but did not allow us to pan and scan around the clip…it was simply anamorphic. Good enough I suppose, but I have to tiptoe back out of my original proposal of being able to zoom in and out of shots on the timeline as needed. Perhaps this technique works better with 1080i footage where you have even more resolution to start with.

Also changing the SD sequence to “None” for fields helped 720p footage dropped into it, but it still resulted in significant ghosting around detail areas, but was an improvement.

I am going to upload the same clip from the DVCProHD tape we made in various flavors and see what that looks like.

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media

[Rich Rubasch]

Thanks guys. Changing to no fields in the sequence helped a little but we still lose some crispness and there is a noticeable color shift…it’s like we lose some yellow. Better though.

I pitched the idea of redigitizing from the tapes we made, but it’s the convenience of using the media already on the drives that won the day.

Again, another gripe that FCP is not all that “pro”. But affordable.

Can we get the algorithm team on this one…

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media

[Rich Rubasch]

And to clarify, the main issue here is that when we drag a 720p DVCProHD clip into a SD sequence of any codec it adds quite a bit of softness with the scaling. However, even if we leave the clip at 100% scaling in the SD sequence we still get the softening. I reread my orig post and it might have sounded like an AE question. The issue is FCP softening a 720p clip when dropped into an SD timeline.

Can’t believe no one has come across this.

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media

[Rich Rubasch]

There is a setting in compressor for making a transport stream MPEG-2. I have found that a 15-18 mbps clip that is CBR will usually work. The bitrate is not as important as making sure it is CBR always! The audio is 48k stereo. This should work.

Post back if you find out their specs….I’m betting on a 15-20 mbps CBR MPEG-2 transport stream.

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media

[Rich Rubasch]

Do you have a backup of the hard drive before you installed anything? I once had an issue where a file called “Helium” which is located in the Library-Receipts foler was missing. Finding it on the backup drive and putting it back in there solved the problem.

Pretty esoteric but could be helpful…

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media

[Rich Rubasch]

Since you have so many source codecs and sizes, I think a little experimentation is in order. The SD stuff should be the easiest. And don’t think ProRes makes huge files. They are pretty manageable. The hardest clips will be the HDV stuff. DVCProHD should down res pretty nicely. If you have any jaggies check your field order and other interlacing settings in compressor. In my experience all of these file types can be down rezed with compressor with good results.

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media

[Rich Rubasch]

Can you verify that the PC workstation is seeing the folders on the Mac where the actual media lives? What codec are the ref files referencing? If it is DVCProHD or DVCOPro50 you can get codecs on the PC from Raylight and then the PC might be able to read them. Once we got the codecs we can drag DVCPro HD or 50 clips into Vegas and use them natively.

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media