[Russell Lasson]

I like the Blackmagic Intensity and Intensity pro cards. HDMI right into the monitor, plus if your HDV camera has HDMI, you can digitize over that.

They’re not too expensive either.

-Russ

[Russell Lasson]

And you’re editing in preview mode (green line).

-Russ

[Russell Lasson]

It was mostly likely shot with the redrock lens adaptor. I’ve tried to figure out a way to use QuickTime to just read the frames upside down, but I couldn’t get it to stay upside down in FCP.

You could edit with your monitor upside down 🙂

-Russ

[Russell Lasson]

HDV is 1440×1080, not 1920×1080. FCP knows that and stretches the image. But QuickTime Conversion doesn’t recognize that it needs to be stretched, so you end up with a 1440×1080 image.

The same thing happens with anamorphic SD or even normal SD for that matter (720×480 should be 640×480 to look right).

I use a Photoshop action to open all the images in a folder and resize them (in your case, from 1440×1080 to 1920×1080).

I’m sure there are other ways of doing it too.

-Russ

[Russell Lasson]

Have you tried letting your Kona card downconvert it to SD on output and feeding the signal to a DVD recorder? That could be a good option for you.

As far as why your computer is crashing, I don’t know what would be causing that except maybe a bug in FCP 5.0. I’ve never trusted nesting in FCP as I’ve had some bad experiences with it.

We do the majority of our approvals using H.264 or MPEG-4 and deliver it over the internet. It saves us a lot of time. When Final Cut Server comes along, it will really help out as everything like this can be automated.

Good luck!

-Russ

[Russell Lasson]

[giraut] “And then, do I import it directly into FCP or must I first massage it in Photoshop to make it the proper 16×9 aspect ratio? Or will FCP do this for me?”

You can take it right into FCP and then change the file in Photoshop later. The open in editor command is nice for this.

As far as file size goes, make sure it’s big enough, but if it is too big it will really bog down your system. So it depends on your system really.

I often find that I need to blur photos in photoshop to get them to look good in FCP. You’ll really want to have a broadcast monitor connected to your system so you can see how the photo looks on TV and prevent buzzing image problems.

-Russ

[Russell Lasson]

I rarely use FCP for standards conversions. Instead, I use compressor and I’ve had satisfying results. Here are my custom settings:

File Extension: mov
Audio: multi-track passthrough
Video Encoder
Format: QT
Width: 720
Height: 480
Pixel aspect ratio: NTSC CCIR 601/DV
Crop: None
Frame rate: (100% of source)
Frame Controls:
Retiming: Nearest Frame
Resize Filter: Linear Filter
Deinterlace Filter: Line Averaging
Adaptive Details: On
Antialias: 0
Detail Level: 0
Field Output: Progressive
Codec Type: Uncompressed 10-bit 4:2:2
Multi-pass: Off, frame reorder: Off
Pixel depth: 24
Spatial quality: 100
Min. Spatial quality: 50
Temporal quality: 0
Min. temporal quality: 50

You don’t have to go to 10-bit uncompressed, but as I have the space normally, it can’t hurt. (DV50 and 8-bit uncompressed should look good too)

-Russ

[Russell Lasson]

Tuesday, January 23, 2007 to be exact.

https://www.macrumors.com/2007/01/23/xserve-raid-gets-quiet-boost/

-Rus

[Russell Lasson]

[mike_a] ” the results have jagged edges.”

Did you check to see if High Quality video was selected in QT – Movie Properties – Video Track – Visual Settings window?

DV files normally look like crap in QT unless this is selected. It might make a difference with how you exported it.

-Russ

[Russell Lasson]

[RayRayT] “3rd) I try to do a VO record through our AJA box (which has worked with all of my Beta projects) and the HD side doesnt want to take it. “

Most likely this is because the AJA IO doesn’t input HD. It sounds like it’s time for you to get a new card/box like AJA LHe or Kona 3 or upcoming IO HD.

[RayRayT] “1st) When I add disolves to the HD project and bring it too SD the dissolves look like crap. “

Can you give us more info on what you’re doing?

[RayRayT] “2nd) FCP closes down out of nowhere and I have to open it back up. Happens alot during Rendering time. Also happens when I try to put HD Nested Sequences in to the Viewer…It sometimes works and sometimes it doesnt.”

This could again be because the IO doesn’t output HD, but did you try trashing your preferences?

-Russ