1920 X 1080 and 1440 x 1080 in the same sequence

Jason,
1440 x 1080 pixels are rectangular so it is effectively 1920 x 1080 when displayed.

That aside I suspect your Sony footage is AVCHD so when bringing it into FCP it converts it to Apple Intermediate or perhaps ProRes.

Assuming your end product is an SD DVD and then I would drop one of the AIC or ProRes clips onto a clean timeline, let it set the codec automatically then just go from there - dropping the HDV footage into this and rendering where necessary. Any blurring caused by scaling should be lost when you then down convert for DVD.

You might also set your timeline to HDV and do the same - shouldn't affect the end quality but HDV can be processor intensive so might slow you down if you need to do effects, colour correction etc.

You might want to do an SD DVD test with some short clips on both timelines before you proceed.

Message was edited by: Dynamicworm

If you're delivering HD then what I said still applies. Try setting your timeline to HDV then just work from there - pro res 1920x1080 should integrate fine - I do a similar kind of thing but I drop XDCam 1920x1080 onto a DVCProHD timeline which is 1440x1080 - no problems at all although it will only play in preview quality until rendered.

If I have to edit in HDV I always upconvert to DVCProHD using Media Manager prior to Colour Correcting.

Hope that helps.

1440 is a camera cheat for material that will end up at 1920 wide, so they are not actually capturing at full resolution, they are capturing fewer pixels and then relying on automatic upscaling during editing to invent the extra pixels. HDV is very highly compressed, and poor for editing. So you are better off biting the bullet and converting to ProRes once and for all during import. Then you will never see the number 1440 again.

Regards,

Larry

Perhaps someone with more practical camera experience can chime in here. But you have already captured the footage from both cameras at the camera resolution, and both are intended to be output on a 1920 x 1080 screen. So the footage from one of the cameras must be scaled to match the other. It would seem best to choose a 1920 x 1080 "relatively uncompressed" format, rather than immediately lose resolution by scaling the 1920 input to 1440. You won't gain much by going to a format intended for massive GCI effects and a larger screen resolution.

Another problem is that compression occurs for both the screen pixels and the color space. When you do color correction, scaling, and blending, if you use only the original "number sizes", you are truncating or rounding all of your calculations at each step of the way, and the errors can add up big time. So you want to use an intermediate codec that has has bigger numbers, and that will take more space.

The consensus is that the original Apple ProRes codec, not the new ones recently added in FCP7, is sufficient for most editing of HDV and AVCHD input, and a good tradeoff of size vs. picture quality. Then when you output (encode) it for Blu-ray, you will be compressing it again! But the new encoders are so good that you probably will be very pleased with the output. And this will be a good choice for downscaling (and encoding) to SD.

Regards,

Larry

Larryapple,
You are confusing things here. The AVCHD this chap shot was most likely on a relatively cheap camera with a cheap lens so the quality wouldn't be that great to start with.

Any quality lost dropping this onto an HDV timeline is not worth worrying about.

Like I said in my original post either a pro res or HDV timeline will be fine. If the main camera was HDV and the AVCHD was a second camera then it makes more sense to go all the way HDV then upres to DCVProHD or Pro Res once the picture edit is done to colour correct etc.

You should know that the 1920x1080 resolution on cheap long gop AVCHD camera is hardly better than SD especially in low light which weddings tend to be so sticking with HDV is fine.

Original poster - just drop your HDV onto the timeline, let FCP set the codec and go from there. I might add that you really should have sorted your workflow out before shooting with two different formats - assuming you're getting paid for this.

Message was edited by: Dynamicworm

Larry and Dyna,
Nice work, guys.
Hope the OP gets it sorted out and posts his solution back for all of us to benefit.

Best advice: prior planning, extensive research, and preproduction experiments.

bogiesan

Bogiesan,
If you read the posts you'd realise the answer is in there - differing opinions can be healthy and since no one else attempted to answer the question then yes, well done to us.

I have been mixing different formats like this for years so know of what I talk.

Apologies to the original poster for any confusion but to be fair, you do seemed to have gone into this with your eyes closed.

Message was edited by: Dynamicworm

Here's another option.

Convert everything to ProRes (NOT HQ ) 1080i50 using Compressor. This can be done in a batch process. This may take a while. If you set up your machine as a quick cluster and utilize it from Compressor, you can speed things up a bit.

Once complete, edit everything in a ProRes 1080i50 sequence.

Just because you can edit mixed formats in a timeline doesn't mean it's the most efficient way.

fwiw - you've made the classic mistake regarding video - to assume because you know one format, you know them all. As you have undoubtably begun to grasp - HD is a very different (and dysfunctional) family from DV. The only thing DV and HD have in common is one letter (and even that stands for different words).

Good luck with the video.

x

Take a depth breath and slap yourself in the forehead for your hubris.

Done that?

Now lets move on.

Let me put it in a simple statement.
+*You have two crappy formats. You gain nothing to try to match one or the other.*+

Transcode (convert) ALL YOUR CLIPS to ProRes 1080i50. EVERYTHING. (Not shouting - all caps added for emphasis)

This does not enlarge anything. As was pointed out in the very beginning of this thread, these other formats simply imitate a true 1920x1080 format through anamorphic pixels (non-square). By converting, you are simply using Compressor to do the same thing the codec would do when displaying the material - but you are doing it permanently.

x