Converting from HD to SD in Final Cut Pro 7

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Level 1

49 points

Converting from HD to SD in Final Cut Pro 7

I recently got a Sony HXR-NX5U and have finally gotten around to shooting some test footage and playing with it in Final Cut. So far, no worries.

All I'm wondering is, since I'm shooting, how can I convert the footage to SD? Is it done in Final Cut by creating a new timeline, or is it done by exporting the sequence to a QuickTime movie of some kind?

Thank you!

Dual 2.7 G5, Mac OS X (10.5.8), 8GB DDR SDRAM

Posted on Jan 22, 2011 11:52 AM

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Answer 1

Studio X

Level 7

27,229 points

Jan 22, 2011 11:55 AM in response to willscarlett

Export from FCP using current settings.

Import into Compressor and apply the appropriate standards converter to do the downconvert.

x

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Answer 2

Jan 23, 2011 12:19 AM in response to willscarlett

alternate:

Export HD timeline as a ProRes422 .mov through Compressor
Create a new sequence with NTSV DV (3:2) or PAL
Anamorphic - unchecked
Field Dominance - None (Very Important)
Leave everything else.

Drag your ProRes movie into the timeline and say 'No' to match settings.
You should now have a crisp version of your movie in a SD timeline. (if its widescreen which 1080p is, you now should have bars top and bottom.)

From here you can:
-Export another ProRes (through Compressor) from that timeline- now you have a clean SD movie of your HD original. Keep it archived.

If needed:
Bring that back into compressor and export a 90min best DVD.
Then in DVDSP

Hope it helps.

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Answer 3

willscarlett Author

Level 1

49 points

Jan 23, 2011 7:42 AM in response to BROOKLYNTREEZ

Thank you for the additional response. Will this alternate method that you provided keep the 16:9 aspect ratio, or will the video become 4:3?

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Answer 4

willscarlett Author

Level 1

49 points

Jan 23, 2011 7:43 AM in response to BROOKLYNTREEZ

Oh, one more question. I still have my mini DV camera and if I would like to export from an HD sequence to tape, I would need to convert it to SD first as well, correct? Or could I just export the sequence to my camera?

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Answer 5

Tom Wolsky

Level 10

152,819 points

Jan 23, 2011 7:49 AM in response to willscarlett

You would need to put your HD sequence in an anamorphic SD sequence to output to SD tape.

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Answer 6

willscarlett Author

Level 1

49 points

Jan 23, 2011 7:57 AM in response to BROOKLYNTREEZ

I'm just wondering if you could clarify a bit about this step here:

From here you can:
-Export another ProRes (through Compressor) from that timeline- now you have a clean SD movie of your HD original. Keep it archived.

What is the purpose of this step... is this what creates the SD movie? I thought that was done when the ProRes movie was imported back into the 3:2 sequence?

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Answer 7

Jan 23, 2011 9:41 AM in response to willscarlett

'Will this alternate method that you provided keep the 16:9 aspect ratio, or will the video become 4:3? '
-It will be 4:3 letterboxed.

" I still have my mini DV camera and if I would like to export from an HD sequence to tape, I would need to convert it to SD first as well, correct? Or could I just export the sequence to my camera? "
-You will have to create an SD version for that.

"From here you can:
-Export another ProRes (through Compressor) from that timeline- now you have a clean SD movie of your HD original. Keep it archived.

What is the purpose of this step... is this what creates the SD movie? I thought that was done when the ProRes movie was imported back into the 3:2 sequence? "
- You are correct, by dropping your HD movie into an SD timelines automatically scales the footage creating an SD version. however I export a clean SD version as ProRes incase I need to do this again. I now have a HD and SD version.

Hope that helps.

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Answer 8

willscarlett Author

Level 1

49 points

Jan 23, 2011 10:19 AM in response to BROOKLYNTREEZ

That does help, thank you. One last question tho... if I wanted to convert from HD to SD and keep the 16:9 aspect ratio, would I just check the "anamorphic" box when creating the NTSC 3:2 DV sequence? Or, is there another step that would be involved?

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Answer 9

Tom Wolsky

Level 10

152,819 points

Jan 23, 2011 10:25 AM in response to willscarlett

That's it. make an anamorphic SD sequence and your HD material will fit into it, albeit scaled down.

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Answer 10

willscarlett Author

Level 1

49 points

Jan 23, 2011 10:42 AM in response to Tom Wolsky

Brilliant... thank you!

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Answer 11

willscarlett Author

Level 1

49 points

Jan 23, 2011 4:51 PM in response to BROOKLYNTREEZ

Ok, I thought of another question... if I have SD material, how can I upconvert it, since Final Cut 7 does allow you to burn to blu-ray through the "Share" command. Or, can I just simply use the "Share" command and select to create a blu-ray directly from my 3:2 NTSC DV sequence?

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Answer 12

Jan 23, 2011 7:18 PM in response to willscarlett

Why do you want to waste a BD-R on SD material? Why not just a DVD?

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Answer 13

willscarlett Author

Level 1

49 points

Jan 23, 2011 9:07 PM in response to Jeremy Hansen

Sorry for not being more clear. I was referring to this method that I saw on Ken Stone's website, where you can burn blu-ray material to a standard DVD. The resulting quality is a hybrid of standard def dvd's and blu-ray, but it is burnt to a regular dvd.

I was just curious if it's sufficient to use SD material straight out of the timeline, or if it has to be converted in some way. I tried sending it straight from the timeline to compressor and it worked, burned and played fine, but perhaps someone knows something that I don't?

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Answer 14

Jan 24, 2011 4:49 AM in response to willscarlett

I just mean that putting SD material on a Blu-ray is not going to make it look any better. You can't add detail that was not there.

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Answer 15

willscarlett Author

Level 1

49 points

Jan 24, 2011 6:03 AM in response to Jeremy Hansen

That is true. I thought that encoding it at a higher bitrate might help improve the image quality some.

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