What to do with 1280 x 960 footage without it looking stretched or downgraded?

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Level 1

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What to do with 1280 x 960 footage without it looking stretched or downgraded?

Ok, Im filming snowboarding segmants for my company using a gopro hero camera. For the most vertical filming I use the r4 mode which films 1280 x 960. This is not an ordinary resolution. When I place the clip into the timeline It does not recognize the video properties of the clip, and prompts me to pick from a pull down. some of the options are: 1280x720, 960x720, 1280x1080, 720x480 ect..

WHAT Resolution should I use?? Ive tryed the 1280x720 and the 960x720. It does not crop the footage; but instead it renders it stretched and much less crisp. FRUSTRAITING. Please, any help would be much appreciated.

Ive tried cineformstudio, and mpeg, with similar results.

Thanks

Final Cut Pro X, Mac OS X (10.6.8), Imac

Posted on Mar 1, 2012 1:28 PM

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Answer 1

xfggfx

Level 2

217 points

Mar 1, 2012 1:57 PM in response to afreshstart

You can easily alter the scale in any direction of your footage...a few ways to do it.

I woulld just select the clip in the timeline and click the scale icon under the viewer, grab one of the handles on an edge ( you may have to reduce the size of the viewer from fill to 50% to see the handles)

This ca come in handy when dealing with fotage of old rock stars who want to look taller and thinner...:-)

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Answer 2

afreshstart Author

Level 1

0 points

Mar 1, 2012 3:44 PM in response to xfggfx

I understand that you can scale the footage, but to scale it has to be in the timeline; and before you can place it into the timeline you need to select one of the properties (960x720, 1280x1080 ect).

Which resolution would you choose? And after choosing it, do you feel that you can scale the video to look non-distorted and crisp as the original clip looks?

Then after scaling would you not run into issues exporting it?

Appreciate your comment but still feel unanswered. Im puzzeled why I cannot find any discussions about this topic after hours of searching forums and such. Both GoPro cameras, and Apple's Final Cut are very big companies, and I find it hard to believe their output and input resolutions are not compatible? I must be missing something?

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Answer 3

xfggfx

Level 2

217 points

Mar 1, 2012 6:33 PM in response to afreshstart

Well I have only one resolution that I work in...I dont care what old footage I have to make fit...even anamorphic DV...which is ghastly but we havent a choice...

I watch all my stuff on 1920x1080...the television screen , so that is what I start with.

So I have a choice, either I can scale it up and look at pixels or I can watch it on my tv with a nice crisp black border.

Call me an amateur but that is the way I approach it, after all you will have to watch it on some sort of screen ...what other choices are there?.

Now that I have said all that hopefully someone will pop in here and tell us the way a pro would do it and we can both learn something.

To answer your question re export...it makes it easier I think to stick with 1920x1080...

And as far as compatibility goes...well that has been a problem forever.

try it all anyway...call it an experiment, you can do it any number of ways quite quickly, and you can change the properties of the project at any time...as many times as you like.

cheers

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Answer 4

xfggfx

Level 2

217 points

Mar 1, 2012 7:12 PM in response to afreshstart

One important bit of info I neglected to mention...

There is an attribute in the video inspector info window called Spatial Conform...if you select 'none' the original resolution will be maintained...but you will get the big black border, you should also get options to fill the horizontal dimension or crop to fit etc...I cant check because all my footage is 1920x1080 at the moment.

What sort of screen do you plan on using to view your video? You can export at different resolutions...for iPad etc.

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Answer 5

Tony Gay

Level 4

1,638 points

Mar 1, 2012 8:34 PM in response to afreshstart

Can you upload a couple of seconds so we can test this.

Might be telling you to suck eggs here but have you read

http://gopro.com/how-to-prepare-video-files-for-editing-apple-mac/

and watched

http://gopro.com/3d-cineform-studio-tutorials-support/

Converting it to 1920x1080 at this stage prior to importing into FCP-X

Tony

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