Reframing vs. Zooming - did FCPX change?

Hi Luis:

I may be breaking this down too much, but I want to make sure you and anyone else who reads this understands my line of thought on this. When I was shooting 1080p, I found a lot of the frame was wasted, and I really didn't need 1080p output. So I decided to edit the 1080p footage on a 720p timeline. My thought was that it would be like using a high-resolution photo for a 5"x7" print. I would have more than enough resolution, so I'd be able to zoom in.

However, when I tried to do that, I found that when I zoomed in on my 1080p footage on the 720p timeline, it looked really bad (just like when you zoom in on 1080p footage on a 1080p timeline, you lose quality). I knew that there was extra resolution that I wasn't using in the 720p timeline, but I didn't know how to access it. The way I figured out to do this was to set spatial conform to none. If you try that, you'll see that changing spatial conform to "none" instantly zooms in on your footage. You're now seeing a 720p section of the 1080p frame. You can then use the transform controls to move the clip around and change zoom levels. As long as you don't go over 100%, your video will be full 720p quality.

I have to work with this some more to be sure, but it seems now that you don't even need to set "spatial conform" to "none" now. You can just zoom in on the footage and you can still take full advantage of the extra resolution, but that doesn't seem right. I remember running a lot of tests several years ago when I started editing this way, and it was necessary to set spatial conform to "none."

Are you saying you think my whole understanding of that was wrong? I mean, it could be since I tried to figure it out on my own.

Hi Ernie-

Thanks for weighing in with that. I usually just share the Master File and then use Compressor to make different versions of it. Are you saying that I should just edit the entire project at 4K, output a 4K master file, and then just create 1080 versions of it with Compressor? If so, that sounds a lot easier than what I've been doing. I know that this may seem obvious, but it's not to me, so I appreciate any information/advice you can give.

I don't understand, though, what you are doing to accomplish the reframing. Are you saying that in the 4K timeline you just zoom up to 200% knowing that when you output to 1080, footage that's scaled to 200% will still be full 1080 quality when you output to 1080?

I see, well, if it lets you keep things like Ken Burns, that is a huge advantage. The way I have been doing things, you couldn't use things like that.

I'm running some tests doing it your way vs. the way I've been doing it, and I can't see a difference in the quality of the final video, so your way would seem to make more sense. Let me ask you a couple of questions, though:

1. With 1080 being the final video, the 4K footage that isn't zoomed-in on at all looks better (sharper, I guess) to me than the footage that I zoom in on (scale up to 150% or 200%). It seems to me that when you're starting with 4K footage and outputting to 1080, the end result should be just as clear at any scaling up to 200%.

2. I have quite a few titles I've been using for several years now. Will using them be a problem if they weren't created for 4K?

Thanks

1. I'm talking about after I've output the file. These videos are really only ever likely to be viewed on a computer, I suppose. Or maybe on portable devices, too. They're how-to and review videos.

2. I bought the titles.

Hi Luis-

What you say in your post is how I always understood things to be before I read Ernie's posts in this thread. But I did try exactly the kind of experiment you mentioned, and I do not see any loss of quality doing it Ernie's way. Have you actually tried that yourself? Because I think it ends up the same.