Including a 4K clip in a 1080P project.

Question

Including a 4K clip in a 1080P project.

I'm a pro fly fisherman who shoots product and technique videos for YouTube and other media. I have three Canon 1080P camcorders that I use for the majority of my videos.

I also shoot video using a chest mounted, waterproof point & shoot camera while on the river. I'm thinking of upgrading this camera to a 4K capable model for one specific reason.

I cannot fish and operate the camera at the same time, so zooming while fishing is not an option. I wish to 'zoom' in post by keyframing transform. Shooting in 4K and then cropping in tight will allow me to maintain a decent level of quality.

So here's the question. If I create a 1080 project and import a 4K clip to it, will FCPx automatically drop the 4K clip to 1080 as soon as it is placed on the timeline, before I have a chance to work with it? Should I instead create a small project solely for the 4K clip, modify it as needed, then copy/paste it to the 1080 project?

Mac mini, macOS Sierra (10.12.4)

Posted on Mar 10, 2018 2:43 PM

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Answer 1

Tom Wolsky

Level 10

152,809 points

Mar 10, 2018 3:01 PM in response to Hooked4lifeca

Before you edit the 4K into your project (and after as well) you can set the clip's spatial conform, how it will be treated when it's edited into the project. There are three options, the default is Fit, which will fit the image to screen and may produce some letterbox or pillarbox effect depending on the aspect ratio. There is also Fill, which will fill the screen and may crop some of the image if the aspect ratios are different. The third is None, which just drops the image, full size into the project, centers it and cuts off everything outside it. For your purposes None might be the best. It will give you full control of the image, to pan and scale it. You can work out what the limits of how far you can scale the image without it starting to soften.

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Answer 2

Mar 10, 2018 3:16 PM in response to Tom Wolsky

I've not used that feature before because I never had the need. I had always made sure that whatever I dropped in a project had the right aspect ratio prior to import.

So none it is. I'll just import it, set the spatial conform to none, keyframe the centring, keyframe the cropping and I'll get what I want.

Perfect!

Thanks

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Including a 4K clip in a 1080P project.

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