Hello all, I hope there is someone out there that can help me as I'm very distraught at the moment.

My editor, who is new to FCP 6.0, cut together my latest short film that was shot in the DVCPRO HD - 1080 format in the XDCAM HD format.

He brought the footage into a timeline that had already been set in the XDCAM format and continued to edit away while in preview mode (green) thinking nothing of it. Now we have this timeline that has already been rendered in the XDCAM format that should have been in the DVCPRO HD format the whole time.

The resolution between the formats is different so after rendering the image is slightly stretched and after many attempts I can't find a way to get it back to it's natural state. It has already been rendered in this XDCAM format so any attempts to change the sequence setting will need me to re-render everything which is pointless because after re-rendering the clips still are not back to there original state (stretch look on screen).

This scenario I guess is basically the same as moving from an offline edit to an online. The footage was cut in a format that wasn't natural, now I'm left with a timeline that needs to be put together again but this time in it's proper format. Because I mainly deal with short projects I've always edited in full resolution and never had to go through the process of doing an online/offline edit.

Can someone break down the process of using an EDL to put together my project again but this time in the proper format?

Is there an easier way to fix this issue without having to redo the whole timeline?

Any help would be MUCH appreciated!!!

Thanks in advance!

Mazi Khalighi

Mazi,

Not sure if this is what you are looking for but this might help:
1) Right (control) click on sequence
2) Select settings
3) Click load sequence preset button on bottom left corner
4) Select DCPROHD

You will have to re-render the sequence in the new format but that should take care of it. Hope this helps.

Jonathan Schwartz

If you have the original footage I would just create a new timeline in the proper format and copy&paste the sequence clips into it (not the final rendered clip) since they are referenced files there's no conversion involved, make sure you have the right pixel aspect ratio selected and anamorphic is off if it needs to be. This would give you the proper resolution if you're settings are correct but you'll have to render the timeline.

also Make sure the first shot of that new timeline is NOT and XDCAM shot that is probably the mistake the new editor made. That is totally a guess. It does not matter what settings you put for the timeline. If the first shot does not match those settings the timeline will be changed to the settings of that clip. You may have known this but the new to FCP editor may have not and just click his way through the warning screen. Also Delete the render files. If they are garbage anyway get rid of them.

After doing what Jonathan mentioned you may have to select all the clips, CTRL-click and select remove attributes. Then remove distort and basic motion.
DVCProHD uses a different pixel aspect than XDCAM so this might be necessary to get it back to its native size.

Thanks for the comments all. I actually just ended up exporting an EDL, then bringing it into a timeline with the proper settings and going through the process of reconnecting to the original unrendered clips. This worked okay I just had to copy/paste all the audio in place (because and EDL only exports 6 tracks of audio and we were up to 15, as well as put a few clips back into place, again because the EDL only exports the first two video tracks).