Sorry if this is a newbie question but here goes.

If I shot footage with the new Sony FX1 PAL in HD, how would I best convert it to be distributed on a widescreen PAL DVD yet still maintaining highest quality. I would be using final cut pro HD and DVD Studio.


Many thanks

Jonathan

As soon as Apple releases its previously announced HDV support, it should be a simple matter of editing and finishing in HDV, then converting the final program to MPEG-2 for DVD. Right now this can be done directly from the Final Cut Pro timeline.

Unfortunately, Apple has no huge stake in releasing the HDV update before April (NAB trade show), because until a large base of pro users gets ahold of the FX1, or it's pro cousin, there won't be a large enough market base to support it.

That being said, the current rumor has the FX1 Pro version out by Jan., but you can bet that Apple will have full support in place by NAB.

I'm assuming you're talking about a standard definintion DVD. I burned the recent FX1 demo clip to a DVD yesterday. There are certainly image problems due to being de-interlaced, then recompressed, but even so you can see how awsome the image will be when coming straight off the camera. It should be a trivial matter to make SD DVDs from this camera, and should look as good if not better than any SD broadcast camera available today.

Thanks scott,

You pretty much followed my thoughts!


best

Jonathan

You can use DVFilm's Atlantis (www.dvfilm.com) to go to PAL or NTSC and back again.

hwm