I'm editing a project in HDV 24p (from the canon A1). Frame size is shown in FCP as 1440 x 1080, which is standard HDV. If I'm inserting some stills and up-rezzing other footage to edit in this timeline, what do I uprez them to? To 1440 x 1080? I know that FCP will output this as full HD res of 1980 x 1020 (or whatever it is) through some sort of pixel trick. So how does that impact other material I put into the timeline? Thanks.

Best way is to get a matching codec in Photoshop, i.e. HDV still image at 1440x1080. If all goes according to plan Photoshop will give you properly adjusted pixels, but let you edit your stills as you see fit, so you'll never feel the shape of the pixels change. You need at least CS2 for this I THINK. Can't wait for CS3 folks. Good luck.

The pixel "ratio" is whats confusing you.

The HDV 1080i spec is 1440x1080. which is a square pixel 1:1. If you squish the pixel dimension to 1:1.333, you get 1920x1080. This is what a TV does when you watch a movie. It stretches the movie to look normal.

If you're still confused, try working at 1920x1080. Then before you export your graphics, scale (dont crop) your image to 1440x1080. I don't however recommend this but it will let you work with square pixels.

CS2 lets you preview your work in different pixel ratios. So you can work at 1.333 (things look correct while your working) but when you save or export... it's really a square pixel. It's just for previewing a non-distorted image as you work. After Effects and most if not all compositing apps let you work like this also.

Hope that helps a little.

This makes sense. I just checked and see that CS2 has an HDV setting which takes care of the whole thing here. I make the image at 1440x1080 with the HDV setting and it comes in right. Probably same thing in After Effects, though I haven't checked. Appreciate it.

Yup.

Now try this... go up to Image>Pixel Aspect Ratio and change that from HDV Anamorphic (1.333) to square.

You can toggle that on and off at any point. CS2 doesn't render non-square pixels that great though so you might find yourself toggling back and forth to see what it really looks like.

Good thread as I haven't experimented much with still import into HDV timelines. Took one of my 5D images into PS3, set the aspect ratio to HDV and saved it as a jpeg, imported it into FCP and it looked dynamite.

Any tips/tricks to resizing it so the entire image fits in an HDV video frame if that's what I need?