Need Help with a High Defination Mess on FCP! at DVinfo.net

Glenn Davidson · May 24th, 2006, 08:45 PM

I have a friend that got HD and SD mixed up. She shot and edited a project on an FX1 and FCP in HD and now realizes that she should have gone with 16:9 SD. I thought she could dump the whole HD timeline from FCP back to the FX1 and then down convert the HD master in the FX1 to SD and finish the project. She really just wants 16:9 SD. Any suggestions on converting this to SD. Edited master is three hours. Final product will be DVD.

David Tamés · May 24th, 2006, 10:07 PM

There's no reason why you can't just go ahead and edit in HDV and when you are done use Compressor to make an SD MPEG-2 (for DVD authoring) from your HDV edit master.

Another option is to recapture the footage from the camera using the built-in SD downconvert feature. Since the project is already editied, you can create a new SD project fromt the exsting HDV project using Media Manager that will create a new project with media offline clips and then you simply recapture in SD.

A third alternative is to create a new SD project from the HDV project using Media Manager. Media Manager is described in Chapter 7 of the Final Cut Pro 5 user's manual.

This all assumes you're using version 5.0.4 or 5.1 of Final Cut, eariler versions Final Cut had Media Manager problems .

Nathan Troutman · May 24th, 2006, 10:32 PM

Hey man don't worry you really don't have a problem that you need to go all crazy about. Dave's first suggestion is all you need to know and do. Compressor was updated to do exactly what you need It sounds like your project is finished. Export a FCP movie to keep as a master and then export via compressor. Just select one of the 16X9 DVD High Quality encode presets and compressor will take your HD project and downconvert it and encode it Mpeg 2 at the correct 16X9 aspect ratio.

Pay special attention to the frame controls tab in the Inspector window. That is where all the settings are for how much processing will be used to do the downconversion. You can set it to automatic or you can manually tell compressor to use the best setting (scaling is all your using. You have the same frame order and frame rate). Best is best but it can take a long time, especially for a 3 hour conversion so you might want to do some 1 min. tests (select in and out points for just 1 min and then export to compressor) to see you long various setting will take.

David Tamés · May 26th, 2006, 04:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nathan Troutman

Hey man don't worry you really don't have a problem that you need to go all crazy about. Dave's first suggestion is all you need to know and do.

Nathan makes a good point, sometimes I go overboard listing all the options!

May 24th, 2006, 08:45 PM	#1
Glenn Davidson Major Player Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Nevada City, California Posts: 499	Need Help with a High Defination Mess on FCP! I have a friend that got HD and SD mixed up. She shot and edited a project on an FX1 and FCP in HD and now realizes that she should have gone with 16:9 SD. I thought she could dump the whole HD timeline from FCP back to the FX1 and then down convert the HD master in the FX1 to SD and finish the project. She really just wants 16:9 SD. Any suggestions on converting this to SD. Edited master is three hours. Final product will be DVD.

May 24th, 2006, 10:07 PM	#2
David Tamés Kino-Eye Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Boston, MA Posts: 457	There's no reason why you can't just go ahead and edit in HDV and when you are done use Compressor to make an SD MPEG-2 (for DVD authoring) from your HDV edit master. Another option is to recapture the footage from the camera using the built-in SD downconvert feature. Since the project is already editied, you can create a new SD project fromt the exsting HDV project using Media Manager that will create a new project with media offline clips and then you simply recapture in SD. A third alternative is to create a new SD project from the HDV project using Media Manager. Media Manager is described in Chapter 7 of the Final Cut Pro 5 user's manual. This all assumes you're using version 5.0.4 or 5.1 of Final Cut, eariler versions Final Cut had Media Manager problems . __________________ David Tames { blog: http://Kino-Eye.com twitter: @cinemakinoeye }

May 24th, 2006, 10:32 PM	#3
Nathan Troutman Regular Crew Join Date: May 2006 Location: Hoboken, NJ (New York metro area) Posts: 105	Go With Dave's First Option Hey man don't worry you really don't have a problem that you need to go all crazy about. Dave's first suggestion is all you need to know and do. Compressor was updated to do exactly what you need It sounds like your project is finished. Export a FCP movie to keep as a master and then export via compressor. Just select one of the 16X9 DVD High Quality encode presets and compressor will take your HD project and downconvert it and encode it Mpeg 2 at the correct 16X9 aspect ratio. Pay special attention to the frame controls tab in the Inspector window. That is where all the settings are for how much processing will be used to do the downconversion. You can set it to automatic or you can manually tell compressor to use the best setting (scaling is all your using. You have the same frame order and frame rate). Best is best but it can take a long time, especially for a 3 hour conversion so you might want to do some 1 min. tests (select in and out points for just 1 min and then export to compressor) to see you long various setting will take.