Need Advice Mixing EX1 and 16x9 PD170 Footage

[L.J. Morelli]

Need advice on using Sony pd-170 footage in same timeline as EX footage. The goal I want to accomplish in the final DVD is as follows.

I want to make real 16.9 DVD, not letter-boxed, not 16.9 in a 4.3 space.

The sony footage needs to match the aspect ratio when I cut to that camera, it can't be letter boxed. Sometime the 170 stuff, will be intercut with the EX

In the past when I was shooting in SD, I'd mix in 16.9 letter-boxed footage from the 170 as an aesthetic effect. But now that my main cam is the EX, I can't do that anymore, they have to match. I can't and don't want to waste time on trial and error, if someone can give me some steps to achieve my goal. Need advice on settings, is there a different way to capture the 170 stuff now, etc.

[Simon Denny]

The first problem is that the PD170 is a 4.3 native camera, you will have to up size the image to get 16.9 in your NLE and this will not match the EX very well.
The only way to get 16.9 from the PD170 is to use a 16.9 adaptor on the front end of the lens and this will cost.

Simon

[David Heath]

Originally Posted by L.J. Morelli

Need advice on settings, is there a different way to capture the 170 stuff now, etc.

There are two basic options - capture a 16:9 strip of the PD170 image to fill the final frame, or capture the 4:3 image "pillarboxed" within the 16:9 frame, so blacks bars either side.

An inbetween option is often seen in UK broadcast - a 14:9 picture within the 16:9 frame, with 1:9 black bars either side. The theory goes (and I agree with it) that the thinner bars are much less noticeable than the option, whilst much less of the original 4:3 picture is lost than the second option.

[Matt Davis]

Originally Posted by David Heath

The theory goes (and I agree with it) that the thinner bars are much less noticeable than the option, whilst much less of the original 4:3 picture is lost than the second option.

And another rather more heathen practice if you have Motion or After Effects is to gently ease out the 'cheeks' of the 14:9 video to fill the 16:9 frame by stretching the last 15% or so either side to fill. I've even done it on 4:3 video (blush).

Definitely a last ditch 'hide the problem under the carpet' thing that works for B-Roll and 'that's all we have' moments. But on the right shot...

[L.J. Morelli]

Really got to give all of that some thought. Great suggestions. Some more confusing than others. A reminder, that the pd-170 footage was shot in 16.9 mode. I assumed w/ proper settings in the NLE, it will fill a 16.9 frame, and not just 16.9 in a 4.3 space. Or does it just come down to blowing it up / resizing the image up, to match the EX.

What about sizing down the EX stuff, to match the 170 footage, any thoughts?

[Ray Bell]

If you have shot the 170 footage in 16x9 mode your resolution has been compromised as the 170 is not a 16x9 native camera.. all it does is mask the sensor... to get the max
resolution from the 170 for 16x9 you should shoot in 4x3 and utilize an external lens....

but, you could use a product like cineform to upscale the 170 footage... then bring the footage into the NLE and crop/pan the footage to the EX1 size....

It won't be pretty but it could work if your careful.

[Craig Seeman]

If you used the PD-170 internal 16:9 mode it's anamorphic (stretched) pixels. You could drop your EX1 footage into a DV anamorphic sequence.

On one side or another you're going to take a quality hit. It might be better to come up with a "DIC" timeline such as a Standard Def 16:9 Apple Pro Rez (if you're on a Mac) timeline so the hit won't be too hard on the EX source and the DV won't have to be uprezed to HD only to be downrezed again.

Magic Bullet has an "Instant HD" filter which, if you deinterlace the SD footage, can do a decent job uprezing it to HD.

The important thing is your final delivery is SD but there are much better SD codecs to work in than DV which is why I ultimately suggest using a high quality SD codec to do the least damage to the EX1 footage.

[Matt Davis]

Originally Posted by L.J. Morelli

A reminder, that the pd-170 footage was shot in 16.9 mode.

"Oh. Oh dear. Oh deary me. Well. That about wraps that one up, then. Never mind."

(joking)

The PD170's "16:9" mode caused problems with anything resembling a straight line in shot, due to rather aggressive and simplistic scaling algorythms, and never really did the camera justice. BBC's advice was to shoot 4:3 and let hardware do the rest (as they didn't want to afford anamorphic adaptors). But hey! You've got some great footage in 16:9 that's SD.

I've had to bring PDX-10 footage into an EX-1 sequence, and the awful trick to make it all look nice was to tell Final Cut Pro that the PDX-10 footage was progressive (it wasn't!), which prevented the awful scaling artifacts that interlaced footage suffers from.

Originally Posted by L.J. Morelli

What about sizing down the EX stuff, to match the 170 footage, any thoughts?

No - stick to upscaling the PD170 footage.

May be worth trying out Instant HD from Red Giant software:

http://www.redgiantsoftware.com/prod...et-instant-hd/

If you have pretty deep pockets, a discussion here:

http://dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=43767

If you're into Final Cut, remember to turn on High Quality scaling in Video Processing and Render tabs of your sequence setting.