Capturing Z1P Footage to FCE...
 

Hi Everybody,

My brother recorded a whole lot of footage in HDV using a Sony Z1P.

It looks fantastic when viewed on a HD monitor using the component output.

It looks fantastic when viewed on a SD TV using the A/V output.

It looks very bad when you try and capture it in Standard Definition using "Final Cut Express 2" on an eMac. I have tried changing the down convert options to "SQUEEZE", "LETTER BOX" and "EDGE CROP" but they all have the same poor quality output.

(By "very bad" and "poor quality" I mean that the colours do not match what you see on the Z1P LCD/Viewfinder and there are extremely noticeable artifacts in the footage that I normally associate with "cheap quality DV footage" or low-quality videos downloaded from the Internet.)

I'm presuming either the footage actually has these "problems" when down-converted and viewed on the SD TV, except the SD TV's resolution is so poor that you cannot notice (as opposed to the eMac's screen) OR there's a problem with the down-conversion from HDV to SD.

Has anyone tried using "Final Cut Express 2" with the Z1P? Have you encountered any problems/issues?

This is the first time I've had to use FCE2 with a Z1P - normally I use FCP, but cannot for this particular project. Due to my current location, I also cannot check the footage using FCP.

Any advice you can provide me would be much appreciated.

Thank you!

Best Regards, Chris!

Answers...
 

After exporting the footage to DVD and viewing it on a TV the footage seems fine. I'm guessing the eMac's monitor isn't calibrated correctly or FCE was just struggling for some reason making the output appear of poor quality.

Nevertheless, the project was a success. Consider this thread closed.