Mixing SD and HD footage in an HD timeline?
 

I've tried searching for the answer to this question both here and over on adobe's premiere forum and have found no answers so far. Here's the question: I'm doing a highlights video of a university's homecoming and most of the footage is shot in HDV with the Canon XHA1. However, I do have some footage I need to use which was shot in SD with the Sony VX2000. I'm not mixing footage from the same events, so I'm not worried about trying to get the cameras to match from a color correction point of view, I'm mainly trying to figure out the best work flow to mix the SD footage with my HD footage, but still keep it on the HD timeline so that I can have the best quality results for output to the web. Any way I can do that without getting either severe pixelation in the SD or putting a black box around my SD?

David ,

This software will give "best results" - uprez your SD Footage.

Red Giant Software: Magic Bullet Instant HD 1.1

Thanks Herman, looks sweet... unfortunately I'm on a "no budget" deal here and need to come up with a way to do this without spending a dime. Any other suggestions?

Since you are not delivering HD I would seriously consider editing everything on an SD timeline. The advantage is that the SD material does not need to be converted and you have much more flexibility with the HD material. Since the HD material is much larger than the SD 'window' you can simply reduce the size to make it fit or you can crop, pan and zoom on the material to eliminate parts of the scene you don't like.

Here is a quote of mine from a previous post:

"For me there is one HUGE advantage to shooting in HD and delivering in SD - options and flexibility in editing. If I am delivering an SD product and I shoot in HD I have an original picture that is much bigger than I need. This means I can shoot wider than I normally would and make decisions as I edit. I bring the HD footage into an SD project and can zoom or pan. For example:

Sports - in football I shoot wide and then as I edit I can zoom in on the quarterback and then follow the ball to the reciever. If the ball was not caught I could instead zoom in on a great block with the same footage. I didn't have to decide as I shot.

Weddings - Set an unmanned camera in the back, shooting wide. In the edit, zoom in on the bride and groom, pan across the audience, etc. It looks like there is an operator on the camera and he is SMOOTH, no jerks or bumps and he always picks the best shot. Shoot the bride wide in front of the church - now you can zoom in or out, you can try a Dutch angle (don't like it tilting left, try right instead), pan from the bottom up or top down. Shoot the family wide and then zoom in on the bride and groom or catch the nephew giving grandpa rabbit ears.

I have learned to like editing this way so much that I hope it is a long time before everyone is asking for HD and I don't have these options any more."


Give it a try and see if you like it.