Capturing SD 16:9 with FCP6
 

Hi all, I'm getting really confused trying to capture SD16:9 PAL 25F footage from my XHA1 in Final Cut Pro 6.

I've just been playing around with the camera and thought I'd try switching to SD and comparing the results to the HD recording.

I have a few questions though if anyone could help...

1. Does shooting in SD16:9 or 4:3 result in the tape being recorded to using standard DV recording ie, not using long GOP resulting in less risk of drop-out?

2. What FCP settings should be used to capture this 16:9 SD material, i've tried various easy setups but cannot seem to find anything that will capture in the correct aspect ratio. I guess that depends on what I'm using the material for though, it will eventualy be used for 16:9 SD DVD, but it would also be nice to see it looking the correct aspect ratio while editing in FCP.

3. Should these progressive [f] clips be capturing with any field dominance, or should that be set to none? I have tried setting the capture prefferences to none but always seem to get 'lower (even)' once captured.

Thanks for any tips you can offer.

regards

Paul.

I guess these must be a tricky questions, not to worry - I'll stick to HDV, that seems to work just fine :)

Paul.

1- Yes. SD16:9 or 4:3 is recorded as regular DV. The dropout risk is the same, but you will loose fewer frames.

2-Use DV PAL 48khz Anamorphic.

3- Capture the clips as regular DV (lower field). Even recording in progressive, DV is always sent to FCP as interlaced footage. The picture is interlaced, but you will keep the progressive look.

Luis Rolo.

That makes sense - so if the final delivery is SD or for web use that would be a positive reason to shoot in that format, although I guess there are so many positives for shooting HD and down sampling later that it's probably outweighed.

Interesting, I tried that but in Final Cut it looks 4:3 and squashed (too narrow) - is this the way you'd normally work with anamorphic footage or is there another setting I'm missing?

Thanks loads for the info - very much appreciated.

Paul.

Regarding the aspect ratio thing, I'm assuming that anamorphic 16:9 video is stretched by the TV so that it looks correct when played back. I can select the show as square pixels option in FCP which makes it look over wide, but better than seeing it squashed into a 4:3 viewer.

Is this the normal way of working with footage destined for DVD? Excuse my ignorance here, I'm not used to preparing work for DVD.

Also, what do you guys normally do when outputting for web use, I'm assuming that at some point in the workflow you re-size the video for square pixels to something like 720x405 etc, does this happen on export or is the video altered earlier?

Sorry for so many quaestions > I'm hungry for knowledge at the moment.

Paul.

After some tests, i think i might be wrong with number 3...

That would be the correct setting for capturing anamorphic footage, but your sequence needs to be set to anamorphic as well to display it correctly in the viewer. Just right-click on the sequence name, select 'Settings', then make sure your frame size and aspect ratio are set correctly and "Anamorphic 16x9' is checked. Maybe you already did this and it still didn't work. In that case, I'm not sure what would be wrong.


What I do is output in DV format a raw quicktime file, then resize during conversion to a web format. That way I have a DV file I can do anything with later without having to go back into FCP. For me in the US, my raw file will be DV 29.97fps 720x480 interlaced. Then I'll usually use Quicktime Pro or Flash Video Encoder (depending on the destination) to make it progressive 640x480 (or equivalent aspect ratio) 30fps. There are probably better methods out there, but that works for me 99% of the time.

Hope this helps!

Dan

Luis, could you explain why you think you might be wrong about point 3? I can capture with field dominance set to none, and have my sequence set to none and my video content works just fine. The only time I run into problems is with motion, if I create a title in motion with field dominance set to none i does not look crisp in FCP, it looks as though it's missing some resolution, whereas setting the sequence and motion files to (lower - even) field dominance makes the motion graphics look sharper, but there are interlacing effects visible in any movement of the titles.

Dan, thanks for explaining that, I'll give it a go next time I shoot some SD footage.

best regards

paul.

Okay, there's some real weirdness going on here. I've been doing various experiments trying to figure out whats going on and have made an interesting discovery.

I have an HDV25p sequence with a single HDV25p clip inserted, they both have no field dominance (none). I send the clip to motion by right clicking in the timeline, motion recognises it as HDV25p field dominance none and everything looks great, so I add my titles and save.

Back in FCP the clip in my sequence has been replaced with the new motion file, which is also showing in the browser. The browser says the new motion file has a field dominance of none - all good, except that the new clip which was automatically inserted in the sequence doesn't look right in the canvas window, there's obviously a field mismatch.

I've found that if I right click on the motion clip in the timeline, it has a field dominance of (upper)! I'm not sure why it would have changed, I can only assume this must be some kind of bug when sending directly to motion from the timeline. If I delete the motion clip from the timeline and re-drag it in from the browser then it's fine and has no field dominance and looks like it should.

Sorry for the long post - but it might just help somebody else getting frustrated by the same thing.

Paul.