HMC150 HD 1080i 60FPS to SD for DVD help
 

Help

Just finished my first paying gig. Small engagement party. I used my HMC150 and set it at 1080i 6oFPS. Problem - I have over an 1 hour + 30 minutes of raw interlaced footage and I need to down convert to SD and de-interlace. I have a dual layer DVD so I think I can fit about 8GB on a DVD, but I want this to include the DVD menu stuff plus about a 5 – 7 minute highlight film that I was contracted for. Is this possible? Can some one pass along their HD to SD process in FCP for the HMC150?

Thanks,

You should be able to fit 1 1/2 hour with menu and your highlight clip on a dual layer DVD OK. If you convert your audio to AC3, it will give you more room for video because AC3 files are considerably smaller than PCM audio files.

It generally isn't a good idea to convert 60i to 30P. If you do, your will get blurry edges on any pan shots as well as on subjects who are moving across the screen. This is because there is some camera movement or subject movement in the time between the top and bottom fields. The top field is recorded in the camera 1/30th of a second after the bottom field. This causes a corresponding shift in the position of the camera on pans or on subjects who are moving. There are a few tricks to deal with this such as dropping either the top or bottom field and then doubling up the remaining field. This takes care of the temporal distortion but it reduces the vertical resolution by half.

Thanks how should I export from the timeline in FCP? Stick with Interlace or de-interlace? Sorry really just wet behind the ears.

I think you want to convert to 24p from 60i.. not for sure on that..but I thought I read somewhere it translates better.

You could try it both ways to see which "look" you prefer. You will get smoother motion and sharper results with 60i. 24P falls into the artistic realm. I personally don't like it in most cases however some do and produce some nice results with it. You will get the edge blurring when there is camera or subject motion with either 24P or 30P when you convert from 60i due to temporal distortion.

Export from FCP to Compressor... and you should be able to use the 'best quality' setting. You may want to knock the bit rate down a click or two, but you should have no problem fitting that much video on a DVD.