HPX-170 Shooting both 720pn 'cranked' footage and 1080pa, COMBINING IN FCP?

[jburke14]

Hello, I have been looking for an answer to this for some time. With not much success. However my question is this.

We are shooting a short film with the HPX170 and the redrock cinema lens adapter w/zeiss lenses and We obviously want the highest resolution and least compression (best picture), however we also want to shoot over/under cranked footage for slow motion and other effects. Is there a way to shoot the majority of the film in 1080pa resulting in the best picture quality and then only shoot the cranked footage in 720pn. Later in final Cut Pro drop the 720pn footage into the 1080pa timeline? Or is there a better alternative?

I want to shoot the majority in 1080p but still have the ability to overcrank/undercrank with the HPX170. I think this should work, but is there any steps that need to be done?

[jburke14]

Well, I did some tests, and shot and imported some 1080 24pa footage from my HPX170, and then filmed similar material in 720p 24pn.

I set up a project in FCP with 1080 24pa settings and put the 1080 clips into the timeline. I then imported the 720p 24pn clips into a different project using their normal capture settings (no pulldown) and then i dragged them into the 1080 24pa timeline. There is a difference in quality and sharpness between the 1080 and 720 footage, however the clips played back at the right speed and frame rate.

I also shot some slow motion footage in 720 24pn and put it into the timeline (the purpose of this test) and it played back exactly as it would have in a regular 720 24pn timeline. So it seems that You can indeed record cranked footage in 720p and place it into a 1080p 24pa timeline, as long as they are not imported using the 1080 24pa capture settings.

Any thoughts from experts or interested users is welcome!

-James

[William_Robinette]

I don't know FCP specifics, but shooting 1080p for everything but your select slow motion shots (which you must drop to 720p for) has been standard practice since the HVX-200 came out.

[jburke14]

Yeah, I figured that would be the easiest approach to getting the best of both worlds. Thanks.