720p to SD 30fps SO NEW SO CONFUSED HELP PLEASE

[Scott Rouse]

Hello all,

I am very very new to the world of HD. I have been reading the forums all morning and I am still confused. Ok here is my situation.

I have hours and hours of footage shot in mini DV 30FPS. We now have an HMC150. I want to know what is going to be the easiest way to go about editing a program with both formats. Do I down res the 720p footage to SD...IF so does that then letterbox the footage? Do I up res my SD dv footage to I can edit it that way. How should I set up my timeline. Do I injest in DV or Pro-res etc....

I am using FCP version 7. I guess I just need to know what is the best way to mix both formats together. We will start shooting in HD now but some of our footage is of operations and other hospital functions that we will not be able to reshoot for a long while.

Please help me.... PS My delievery of the product will need to be SD...going to DVD.
Thanks
Scott

[dwelter]

You might want to post this in the FCP forum. Why would you have to deliver in SD if you're going to DVD. DVD loves HD. Depending on how much of the old SD footage you have to cut into your next edit, I'd just bring my HMC HD footage in normal ProRes HD and when you add the old SD footage create a box graphic to drop it into or let FCP bump it up to 16x9 format if it doesn't look too bad and deliver the project in HD. Whatever, your FCP7 will work with both formats in the same timeline, no problem. I know this isn't real technical but drop a note in the FCP forum and get one of the real editors to respond. Good luck.

[DannayZay]

I would strongly advise staying away from up-sampling your SD footage to HD, only to bring it back down to SD output. Edit in an SD timeline with your current miniDV footage, and shoot in 720p 30fps with the HMC for footage that will be mixed with the SD shoots. The only way to know how FCP will handle the footage is to try dropping the HMC footage directly onto your SD timeline, and if that does not work, than ingest in a SD format while keeping a 720p backup.