Record out to Betacam SP

L

livelikeriley

Well-known member
Quick question - I shot a project on the HVX in 720p 24pn and have edited in FCP on a 23.98 timeline. I've only ever finished on DVD or digital and have no idea of how to prepare this to stream to a betacam deck...can I leave it in native DVCPRO HD and just use final cut pro's print to tape feature, or do I need to convert the timeline to some other format? Any help would be great.

Thanks,
Mark.
 
I don't know...the suite uses a cinewave card...mostly we take tapes that are digibeta and just stay in SD...is there a good setting to take my DVCPRO HD footage to HD? I don't want to screw it up compression wise or aspect ratio size.

Thanks,
Mark.
 
Would this process work:

For exporting to betacam, open a new timeline and change the settings to SD 8-bit uncompressed. Now, copy everything on your HD timeline and paste that into the new timeline, making certian that you do not allow FCP to change the settings to match the footage. Now, you'll need to resize every shot depending on if want to go letterboxed, anamorphic or centercut.


I found it at creativecow...but I'm not sure how to go about resizing the shots? -- Am I doing this by hand?...there must be some formula to get the HD to SD size so I'm not grabbing the wireframe and guessing...?

Thanks,
Mark.
 
You would either need to pan and scan on a shot by shot basis to derive a 4:3 image or you would need to drop into a letterboxed sd sequence to preserve the original aspect ratio.

Noah
 
letterbox would be the way I want to go...but if I do an uncompressed NTSC sequence - how do I select for letterboxing? Where's the option at? Damn SD...why can't my school get an DVCPRO HD deck ... they charge me enough tuition :)

I tried to do an Uncompressed 8 bit NTSC timeline with 23.98 timeline (or does it need to be 29.97 since I'm going to beta sp?) and I did quicktime conversion for output with letterbox selected...and it actually gave me an image with letterbox on the sides of the image? ... huh? Anyone done this before and knows exactly what audio/video settings I need? Sorry to be a pain.

Thanks,
Mark.
 
Set for 4:3. Any 16:9 shots you drop into it should become automatically letterboxed. If they don't adjust the aspect ratio/distort attributes in the motion tab of each clip.

Noah
 
Ughh...that ratio/distort thing is what I had to do last year to go to mini-dv PAIN IN THE A$$...manually to every clip...way to suck Apple.
 
If the clips are all the same you actually only have to do it once, then select the clip and go Edit>Copy. Then select all other clips in the timeline and control click>paste attributes. You can then paste the changed aspect ratio to all clips. Should take maybe 10 seconds.

Noah
 
Render out your timeline to a QT file uncompressed on an external hard drive. Hand it off to the production house and tell them you want 4x3 letterbox on Beta SP.

Don't worry about it being HD as Beta does not support it.
 
Yeah, except I'm doing this on a deck at work, so I don't have the expertise to fall back on...

GOOD news though - I've gotten an uncompressed SD timeline to letterbox the HD footage, the titles and credits look terrible, but I'll just redo them for SD -- BUT I do have one more question...the timebase is still 23.98...when I record out, do I have to switch it to 29.97...how will this effect the footage?

Thanks,
Mark.
 
Hmmph...BAD news...changed the sequence to 29.97 and it slips my clips around and adds a few seconds of black in between clips to keep sync...is there a way to do this or can betacam sp record a 23.98 signal and do a pulldown?

Mark.
 
No BetaSP cannot record 23.98 but a Kona card or a DV device routed to a BetaSP deck will automatically add the pulldown- do not drop your 23.98 edit into a 29.97 timeline. It will look bad.

Noah
 
Possibly- check with the manufacturer. If not- it would cost you maybe $200 to go to a post house with a hard drive and have them do the transfer.

Noah
 
Going back to changing the size, etc...why don't you try 'nesting'? You know the icon it shows in your main project bin that represents your timeline (the one with all the edited clips in it?). Make your new timeline to the new size/codec you want, and drag the sequence icon into your new timeline. Right (ctrl) click on the new clip in your new timeline and pick "show in viewer". Click on the motion tab in the viewer. Resize away to your heart's content. Unless you really wanna pan n' scan every clip (I'm assuming you shot it all 4:3 safe, if not, you can letterbox in this fashion too...)
 
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