720p footage in NTSC timeline not scaling properly

Noah

Noah

Well-known member
Okay, so I have a bunch of footage shot on the HVX-200 in 720p 24pn mode, framed for 4:3 safe. My original footage is thus 960x720. I have edited in a fcp timeline with those settings and I now want to create an ntsc version for export. There are some shots which need to be reframed/blown up, but I figured given the size of the HD frame and the NTSC frame I would be more than fine. The height of my HD footage should be 720px while the height of my NTSC frame should be 480px. The HD frame should be 150% the vertical height of the NTSC frame, making me scale it down for a normal frame and leave it at full size for the frames I want blown up. This all sounds right in theory, but when I drop my 720p footage into an NTSC sequence, open the footage in the viewer and go to the motion tab to make the scale 100%, the vertical height of the footage matches the frame, but it should be larger. It is acting like my footage only has a height of 480.

I hope this is clear.

Any help would be much appreciated.
THANKS!
 
Did you edit the original 720p footage in a timeline with the DVCPro HD 720p24 preset, or did you use custom settings at 960x720? If you didn't use the FCP preset, I would try that. I'm not sure whether that might be the source of your problem, but I have had no trouble editing 720p footage with this preset and then exporting to a 4:3 DVD using Compressor (a somewhat different workflow than what you are doing).

Hope that helps,
Kevin
 
I have played with the pixel aspect ratio and it doesn't seem to help, though maybe in your tests you'll figure something out.

I have edited in a DVCPro HD 720p24 preset timeline. Within that timeline everything looks fine - the frame size is accurate. The problem isn't getting it to display properly in 4:3, if I drop the HD timeline into an SD timeline it shows properly as letterboxed and if I go into the motion tab in the viewer and scale it back to 100% it fills the frame and cuts off the sides. The problem is that when, in that SD timeline, I scale the HD sequence back to 100%, the vertical height should be 1.5x the height of the SD frame or 240px taller (720-480=240), but instead it ends up being the same height, which is technically wrong.
 
Just ran a quick test. As I thought, you need to change the pixel aspect ration of your 4:3 sequence. Specifically, change it to HD (960x720)

I opened a 720/24pn seq.
Made a new 4:3 NTSC sequence.
Dropped a 720/24pn clip in. Declined changing the seq to match the clip.
The clip shrank to 75%, and 100% filled only to the top of frame just as you describe.
Changed the sequence settings of the 4:3 seq as described above.
Changed distort parameter to zero.

Your sequence you may want to be 4:3, but you are working with HD footage, which is why that needs to be set up that way.
 
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This doesn't seem to work for me. I've done everything you said, in the order you said, but when I change the 4:3 sequence settings to have the HD(960x720) pixel aspect ratio, I get a 16x9 frame and a stretched out image (despite the fact that the sequence settings is still set to a 4:3 NTSC frame size).

In the Canvas window, under the scale button where it says Fit to Window, 100%, etc. there is an option at the bottom for Correct Aspect Ratio. Right now this is checked off. When I uncheck it, the frame seems to go back to 4:3 and the image is unstretched, but at 100% (in the motion tab) the height still matches the 4:3 frame at 480px instead of being 720px.
 
I have set the 4:3 sequence to NTSC 4:3 frame size, HD 960x720 pixel aspect ratio, and the compressor to DVCPRO HD 720p60.

When I bring either an individual shot or the entire HD sequence into this NTSC 4:3 sequence, it automatically displays a 16x9 frame, but it seems at SD resolution. The picture looks normal, not stretched or squashed, the distort setting in the motion tab is already at 0.
 
Hmm. i think I might just be due to the order of steps, and how sequences interpret the footage that is brought it. I did the steps I listed yesterday, and it worked just like I thought it would. Now today I'm doing them again with different results. Odd. I'm looking into this further.
 
The same thing happens to me - different each time depending on the order you do things in. It shouldn't be this way.

I appreciate you looking into it further. It's something I still have to do often - delivering a 4:3 SD picture. I always shoot in HD on the HVX so I don't lose picture quality when I reframe things/blow up certain shots and yet I still haven't been able to figure out how to do that exactly.
 
So i was thinking that maybe it had to do with the PAR of DVCPROHD 720 (1.33) vs. that of NTSC DV (.9), and since they are different, that makes it so vertically then end up being the same... but I don't think that's correct. Also, in After Effects, I get it to work– that may be due to AE's ability to interpret footage.... FCP isn't letting us take footage with a 1.33 PAR and work inside a frame that has a different PAR.

I can make a 720x480 sequence with 1280x720 clips that have both headroom and sideroom at 100%, and the footage doesn't look stretched, but the canvas window is wider than your typical NTSC DV frame size.
 
Yeah, I was considering After Effects, but to really get that to work with my workflow well I'd need to buy automatic duck. Unfortunately I don't have the cash flow right now to cover the expense. Because I'm often blowing select shots up/reframing them, then making sure they work in context, then making adjustments, then making sure they work, then making more adjustments, etc. Without automatic duck (which I believe would somewhat relieve my problem), it becomes time consuming and impractical to export the shot out of fcp, import it into after effects, make the sizing changes, export it out, import it back into fcp and do that process a few times for adjustments. You'd think there would be a simple way within final cut. I'm convinced there's got to be a way. Or at least an easier work around than what I've got not. I can't be the first person to have this need.
 
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