capturing consumer home/80's TV video footage

scorsesefan

scorsesefan

Veteran
I am importing some footage for a documentary that was most likely shot in 30i or 60i, as well as some 80's TV footage from videocassettes. The project so far has all been shot with my 100a in 24pa mode and captured with advanced pulldown. When I imported some footage, I changed the capture settings to dv-ntsc (from adv. pulldown) and unclicked 16:9, as the stuff his 4:3. When I put the stuff in the timeline it needed to be rendered and looked "choppy" after doing so (especially motion). How do I incorporate the new stuff properly, and also, how do I match the aspect ratio considering the other stuff is 16:9 (shot with anamorphic adapter lens).
Thanks
 
Since everything is NTSC, which is 60i and 4:3, you'll need to render it in a 24p Sequence, depending on your hardware.

I'd use Cinema Tools or QuickTime Pro to convert your older footage into the 24p of your project. Is there a reason you're shooting your new footage in 24p?


The older footage is going to lose frames to fit 24fps, and to go from interlaced to progressive. You need a method that will translate with the least amount of damage, i.e. making it choppy. But, you may not get rid of all that choppiness totally. It was shot at 60i, which roughly is 30fps when you look at it in frames. So ever second of action is having about 6 frames removed, every second. That's what makes it look choppy.

Also, are you looking at a computer CRT, computer LCD, or on an external monitor?
 
I'm shooting the new footage in 24pa because I like the look. As far as what i'm viewing the footage on, it's an external monitor. The canvases in FCP look really jumpy and kind of wavy (intel mac LCD). It looks better on the ext monitor, but still a little jumpy... so when I drop the footage onto the timeline, is it being converted to 24p?
Thanks, Ben
 
Canvas can not be trusted under any condtions to be 100% acurate. On external monitor, I can only offer one suggestion. Go to the Sequence menu, check and make sure all levels of render are checked in both the Render and Render All sections. If not, you may not be getting 100% fully rendered versions of your Timeline.

You could try to use Cinema Tools or Compressor to convert the capture files first. Could help.

Personally, I'd try to first use Compressor to convert the original digital files into a format you want to edit with.

I've been pushing this book, but for $23 it's a steal, "Compressor Quick-Referece Guide".

But I'm assuming the original footage is just not reacting well to your Sequence settings. I'd try to convert it with Compressor directly from the original digital file on your hard drive (FCP is not even envolved here), and convert it to NTSC 24p, aspect ratio, etc, to match your Sequence. Can't hurt. And you can do just a small bit first, so you don't have to wait for the whole thing to convert. Just do a 2 minute clip, convert it, see how it looks.
 
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