capturing prores questions

Q

qwerty123

Well-known member
I'm sure this has been addressed before, but I can't quite find it on these boards.

So, I've captured HDV footage as ProRess 422 (regular) in FCP 6.

When I drop the footage into the timeline it reads the footage as being 1440x1080. But when I view the original captured source files, it says they are 1920x1080.

I get the whole rectangular vs. square pixels thing. But what I want to know is why final cut interprets the captured footage as 1440x1080 as opposed to 1920x1080.

When I drop one of these clips into a 1920x1080 timeline, it scales it to 133%. I know in general scaling up degrades quality. But there doesn't seem to be any quality loss. Is that correct? What's the story?
 
HDV to ProRes via FW retains the native pixel dimensions of the HDV source so, in this case, that's 1440x1080. When you say you "view the original captured source files" do you mean you are looking at them in QT and hitting Command+I to get info about the clip?

I'm not sure why you are getting the scaling though as the timeline should just distort the image. What are the specific settings of the timeline you created?


-Andrew
 
When I "get info" about the caputred clips in finder it lists the dimensions as 1920x1080.

The timeline is set to 1920x1080 (HDTV 16:9) with pixel aspect ratio set to square. That's why it's displaying correctly: within the frame dimensions, reading the hdv horizontal pixels as square makes them properly fill the frame.

But because there are still only 1440 PIXELS, this accounts for the scalling (by 1.33333), right? Hmmm.... I still don't get why the finder would display that the captured source files are 1920x1080--I guess it reads frame dimensions in terms of squares by default, yes?

Thanks for any info on this!

When I work in Color with these clips, Color definitely upscales the clips to true 1920x1080. And then asks me if I want to send back to FCP in this format or the original format (1440x1080). Sending back in 1920x1080 LOOKS better in my FCP canvas, so I'm tempted to go with that. And that would makes sense right, given that there is an UPCONVERT when working with the clips in Color, and going back to FCP in 1440x1080 would involve yet another bit of scaling.

yikes! Help!
 
Prores is less compressed (although results in larger file sizes), which means it is better for medium to heavy grading and compositing; render requirements are less demanding; and render times also seem to be better.

Still have the questions about:

1. why the finder displays the captured prores files as 1920x1080, but FCP reads them as 1440x1080 (I proposed a hypothesis about this)

and

2. what the best workflow is when roundtriping prores 1440x1080 clips to color (as per two posts above)....
 
I think your reasons would be valid if it were 2005 but as of now the use of an intermidiate codec should be a thign of the past. AVCHD might require an intermediate codec but not HDV or the P2 codec. YOu should get great CC with native HDV and even be able to pull of great keys with natvie AVCHD.

If you are saying FCP can not key HDV or that HDV bogs down the system that is not good news.
 
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