Is it ok to edit 1080p video on 720 timeline?

HueyFilms

HueyFilms

Active member
I'm trying to get a large range of "scale" ability. Will my footage suffer if I edit Apple Prores 422 footage (1080p) on a 720p timeline to take advantage of the extra zoom range?

Thanks
 
I've seen no issue in doing this. I've needed to zoom in on portions of plenty of clips, and generally I only work with a 720p timeline even though all my footage starts as 1080p.
 
The way a FCP timeline works is, it will conform whatever you drop into it automatically according to the sequence settings. So if you have 720p timeline and u drop 1080 in there, it will scale it down on the fly for you, thus possibly needing you to render or if you have a beefy system it will play back real time for you under unlimited RT. To take advantage of the additional resolution you can just go into the motion tab and look at your scale and see that it scaled it automatically for you, and you can rescale as you please for the extra range.
 
xmephestox said:
The way a FCP timeline works is, it will conform whatever you drop into it automatically according to the sequence settings. So if you have 720p timeline and u drop 1080 in there, it will scale it down on the fly for you.
Click to expand...

Older versions of FCP do not conform the timeline to what ever codec you drop in. When you ask about scale-ability, I am guessing you mean the ability to zoom in without loosing resolution. Editing a 1080 clip on a 720 timeline will give you a decent amount of scalability before loosing resolution. As XM said, you will have to render. If you end up not 'zooming in', you will effectively be re-rendering a 1080 resolution clip to 720, loosing over a third of your resolution.


Jason
 
1080 comes in @ 66.7 % of its native size in a 720 timeline. to give you some reference of performance, when i do this on my mac pro/8 core 2.93ghz lots of ram etc...i dont feel any struggles with reatime rendering for a couple of layers stacked (unlimited RT/ high/ full with fcp's 3 way CC). over 2 or 3 tall then it starts getting rough. i like doing the 1080 into a 720 but dont do it unless i know i wont be stacking more than a few layers.

david
www.davidprobst.com
 
I was just wondering this same thing. I was bypassing J.D. Stanley's conforming advice from 720 to a 1080 timeline, and just dropping the 720 footage in there raw, but it's really jittery. I was advised by a few pros to go all 720 anyhow, but I thought I'd shoot my interviews in 1080, and also some scenery (I'm shooting a doc about mental health/creativity/spirituality). I tried to do the reverse (1080 onto 720), but the 1080 clip seizes up after a second or so. Any ideas? Thanks!
 
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