Shooting HD for 4:3 display

M

MacVideoGeek

Member
My questions related to this topic are:

1) Are there 4:3 guides you can display on the HVX LCD when shooting 720p HD?

2) If I'm using an SD NTSC monitor on set, I would just mask out the sides of the image to match those 4:3 guides, right?

3) In post, what's the best way to edit the HD footage and lop off the sides for 4:3?
In Final Cut Pro, what would be my sequence settings for that-- for a 4:3 sequence with 720p HD footage?

thanks
 
Just a clarification question:
What is your final output format?

HD is all 16:9. Are you Shooting HD, and then downconverting for a SD 4:3 output?

- Mikko
 
I will be doing the same- shooting with the HVX in 720p - using a middle extraction for 4:3 SD output. If anyone has done this before, please share your experience and any useful hints you may have.
 
1) YES, in the display set up.

2)If the Monitor is a 4:3 monitor you are fne. If it is switchable, switch it to 4:3

3) In Final Cut>Easy Set Up>NTSC DV>Import the HD footage, and when you drag on the timeline it will Center the footage in the Canvas, BUT you can clearly see that the footage is is bigger, but the clips outline. Select in the Canvas, Image+Wireframe, and drag to your desried X,Y axis.:)

Please search a little more, and read your HVX user maual. for Menu + Camera Setups.
If you have any more questions in regards to Final Cut, Go to the NLE section and ask in the Final Cut section. Thanks hope this helps
 
Thanks for the help. (Was on a shoot or would have responded sooner)

So in the FCP sequence settings, I changed the frame size to NTSC (4:3) and then I tried NTSC DV (3:2). Yes, those changes made the HD image larger in the frame, as expected.
But the aspect ratio remains at what looks like 16:9. I guess I'm missing a step. I'll keep trying.
 
I shot this at 720p

So I guess what's throwing me is that the frame size is 960 by 720. That's already 4:3!

Does that mean that the image is squished and FCP and Quicktime are automically stretching it to anamorphic?

I'll check the FCP forum on here.
 
Ok, I found out why I was so confused. The HVX 720p frame size comes in at 960 x 720. But that's squished. Final Cut Pro displays it at 16:9 aspect ratio (1280 x 720).

But anyway, to put the HD frame in a 4:3 sequence, do the following:
1) Create a 720 x 480 frame size sequence (using a high quality codec, like Uncompressed) and make sure the pixel aspect is set to DV NTSC and
2) drag the original HD sequence into that new SD sequence and then
3) render the sequence.

That works.

However...let's say I'm going to the Web and I want this to be as good looking as possible.

I wonder if FCP or another compressor could output a SD aspect ratio by simply cropping out pixels from the HD original.

So instead of exporting from a 720 x 480 sequence, I could just export from the original HD sequence and have the compressor Crop off extra pixels on the side of the frame to get 4:3. The complication here is that the 720p footage is tagged to display at 16:9 even though the file is not really 16:9 natively.
Follow?

Has anyone done this? Maybe this thread belongs in a different forum now.
 
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