FX1 HD output to edit as 4:3?

[Geoff Haynes]

I may have missed something basic on the use of my FX1 but I can't completely get my mind round this. I'd like, for now, to shoot on HD (for futureproofing), that is obviously in 16:9, but import, edit and use the footage in projects using the 'normal' 4:3 aspect that some of my customers still want. Am I right in thinking that any downconverted HD footage will have the black bars top and bottom? The new DVD on the Z1/FX1 I've just bought seems to suggest that the Z1 can crop the edges of the 16:9 picture for this purpose, but the FX1 doesn't seem to have the same options in the in/out settings on the camera settings menu and only suggests (in the handbook) that the black bars will be added if the 4:3 'TV' setting is used, or horizontally squashed if not. I use Liquid Edition 5.62 for editing - can the footage perhaps be converted in that somehow, or am I completely missing the point somewhere...!
Help please you knowledeable ones.............

Geoff

[bcrabtree]

The only way I can think to get around this is to capture as HDV, then - based on the fact that the images contains so much more detail than DV - resize (effectively crop) to 4:3 and then convert to DV.


Bob C

[Geoff Haynes]

Thanks Bob - do you mean resize in camera (?) or once the footage is in LE?

Geoff

[Robin Davies-Rollinson]

I though that the Z1 would output down-rezzed HDV as side-cropped 4:3 as well as letterbox.
The FX1 will only produce letterbox.
I've got a shoot with a Z1 tomorrow, so I'll have a look (if nobody has got back first, that it...)

Robin

[Gyr]

I brought some FX1 HDV footage down-rezzed in camera into Liquid Edition (version 5.5) and LE crops the sides and you have to allow it to render that, but then it's useable just the same as normal 4:3 DV.

Ideal for me as I want to use the footage as DV now, but will almost certainly need to re-use it as HDV in the future.

[infocus]

I've no experience with Liquid Edition at all, but think in Premiere, for a 4:3 project, if 16:9 material is brought in the program gives a choice of letterboxing or centre cutting - maybe your program has similar settings? (Edit - just seen the last post, sounds like the two programs behave similarly.) Similarly Avid has various resize options.

As an alternative, what about doing it as a 16:9 project, and pillarboxing the 4:3 material? Finally do a resize on the finished project (with something like Procoder) to derive the 4:3 centre cut of the whole thing. Even maybe do it via a DVD and DVD player set up to give a centre cut for a 4:3 TV, if the end requirement was VHS dubs? (The advantage of this method is that you can come back to the original should you later need a 16:9 version - the Z1 material will then be as shot, the 4:3 stuff pillarboxed within it.)

If your project is to be all shot on an FX1, the latter method seems a better bet by far. If producing DVDs, don't forget that players will give a 4:3 TV output anyway for a widescreen disc if set up correctly - it's what they do for the average commercial DVD. It also gives the customer the choice of centre cut or letterbox, and they get a widescreen DVD for the future. All you then need to worry about is shooting according to the normal "shoot and protect" guidelines, thinking especially of graphics and titles.

[Unicorn]

Yeah, the Z1 gives you the option of downconverting to 4:3 by cropping out the center of the image.

At least I'm pretty sure it does, the manual I'm looking at here is in Spanish, so I'm going by the pictures :).

[Geoff Haynes]

Thank so much everyone - the concensus seems to be to downconvert in 16:9 then crop either the footage for eiting or, possibly, a fused finished edit? I think, as Unicorn says, that the Z1 does this at source but the FX1 doesn't.
Appreciate all the comments
Geoff