Importing HD to mix with SD footage.

Question

Hi,
I just got an HDV camera today (Sony FX1) and I have a wedding to film this weekend, so I'm kind of learning as much as I can right now both about filming with this camera and editing in FCP. (I've used FCP for a couple of years, but this is my first experience with HD.)
I'm currently using Final Cut Pro HD 4.5.
I plan to shoot the wedding with the FX1 as my front (main) camera and film in HDV. I am going to use a Canon GL2 as a second camera.
When downconverting to SD for editing, it looks as though the video from the FX1 will have black bars at the top and bottom - something I don't mind, but my customer may have questions about.
1) Will it be odd to mix footage from the FX1 that has been downconverted to DV with standard DV footage from the Canon GL2? Is there a way to import the footage (anamorphic, or whatever) so that there are no bars? Or, what is the correct setting for importing into FCP? Again, the bars don't bother me and if they have to be there, I can tell the customer that in the future I'll deliver it to them in HD.
2) When I do edit for HD, will it look odd when switching between the FX1 and GL2? I don't mind the GL2 having bars on the side.
I guess my overall question is: What's the best way to import footage into FCP 4.5 when using HDV, and are the bars going to be there no matter what if I deliver the final video in standard DV? Again, the bars don't bother me, I'm just worried about how the customer will view this.
Thanks,
- John

Answer 1

I deal with similar issues with legacy 4x3 Beta SP mixed with HD quite a bit. I'm speculating, as I have not had to mix HDV and DV yet, but this is how I would try to deal with it were I in your shoes.
You can put both in a time line, but it will be painful to edit this way. One or the other will need to be rendered, and the actions you take with the footage will cause you to have to render again. And again. And again. No Joy.
I would look for a down convert with edge crop from the camera. This will chop off the edges of your HDV frame. As mentioned above, this might have a different name, but the key is to get footage that is of the same format (DV) and aspect ration (4x3) as your GL footage. Edit in DV.
You could import it 16x9 (black bars on top and bottom as you say) DV, blow it up so the black bars go away, and then slide it back and forth in the canvas with the motion controls in order to adjust the framing. Indeed you might have to do this if you did not shoot with 4x3 safety in mind. This is called "pan and scan" and it is how movies shot wide screen were squeezed onto our 4x3 TVs. If you have to do this your HDV footage will look quite poor. Down conversion and then scaling up is not good JuJu.
But, if you can't find a way to play the hdv footage out DV 4x3 center cut, or crop or whatever your camera calls it, you might be forced into this scenario.
You might try capturing the HDV the footage natively in a separate project. Drop this on a DV sequence. It will appear as a 16x9 image (black bars on the top and bottom.) Double click to load in the viewer and click the motion tab. The scale parameter will be at less than 100 percent. Scale it up until the black bars go away and your percentage is a round even number. Then export as self contained Quicktime movie. Name it HDV to 4x3DV. Reimport this into the DV project with your GL footage where you plan to edit.
This avoids the scaling issue and does the down convert in FCP. I suspect this will look better than the alternative, but I have not tried it.
Hope this helps.
Best,
Tom