SD video in 1080p timeline?

[waloshin]

I have a bunch of SD VHS transfers that I want to put on Blu-Ray am I better off putting the video in a SD time line in FCPX or in a HD timeline?

Thanks

 

[ColdCase]

A HD timeline will only create large video files, and do nothing for video quality. Its subjective so you may have to try both. Usually the DVD player or TV can take SD material and make it look best (up-convert) for the specific monitor. If you think FCPX does a better job up-converting than the players/TV then it may be better that FCP does it.

 

[scottrngr]

If you are going to use FCP to do this in HD, make sure the setting is at 60fps. Otherwise it won't have the "video" look, but rather the "film" look, which doesn't look good on old VHS tapes.

 

[MacBH928]

If you are going to use FCP to do this in HD, make sure the setting is at 60fps. Otherwise it won't have the "video" look, but rather the "film" look, which doesn't look good on old VHS tapes.

what about films that are on VHS like The Matrix?

 

[DemonMF777]

what about films that are on VHS like The Matrix?

Buy them on Blu-Ray

 

[kohlson]

Try a short test file first. You may run into issues with 4x3 v. 16x9 that you'll want to figure out first. Red Giant sells pretty good upscaling software. Takes a large amount of processing power. As suggested, maybe cheaper to buy new versions.

 

[scottrngr]

I thought you meant you were going to be transferring old vhs recordings you made, not trying to copy vhs movies. Back in the day, vhs movies were encoded with Macrovision, so you couldn't make your own bootleg tape copies. I don't know if you can record a vhs movie to your computer or not. Also, if this is your plan, why not just burn them to dvd? The picture quality on Blu-Ray isn't going to be any better.

 

[waloshin]

I am looking to transfer home movie VHS tapes not movies.

 

[ColdCase]

Thats what I thought you were doing. But as an aside, back in the day, there was $20 gizmos that remove macrovision very effectively. I extracted the video from a few disney VHS tapes that we had purchased and recorded them on DVD to be more handy for the kids and easier for them to handle.

 

[MarkMoran]

Way better to use an HD sequence for this. The software is designed for it and your computer will have significntly more processing power, compared to an upscaling BluRay player.

Like was mentioned earlier though, you'll want to make sure that you're not running into any weird interlacing artifacting, aspect ratio weirdness or framerate issues.

I wouldn't use 60p though - it's overkill. 30p is going to be way better. You'll only be receiving 30fps from the video tape, whether in fields/frames, and using a 60p sequence results in double the data size and twice the processing time.