Scaling up 4K into a 1080p timeline

Hi Guys,

I recently shot some stuff on 4K for use within a 1080p timeline. Throughout the clip, I want to cut in. I was under the impression that you could just cut the timeline and then transform the clip up to 200% and it wouldn't lose any resolution. When I watch the clip back however, the 4K footage (that has been downscaled to 1080p), looks great. But when I cut in, it looks soft as hell.

Am I doing anything wrong here? How do I cut in on 4K and keep the footage sharp?

I have applied Sharpen effect of 3.5 to all clips btw - Not sure if that is relevant.

Thank you
Phil x

PS - Running the latest FCPx on a 2012 Macbook Pro.

Frist, in the Viewer menu, be sure you're playback is set to better quality rather than better performance. Otherwise, just trust it will be OK. Also, what I do, is take my 4K clip I want to zoom in on in the timeline, and set the Spacial Conform in the Inspector to None. That way you start with the clip at it's full resolution. But, it may not look all that great in the Timeline. Export a little bit of your timeline as a test. It should export looking just fine.

phil@circuitfactory.ae wrote: ....I recently shot some stuff on 4K for use within a 1080p timeline. ...I was under the impression that you could just cut the timeline and then transform the clip up to 200% and it wouldn't lose any resolution. When I watch the clip back however, the 4K footage (that has been downscaled to 1080p), looks great. But when I cut in, it looks soft as hell...

Yes you can do that and it works fine. I just tested the same 4k H264 content scaled to 300% on a 1080p timeline and a 4k timeline. There was no visual difference -- either in the Viewer or after exporting, even if exporting the 4k timeline as 4k and the 1080p timeline as 1080p. I had spatial conform set to "fit", had Viewer set to Better Quality and I scaled it with Transform (lower left icon on Viewer).

OK, so I have worked out the issue:

I recorded video and audio separately. Then I lined the audio up manually (by placing it on the Timeline and matching a clap.. the synchronise function wasn't working). I then made a compound clip of the audio and video. This was saved as a 1080p clip (as the Timeline was 1080). So when I zoomed in on that, it looked blurry as hell.

Is there any way to create a compound clip and save the clip at the resolution it was shot (4K), so I can then scale up on the clip and not lose the resolution?

Thank you,
Phil

Don't drag the clip into a project. Right-click Open Clip. Drag the audio into the clip. Line it up.

phil@circuitfactory.ae wrote: ... I then made a compound clip of the audio and video. This was saved as a 1080p clip (as the Timeline was 1080). So when I zoomed in on that, it looked blurry as hell.

Is there any way to create a compound clip and save the clip at the resolution it was shot (4K), so I can then scale up on the clip and not lose the resolution?...

Yes this works fine -- I just tested it. I inserted a 4k video-only clip plus separate audio into a 1080p timeline, made a compound clip from that, added that clip to a 1080p project and scaled to 300%. It looked equal in quality to the original 4k clip in a 4k project scaled the same amount.