Multicam clip with multiple resolutions creates soft image

Greetings! I have a 2 camera interview, A cam was shooting 5K R3D and B cam was shooting 4K R3D. My project is in 1080. I'm running into one of these 3 problems:

1. If I set the multicam clip at 4K, the 5K clip is soft (even in a 1080 timeline).
2. If I set the multicam clip at 5K, the 4K clip is soft (even in a 1080 timeline).
3. If I set the multicam clip at 1080, both angles are nice and sharp BUT if I zoom into any of the clips to re-frame, they are soft. In other words, even if I take a 5K clip and do a 120% zoom (in a 1080 timeline!) it's soft. It's as if FCP downscaled the 5K clip to 1080, which surprises me because I thought it was just referencing the original 5K clip.

Am I missing something? Any way around this to be able to play around the 4K and 5K clip if I ever need to adjust the framing without losing sharpness?

Are you looking at the rendered output set to high quality playback.

Yes and looking at an exported Prores HQ file.

I've seen the same thing, and yes, FCPX does seem to re-sample the image when in a 1080 timeline.
Try setting the Spacial Conform to None, then work from there shrinking as needed. Don't go beyond 100% scale.

The other issue is, with 4K if you're not using a high quality monitor with your camera, you can't guarantee your image is 100% in focus. Even though it may look like it on a small camera screen or iPhone. Then it is simply the shot wasn't in focus totally and not FCPX.

I run into both scenarios with FCPX, on a daily basis.

I can definitely assure you that the issue is not the focus because if I re-frame the original shot, it's perfectly sharp even at 140%. The problem is when I do it with the multicam. This is a huge problem for me because I often vary the framing when I have the luxury of using 5K footage. Now I need to choose between using a multicam clipand sticking to the framing or using the original media and reframing. It's ridiculous that I can't do both.

Setting the spacial conform to none doesn't fix the problem. I'm not sure if you meant on the multicam itself or the clip within the multicam but none fixes the issue. This is a huge disappointment.

Sorry you are having issues. But as far as I know, FCP X always works with the full resolution of the source clip, no matter how or where it is conformed. So I'm thinking this could be a bug perhaps related to the R3D media.

I just did a quick test with a 3K ProRes anamorphic clip.

1. Here is how the clip looks inside a 720p Project, so you can see the full shot



2. This is what I get if I scale up the original shot in the 720p timeline



*NOTE: It doesn't matter which Spatial Conform setting you use. That only affects the way the Scale percentage is displayed but doesn't affect the quality of the scaling because FCP X doesn't downsample the clip, it always works with the source's native resolution.

3. Then, I created a 720p multi clip containing the 3K clip (Spatial Conform set to Fit), edited the multi clip into a 720p Project, and finally did a similar upscale... My results were almost identical as you can see.



So I don't know what's really going on here, but in my experience, FCP X allows you to mix resolutions inside a Multicam clip and still will give you "access" to the full resolution of each source clip within the Project (no matter which resolution the Multicam clip has).

Is your Viewer set to Better Performance, or Better Quality?
Have you exported a sample to test?

you have found out yourself:
to allow 'lossless reframing', the MC has to be set to highest res involved in this MC - 5k in your case.

conc. 'softness': your watching the exported proRes in its native res, 1080? Not scaled?
Not 'fullscreen' on a 5k iMac = 400% zoom… ?