Soft image when scaling up 4K footage on a 1080p timeline

Hi Guys,

I recently shot a 4K video because I wanted to cut in to it on a 1080p timeline.

The issue I face is that every time I do scale up, the footage looks soft. It certainly doesn't retain sharpness.

Can anyone suggest any reasons as to why this is happening?

I'm using a Sony A7s Mark 2 on a Mac Pro 2013. Latest version of FCPx

Here's the video:

Thanks to anyone who can help.

Phil

Hi Phil,

FCPX tends to remap the clips' scale when placing them on your Timeline (all of them are at 100%), have you tried dropping them into Compound Clips (within the Event Browser) and using the CCs instead?

Also, be sure you set the Spatial Conform to None.
AND be sure your 4K footage was PERFECTLY focused. I do 4K often, and occasionally a clip is not focused enough to be used like that. Tricky stuff.

This worked like a charm.

Never converted a clip into a compound in the Event browser before, but I will be from now on.

Thank you very much.

I shoot 4k for 1080p all the time and the only thing I have to do is set Spatial Conform to None. There is no need to do anything else.

Converting it to a compound clip is not necessary. That is essentially the same thing as having the clips Spatial Conform set to Fit.

At 50% scale a 4k clip will fit completely into the 1080 frame. You can go up to 100% scale and even a little beyond for panning and zooming effects.