[bonniescotland]

Firstly my apologies if some of my terminology is incorrect, have done a bit of research but still a little unclear.

Okay I have a mini dv camera shoots 4:3 only. And doesn't do high definition (you probably figured that out!) so I guess that means what it does is standard definition. Anyway what with the impending change from analog to High Definition digital television in most countries, will that mean that any of my old footage, or old TV footage for that matter be unacceptable for TV broadcast? I'm assuming that old TV programs will have to be converted to HD to be shown as reruns, so therefore I'm assuming that there must be a way for me to convert (if I need to) 4:3 SD to widescreen HD?
So is there a way to do this in FCP 4.5 (which I have) or the latest version of FCP?

I don't know too much about high definition but I'm guessing that if there is a way to convert sd to hd that it's not going to look anywhere as good, however was wondering how bad would it look? Will it be totally unwatchable or just a little poorer in quality than something shot in high def. I'm guessing that a lot of this will depend on what size screen someone is watching it on, and I'm also guessing that even stuff originally shot in high def must vary in quality depending on what camera was used, but I just want someone to confirm this for me (or correct me if I'm wrong).

So sorry for longish post, but I guess the main question is can I convert mini DV footage 4:3 SD to widescreen HD using FCP 4.5 (or other software)
If so would the conversion look totally crap or not too bad?

[wataru]

It should be obviously not as nice as HD, but you will not have to convert anything just to view it. I believe the deal is that all HD TVs can upsample, but the quality of the upsampling depends on the particular hardware.

[bonniescotland]

Thanks for that, but just wondered if there is a way to convert SD to HD because I have heard that within the next few years TV broadcasters will not accept SD material, therefore if I wanted to send footage to TV I would like to know how to convert my mini DV SD to HD before sending it.

Also realise SD won't look as good as HD but just wondered on a small screen (say 52cm or 80cm) how bad will it look, because my current 80cm CRT TV looks great when I view my SD material. I know it's hard to explain the level of quality without seeing it but will SD only look crap when viewing on a big TV?