Upgrade a 1920x1080 Final Cut Project to 4K

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Level 1

56 points

Upgrade a 1920x1080 Final Cut Project to 4K

I have a fully edited, 46 minute video that I am hoping I can "upgrade" from 1920x1080 HD to 4K. Here's the scenario...

All the client-supplied video files are 4K, h.264 mp4 files. H.264 is a good delivery format, but not a good editing format.
I converted all the 4K h.264 files to 1920x1080 ProRes files for editing. (The original plan was to release this as a 1920x1080 video, not a 4K video.)
ProRes files went into their own folders, separate from the .mp4 files.
File names did not change.
The video is now complete as a 1920x1080 Full HD video.

Given that I have original 4K files with matching file names, is there a way to "automatically" change the project from 1920x1080 HD to 4K?

Posted on May 2, 2025 8:38 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Luis Sequeira1

Level 9

72,768 points

May 2, 2025 8:58 AM in response to RPM46

Here is what I would suggest:

1) Make a snapshot of the current project, to preserve a separate copy in the state that it is today.

2)Export that in 1080p for extra safety

3)Modify the project: Command-J to open the Project Inspector, click the Modify button and change from 1080 to 4K.

At this point, everything should look fine, unless you used some clip's Spatial Conform to None (in which case you may need to adjust size); but of course the 1080 clips are now automatically upscaled to 4K.

4) Relink the clips to their 4K versions. Assuming the clips names, but more importantly, their durations and their audio, are the same, this should just work!

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Answer 2

Tom Wolsky

Level 10

152,777 points

May 2, 2025 9:36 AM in response to RPM46

Rather than converting the original media externally it would have been easier to create proxy files in FCP to edit. You could have used 50% or smaller ProRes proxies to edit and then simply have to switch back to original media to export.

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