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A Question of fields: Upper or Lower?
Hi,
Perhaps someone could settle something for me regarding field order. I have a Blackmagic extreme card capturing SD from a digibeta and/or Beta SP (not SD). When this PAL footage is captured using the preset Blackmagic PAL-10 Bit what should the field order be (assuming it is interlaced). I have read that field order is set when you capture but you cannot determine whether it is upper or lower. The sequence pre-set for Blackmagic 10-Bit sets the field order to upper but the field order for the actual footage is set to none. I could assume, therefore, that it is upper, but I have read quite a bit that says the filed order for PAL is lower. So which one guys? It matters to me quite a bit because I’m ultimately encoding to MPEG2 and it asks the field dominance in the settings tab.
Many Thanks,
Dan Brazil
G5 DP 2.5; 4Gig Ram; Blackmagic Decklink Extreme; 23″ Cinema HD Display; Sony HR Trinitron PAL monitor with SD card; 500 Gig Lacie Big Disk Triple Interface; FCP HD; DVDSP3; After Effects 6.5; Photoshop CS; Illustrator CS; plus many others
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3 Replies
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In PAL 10bit/8bit uncompressed don’t worry sbout the capture, just have the sequence preset as upper or odd.
Just try a long fade to black off a clip, you will soon see if it is set wrong!
Peter
At Wimbledon editing for ESPN
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Hi Dan
My understanding is that PAL is normally upper-field first except for DV material, which is lower-field first. Or perhaps that should read “normally lower-field first” – Matrox have a DV codec using upper-field first, and there may be others out there.
Hope this helps …
Mike
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Thanks guys, most helpful
Dan
G5 DP 2.5; 4Gig Ram; Blackmagic Decklink Extreme; 23″ Cinema HD Display; Sony HR Trinitron PAL monitor with SD card; 500 Gig Lacie Big Disk Triple Interface; FCP HD; DVDSP3; After Effects 6.5; Photoshop CS; Illustrator CS; plus many others
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