• Apple Final Cut Pro

  Best tricks for “great” result from mini dv tapes

  Posted by Morten Slemdal on March 3, 2015 at 10:11 pm

  Hi!
  I edit some old dv tapes, filmed on sony pc110. I realise that the footage isn’t great for todays standards, but how do I make the best out of it? I will screen it on a regular tv, and I guess there are some interlac problems. Should I use 25 i for project settings? Or override and put it in a 25 p project to get tid of the interlace problems when screening on a tv??

  So, when showing it, should I make a dvd/bluray, and burn it – whats the best settings? The movie will be about 25 mins.
  or could I just make master as a prores 422, and hook my mac to the tv, and use QuickTime

  I think my material is kind of grainy, and I really should try to take some out of it. Whats the best way; if any?

  Mark Suszko replied 11 years, 2 months ago 3 Members · 3 Replies
• 3 Replies

• 

  Noah Kadner

  March 4, 2015 at 1:34 am

  Are you talking about an HD version or a DVD output- i.e. standard definition. Not really much you can do to make up for resolution that’s not there to begin with.

  Noah

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• 

  Morten Slemdal

  March 4, 2015 at 4:57 am

  The starting point is pretty grainy and bad (720 x 576). Just Wonder if there is any “best way”. And if it’s possible to do any post production to slightly remove grain? Just anything, to smoothen it.
• 

  Mark Suszko

  March 4, 2015 at 2:28 pm

  The DV25 codec is a 4:1:1 color space, meaning it has lower color resolution than the Pro Res you normally work in, but the luminance channel will be pretty sharp. You could try some of the up-sizing plug ins like “instant HD”, which just blows up the existing footage so you can re-crop it into a 16x 9 screen ratio. But that doesn’t add any sharpness. In fact, it probably just shows the pixelation more.

  What I would try is to go ahead and import the footage into a Pro Res 4:2:2 timeline, then work really hard on using the color correction tools to maximize the dynamic range of the image. You can take this a step farther by duplicating the video timeline and having the duplicate layer on top of the original. In the duplicate layer, make the track black and white, then adjust the blending mode (composite mode) and 3-way color correction to emphasize the details and black . Adjust the opacity of this layer to mix it with the main layer, and this will add “apparent” sharpness in a better way than just using a sharpness plug in alone. A 2-pixel horizontal or vertical blur might also be something to try here.

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