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Video Blurry When Playing/Crisp When Paused
What is the optimal way to capture and Export video? I am working with mini DV. Do I capture with the compression setting at none, and export at none? Or do I use the DV/DVCPRO-NTSC?
I am trying to get the best picture that my camera can provide. Space shouldn’t be an issue. If anyone can help, please do.Thanks, Ned
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9 Replies
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Capture with the same codec as the material you work with. With MiniDV your capturing and exporting codec should be DV NTSC in and out. The reason your picture is blurry when running and crisp when paused has to do with your FCP playback preferences. If your playback is set to best quality then it will all look the same regardless of whether it’s paused or not. This setting takes much more computing power, however.
– Don
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From what I saw, this did not help. Can you guide me as to where this is. (example: File-User Preferences-Render Tab
Thanks, Ned -
I’ll take a shot at this.
You should capture using the DV NTSC standard settings. Capturing with no compression, or with any other setting is a bad idea. Essentially, the video is compressed on your DV tape with the DV CODEC. So, you want to edit a DV project. Setting your capture setting to match your footage means your getting an exact digital copy of your material. Sure, its compressed, but your not recompressing or converting or anything, your just taking what’s on the camera.
Now, the blurry when playing issue is related, but stick with me. When you apply effects or add video to your timeline that needs to be converted somehow, the footage will need to be rendered. Essentially, your creating new video based on changes to video in your timeline. If you need more explanation on rendering, ask – I don’t want to over-explain.
So, if something needs to be rendered, but hasn’t yet been rendered yet, you can usually watch it play back as a “real-time preview”. The computer is playing un-rendered footage, so its making it up as it goes along. This often results in a low-quality playback. But don’t complain. A few short years ago, unrendered footage wouldn’t play back at all. Anyway, once you’ve rendered something, its done and it plays back fine. The way to know if something needs to be rendered is, look above the footage in the timeline. If its got a light grey bar above, it doesn’t need to be rendered. If its got a green, red, orange or any other color above it, then it needs to render.
So, what I think is happening is you’ve got a sequence that has the standard DV settings (Check your sequence properties – its in one of the menus). Then you captured some footage with some wacky uncompressed setting or something. When your footage settings don’t match your sequence settings, that’s a case where the footage would need to be rendered. Your converting your footage to a different type of video codec.
I bet if you capture your footage with the proper DV-NTSC setting and make sure your sequence is set up with the same DV-NTSC setting, your problems go away. Your footage settins should match your sequence settings, and you shouldn’t have to render your footage. That is until you apply some effect to your footage that requires it to render….in which case, you just render it.
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ND,
Sounds like you have FX in your sequence, right? Otherwise you would not get the “blurry” problem.First of all, you probably are not rendering properly nor are you monitoring your rendered effects properly.
First read this:
https://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/rendering_rt_fcp_4_balis.html
What should you learn from that article?
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I checked my settings, Capturing at DV-NTSC, Sequence is the same. Playback settings on high, no effects, rendered… can’t figure this out. Could it have anything to do with Video-Processing(in the sequence settings)? I thank you for your patients with this issue.
Thanks , Ned
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I checked my settings, Capturing at DV-NTSC, Sequence is the same. Playback settings on high, no effects, rendered… can’t figure this out. Could it have anything to do with Video-Processing(in the sequence settings)? I thank you for your patients with this issue.
Thanks , Ned
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I checked my settings, Capturing at DV-NTSC, Sequence is the same. Playback settings on high, no effects, rendered… can’t figure this out. Could it have anything to do with Video-Processing(in the sequence settings)? I thank you for your patients with this issue.
Thanks , Ned
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Make sure your RT setting is set to high quality. It sounds like you have it set to low or medium quality. The RT tab is at the left end of the timeline.
Doug Olin
Pensacola Christian CollegeG5 DP 2.0, 2 GB RAM, FCP HD, IO, OS 10.3.9, Medea RT3X 1200 GB
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Make very sure that the dark green FULL bar is checked in your Sequence>Render menus.
Graphics placed on whole, even numbers?
Checking on NTSC?
Type CMD + Zero and go to the Sequence’s Render settings: Are Frame Rate and Resolution set to 100%?
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