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DVCPRO50 issues in FCP5
Hey guys! Just shot a commercial on 35mm. We transferred the film from a Spirit directly to a hard drive via Virtual VTR. So, I have two 10-minute clips of the footage. It doesn’t seem to work correctly when I import it into Final Cut though. If I pull the clips into After Effects it shows the properties as “DVCPRO50 720×486” – which is what I thought DVCPRO50 was. However if I load up the easy setup in FCP called “DV50” it has the settings as 720×480? Those clips play okay in real time, but it’s not the correct size. If I put a fade-up you can see it stretch the 6-pixel difference during the fade and then it goes away – weird. If I change the SEQ settings to 720×486 it makes me render the timeline – even though that’s the size of the actual footage? Also, once it’s rendered it plays back poorly. Any camera movement shows horizontal “breaking” of the image (that’s the best way I know how to describe it). If I leave the settings at 720×480, it plays okay while I’m editing (except for the fade-up issue I mentioned), but exporting any clips shows the same horizontal “breaking”. I thought this codec was natively supported? I’m running FCP 5.0.4 on OSX 10.4.7 and I do not have any cards (like AJA or decklink). Shouldn’t this work? I just cut a project on DVCPRO100 720 and had no problems.
Thanks!
-Ruckus Skye
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9 Replies
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DVCPRO 50 is 720 x 480 NOT 720 x 486.
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sorry. wasnt finished with my posting.
DVCPRO 50 is natively 720 x 480. When captured via firewire, this is what you will get…all the FCP sequence presets are set for this.
If using a capture card, like AJA Kona, and capturing via SDI, the image size is 720 x 486…they simply add black lines to the top and bottom to fill in the remaining pixels.
You must use the Easy Setups provided by AJA (or create your own) to work with 720 x 486 DV50 footage. If you use the Apple ones, they assume you captured natively from firewire and have 720 x 480 footage…thus forcing you to render when using footage that does not conform to this size. -
Thanks John, that makes sense, but still doesn’t explain the “breaking” I’m getting. If I change the setting to 720×486 to match the footage and then render, it still doesn’t play correctly.
I’m wondering if it’s the way it was captured to the hard drive out of the spirit? If anyone feels like trying here’s a really small piece of the footage. I opened it in Quicktime, trim-to-selection and saved as, so it should be exactly like the footage I’m using. It hasn’t been through Final Cut or anything else.https://www.streamload.com/joybeanstudios/EL/T2F5I98R02/DVCPRO50_Test.mov
Another interesting thing is: when I pull it into after effects and make a comp with the same settings it get the same “breaking” on the footage. Any ideas?
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DVCPRO 50 is always 720×480 SDI or firewire. It is part of the DV spec in which mini dv, dv, dvcam, dvcpro,dvcpro 50, are all 720×480 NOT 720×486.
However if you capture via SDI using a capture card you can change your capture codec settings to uncompressed 720×486 (D1 601 spec) while capturing from a dvcpro 50 playback source which is 720×480.
The motion tearing you are seeing is do to a field disorder.
The reason FCP is requiring you to render the clips is because the clip settings do not match the sequence settings (ie 720×480 clips dropped onto a 720×486 timeline Wrong!!!) When you have mismatching settings FCP is required to transcode the clips to confirm to the timeline settings which is why you get a red render bar.
You should confirm what the clip properties are for the original quicktime clips and verify the settings match your timeline settings.
In the browser right click on the clips and select item properties to view information regarding the clips.
Tony Salgado
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One item I need to add is when outputting via SDI on a dvcpro 50 deck or capturing via SDI using a video card either the vtr or the capture card will take care of adding the extra six lines to conform the original 720×480 dvcpro 50 footage to 720×486. It is important to note the original dvcpro 50 should have been 720×480 but that is assuming it came from a camera or other dvcpro 50 material. In your case since it was captured via virtual vtr you need to confirm what the clips actually are and if they conform to the dvcpro 50 spec which is 720×480.
I prefer to avoid confusion and only use the D1 601 spec 720×486 settings for uncompressed codecs or non dv spec codecs.
Tony Salgado
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Thanks for the insights Tony.
Let me try to be as clear as I can: The clips that the lab gave me right out of Virtual VTR are most definitley 720×486 – whether they should be or not, they are 486 not 480 without a doubt.
So, when I set my FCP timeline to 486 so that it matches the clips, I get a red bar and have to render it. I just double checked both the clip and seq settings, both are set to 720×486 and it makes me render it to see it.The real issue is not having to render, but the tearing. which you said is due to a field disorder.
Could you elaborate a little? I just double checked both my clips properties and my SEQ settings and they are both Lower field first – is that what you mean? If so, they are both the same, so what else could be causing it? So, do I need to go back to the lab and tell them to give me new clips and make sure they are 720×480? Will that fix the tearing? Or, should I make them lay it to tape and then actually capture in FCP instead of them exporting through virtual VTR and then pulling those clips into FCP?Thanks!
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Ruckus,
Under the item properties you also need to confirm the codec the lab used.
If this was a direct xfer from the Spirit I sort of doubt they would have used the dv50 codec when an uncompressed codec would be much better given the image quality.
So confirm what the codec is first and then verify if you have the same codec in FCP.
If not then you need to either transcode all the clips using media manager or render them in the FCP timeline with the codec you have chosen to use ie DV50.
In anycase 720×486 or 720×480 is only part of your problem.
I have only played briefly with Virtual VTR (thanks to their terrible demo download which only allows the demo to run for five minutes.) so I can’t answer specific issues with VVTR.
Contact VVTR directly and hope they don’t hang up on you after five minutes.
Tony Salgado
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Tony, yes they did use DVCPRO50 codec, because that’s what I asked them to use (that’s what the client wanted). Anyway, it turns out that Virtual VTR’s DCCPRO50 preset actually puts out the clips at 640×486, but the clip properties say that it’s 720 – even though it’s really 640. Makes no sense and the lab couldn’t explain it either. There was no way to adjust it in virtual VTR, so they just re-output it for me as uncompressed 8bit 4:2:2 and now it works great and looks better anyway. We’ll just have to downconvert it to DVCPRO50 after we finish cutting it.
Thanks to everyone who took the time to try and help!
-Ruckus
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Ruckus,
If you are using a video card such as an AJA kona you can edit in uncompressed and then output via SDI to a dvcpro 50 deck or you could use media manager to transcode between uncompressed to dv 50.
Thanks for the update on VVTR.
Tony Salgado
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