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Field dominance issue …Shane?
I just finished editing a sequence in a 10 bit uncompressed FCP project. The material in the edit comes both from Digibeta and P2 Standard def DVCPro 50. The sequence is roughly evenly split 50% of each format. My sequence settings are 10 bit uncompressed and the P2 clips have a shift field filter. Everything looks perfect.
(Note: in PAL- Digibeta field dominance is “upper” while the DVCPro50 comes in “lower”, thus the field dominance filter)
In addition to laying back to Digital Beta I also need to output an IMX50 file of this sequence in an MXF wrapper. To accomplish this I have the GC Export plugin from MXF4Mac. So, I place this finished sequence in a new sequence with settings set to IMX50 (this is a requisite of the plug-in and export.
In the new IMX file the material from Digibeta looks fine while the P2 material has a field dominance issue. In fact when I looked at the sequence with the IMX50 settings, strangely enough the shift field filter had disappeared. Looking at the settings, the field dominance was set to upper just as in the 10 bit uncompressed sequence, but without the shift field filter the P2 shots were jittery. I changed it to “none” and the whole sequence seemed to look fine, both the digibeta and P2 material.
My question is, is that a good solution? What exactly does the “none” field dominance setting do? Is there a more correct way of going about this? Why did FCP not tranfer over the shift field filter?
Thanks for any feedback.
Dual 2.7 GHz G5, 4GB RAM, ATI Radeon 9650, Xserve RAID, AJA IO, 2 20″ Cinema Display, FCP Studio 2 (6.02), OS X10.4.11
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15 Replies
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ALL SD field dominance should be UPPER. Why DVCPRO 50 was LOWER is puzzling, but I admit that I don’t work with DVCPRO 50…so what do I know? FCP adds that filter automatically when it deems it necessary…and that can be maddening, because many times you DON’T want it. But you do…hmmmm. In your MOTION tab, is the center 0, 0, and the Scale 100%?
Shane
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I’m not in front of the computer now so I can’t check but I am sure it is. In fact FCP added that filter. I didn’t. I think that the DVCpro50 is lower field dominance though. In fact the 10 bit uncompressed sequence looks fine. I copied the question to Bjorn at MXF4 mac to see if he’s ever come across this issue.
The maddening this is that copying those clips over to the new sequence FCP DIDN’T copy that particular filter over. The other filters (color corretion… et.) are all in tact. Mysterious! I have to figure it out though since we are starting to build our ompany archive in IMX50…
Dual 2.7 GHz G5, 4GB RAM, ATI Radeon 9650, Xserve RAID, AJA IO, 2 20″ Cinema Display, FCP Studio 2 (6.02), OS X10.4.11
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[Kim Rowley] “My question is, is that a good solution? What exactly does the “none” field dominance setting do?”
All renders will not be rendered a field at a time, but rather progressively or a frame at a time. If you have any moves or zooms on your footage, this could look odd as the motion characteristics of your footage and renders might not match (interlaced footage rendered progressively).
In the IMX sequence, if you add the shift fields filter, does the footage look better? I would keep all the dv50 footage @ lower.
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[Jeremy Garchow] “I would keep all the dv50 footage @ lower.”
I agree with Jeremy. SD is lower, not upper, unless it’s PAL.
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in my experience, any SD codec that starts with “DV” is lower field first – all the others are upper field first … fcp will let you think you have change the field dominance (eg, changed uncompressed to lower field first) but when you play it back it is still playing with the appropriate field first for the chosen codec
i learned this the hard way trying to export dvcpro50 edits to an avid system that didn’t support dvcpro50 – i ended up converting to uncompressed and adding a shift fields filter to every shot
if you set fcp to use none (no field dominance) it will play the footage as if it were progressive – this can look a bit jerky if the footage is actually interlaced (although not quite as bad as the wrong field order)
btw, if you copy an fcp edit from a lower field first sequence and paste it into an upper field first sequence it doesn’t automatically adjust the transitions to work upper field first
sorry, i’m getting off-topic so i’ll go now
jjjjjj
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I’ll try that first thing in the morning Jeremy (the work day is over in Italy!). In the 10 bit uncompressed sequence the DVCPro50 stuff HAS the filter (added automatically by FCP) and looks fine next to the Digibeta material. The strange thing is when I place the entire sequence into an empty IMX50 sequence that filter on the P2 shots disappears (maybe because it was added automatically in the first place??) and the same P2 shots have the field dominance problem while the Digibeta shots look fine. I definetly DON’T want to have to pick put each individual P2 shot and add the filter manually.
I am in PAL land so field dominance in Digital Beta is upper.
Dual 2.7 GHz G5, 4GB RAM, ATI Radeon 9650, Xserve RAID, AJA IO, 2 20″ Cinema Display, FCP Studio 2 (6.02), OS X10.4.11
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[Kim Rowley] “(maybe because it was added automatically in the first place??)”
That would be my guess. I am not really sure, but it should be there.
[Kim Rowley] “I definetly DON’T want to have to pick put each individual P2 shot and add the filter manually. “
I hear that, but that might be your only option.
[Kim Rowley] “I am in PAL land so field dominance in Digital Beta is upper. “
Yes, I get it. The IMX is upper too. I’d see if the shift fields filter fixes it, if it does, maybe we can come up with a way to keep the filters on there, like an XML and reconnect method instead of a copy and paste, or simply export a 10bit movie and plop that in to the IMX sequence.
Are you nesting the 10bit in to IMX or just copying and pasting the whole sequence?
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I’m copy and pasting the entire sequence. What do you mean by nesting? That sounds like an interesting idea to try…
Thanks for your time guys. It seems like I always have the weirdest problems 🙂Dual 2.7 GHz G5, 4GB RAM, ATI Radeon 9650, Xserve RAID, AJA IO, 2 20″ Cinema Display, FCP Studio 2 (6.02), OS X10.4.11
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[Kim Rowley] “What do you mean by nesting?”
Nesting would be to drag the 10bit sequence from the browser in to the IMX sequence. It essentially makes a clip out of sequence.
I would use Compressor to make the IMX50 movie form a 10 bit reference export, reimport that IMX50 clip and put it in the sequence, then export with GC Export FCP.
Jeremy
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Thanks Jeremy. I guess I have my homework for tomorrow. I’ll post back with the results. It will be interesting to see how long Compressor takes to generate the file. Doing it straight from FCP took 2 hours for a 48 minute program.
Dual 2.7 GHz G5, 4GB RAM, ATI Radeon 9650, Xserve RAID, AJA IO, 2 20″ Cinema Display, FCP Studio 2 (6.02), OS X10.4.11
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