• Apple Final Cut Pro Legacy

  Problem with DV PAL and field jitter in ProRes timeline

  Posted by Malte Decker on May 22, 2015 at 3:26 pm

  Hi there,

  I have a problem and by now I’m afraid that I’m running in circles. Here is what I would like to do:

  I have movie scenes in DV PAL (lower field first). I want to make a DVD from them but need to apply some colour correction and graphics first.

  To get better quality results I created a “ProRes 422” Sequence (right mouse button on sequence-> Settings) as follows:

  – Frame Size: 720×576, DV-PAL
  – Pixel Aspect Ratio: DV-PAL
  – Field Dominance: Lower(Even)
  – Timebase: 25
  – Compressor: Apple ProRes 422
  – Quality: 100
  – Advanced: Interlaced: Bottom field first

  In addition I set “high-precision YUV” and “Motion filtering” to “Best”.

  When I drop one of my “lower field” DV PAL clips on that timeline it plays correctly (on computer monitor and broadcast monitor through FireWire PAL), it has a green bar at the top though (preview, needs render). There are no filters or any changes to it yet (triple checked).
  When I hit “CMD+R” now, to render it, it renders fine but playback jitters (wrong field order) on my broadcast monitor.

  I then thought I made a field error and applied a “shift fields” filter. Another render and the output on my broadcast monitor is perfect.
  I went ahead and made the DVD sticking to BFF wherever I put the file and the DVD playback jitters in my DVD player.

  All MPEG files are BFF, the inspector in FCP says Lower Field and I double checked with GSpot.

  No matter how I export (Quicktime movie, Quicktime Conversion or Compressor) I get the same result.

  Strange enough, importing the created ProRes movie that monitors fine from FCP 7 into FCP X shows the jitter there. I monitor through a blackmagic card form FCP X and although the inspector there says lower field, it plays with the wrong field order.

  When I do the same process using a ProRes timeline with “Upper field” and applying a “shift fields” to my DV clips to make them upper field first, everyhting seems fine in both 7 and X.
  This is not my desired outcome though since I have to go back to DV tape later and I would run into the wrong field issue then, wouldn’t I?

  To make things even weirder, testing the motion clips I made for the project (ProRes with Lower Field) showed that they work so my problem is limited to DV PAL in ProRes with lower field.

  So, long story short, am I missing a setting in FCP 7 to get lower field DV clips into a lower field ProRes sequence?

  My troubleshooting involved trashing preferences, a complete new project and another computer with FCP 7 installed. All showed the same problems.
  It seems like FCP 7 is simply ignoring the “lower field” when it renders the timeline.

  To anybody who read through to here: Thanks a lot in advance, any help is appreciated, I hope I just made a dumb mistake, it is friday evning here after all.

  Thanks again and have a great weekend,

  Malte

  Michael Gissing replied 11 years, 3 months ago 2 Members · 4 Replies
• 4 Replies

• 

  Malte Decker

  May 22, 2015 at 5:26 pm

  No, all PAL. It is connected to a Sony M-15 (set up in PAL) through component.

  Thanks! =)
• 

  Michael Gissing

  May 23, 2015 at 3:37 am

  In PAL everything is Upper field except DV codec. Your sequence can be ProRes but set the fields to upper on the sequence and then put the shift fields filter on all the DV footage.

  The resulting DVD should also be upper field. DV is such a pain in PAL as it is the only codec that is lower field from the camera. You may have noticed that all PAL Easy Setups default to upper as it is correct.
• 

  Malte Decker

  May 26, 2015 at 7:40 am

  Thanks a lot for the additional input. After a few days of trying to get it done using “lower field” I ended up making the whole DVD in “upper field” and now it works and looks great so it was worth going through ProRes.

  Now my problem is: How do I proceed about getting it back on tape without messing up fields? Drop the finished movie in a DV sequence and shift fields?

  @Dave: I tried what you suggested and it played fine in FCP 7 but jittered in FCP X so I assume the original field order is correct but my FCP 7 messes things up somehow.
  What made things even stranger is that when I made a new ProRes sequence with “Lower Field”, dropped in one of the motion bits (rendered from motion in ProRes with “Lower Field”) and then added the original clip into it, it worked as expected. All “lower field”, no filters needed and the MPEG shows no jitter. Maybe the ProRes output defaults to “upper field” unless there is a ProRes clip in “Lower Field” in the beginning?

  Thanks again, your help is really appreciated. Sorry about the late reply as well, I needed a break from all this.

  Malte
• 

  Michael Gissing

  May 26, 2015 at 10:06 am

  What tape do you intend to go back onto. Unless it is back to DV (ugh) then all other PAL tape formats are Upper so use the ProRes upper sequence.

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