1080 settings and render help

[Ben Holmes]

Hi dave

Where are you viewing it – on an external monitor I hope? As has been explained here a couple of million times, the canvas does not display at full quality – especially text and gfx.

If you are importing an HD logo into an SD timeline for DVD export, you may also see aliasing caused by the downscaling – again, this will look better on an actual monitor, but if there’s a lot of detail in the logo, it may require additional remedial work. Ultimately, this requirement depends on how prominent it is in the set.

Finally – if you want to play a loop on set, and it’s a large HD monitor or Plasma, you would get a much better result onset rendering an HD quicktime, and playing it off a laptop or similar.

Ben

Edit Out Ltd
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[Dave Francombe]

I am totally new to HD. So I have shot myself in the foot here, so thanks for the help.

Yes I am seeing it on a monitor, however in SD as it is somehow getting shot down my aja io and into monitor via component. Not sure how or where its converting that HD timeline to SD.

Anyhows…. I liked your suggestion of creating an HD render and playing it out on a computer. I have to add a background and make the loop in FCP and that’s where my problems start. Any chance you could talk me through the process from the moment I open FCP, drop that clip into the timeline, get the mismatched settings notice and the red render line.

Man I love SD down SDI to digibeta.

Thanks so much

[Ben Holmes]

Hi Dave

I don’t know what drives you have – and this makes a difference to the best workflow.

Assuming you have an external array running via eSata, fibre, FW800 etc. or an internal array of 3 or more drives, here’s what I’d do.

Create a timeline that is 1080i/p (at whatever framerate you’re using) ProRes HQ. You will have a bunch of options in the sequence settings tab.

Drop your background into the first layer, and IGNORE the ‘change settings’ option, so you have a red bar. Drop the logo into the second video layer – this will automatically key over the background. Render the timeline, so you have an HD ProRes HQ timeline that will playback smoothly on your system. Note that the Animation codec the logo was delivered in is – well – a DELIVERY codec – it’s very high quality, very high bitrate and very compatible with other systems, but NO GOOD for playback, so you don’t want to create an animation codec timeline by accident.

If you have a Kona LH or Kona 2/3, set the external video setting in FCP to Kona 1080(whatever – see above) and set the secondary output/component output to SD to allow monitoring – see your Kona manual for this. The Kona downconverter is very good, but you MUST set the primary setup for the card to 1080 HD, and the external video to HD, THEN set the component or secondary SDI output to SD to view this material PROPERLY in SD.

EITHER – render out a quicktime in H.264 at 1080 for playback on a dual-core laptop, or more powerful system, or use compressor to create a high quality MPEG 2 for DVD, import to DVDSP and burn the DVD. MPEG2 is pretty compressed, and coupled with the conversion from HD>SD, this may cause aliasing and other ‘noise’ in the transfer. However, as with all DVDs, they tend to look a LOT better on a TV via a DVD player, as opposed to seeing it back on a computer monitor, so don’t panic before seeing it properly.

Computer playback IN ANY FORM is very unforgiving, so don’t make too much of these issues before seeing it back properly.

If you tell me more about your system, and the material, I may be able to give more specific info, but talking you through every step may be a little time-consuming…

Ben

Edit Out Ltd
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[Dave Francombe]

Thanks again for the advice.

This system I believe is fcp 6 running on a dual 2.5 intel based mac with an FW 800 external drive.

Couple questions when you say to render out a pro rez movie. Should I render it out and send a movie to the drives before rendering out the timeline?

Can I composite the 1080 logo with a stretched and blurred Sd background on layer 1.

3. To get best quality, playing out an HD movie on a computer to a monitor is better than from an SD monitor.

Again thanks for your help. We have a lot of SD broadcast delivery experience but zero in HD, and none in creating graphics for a monitor. So its a painful process made worse by the fact I am shooting on Tuesday !

[Ben Holmes]

Hi Dave

To answer briefly:

[Dave Francombe] “Couple questions when you say to render out a pro rez movie. Should I render it out and send a movie to the drives before rendering out the timeline? “

No – just render the timeline, not export. Only export if you want to make a 1080 H.264 Quicktime for playback on the onset monitor. I am assuming the onset monitor is an HD plasma or similar – is this correct?

[Dave Francombe] “Can I composite the 1080 logo with a stretched and blurred Sd background on layer 1. “

Yes – sounds like a good idea, if the monitor is HD. Best thing is to make a sequence with the same resolution as the monitor you want to use on set – so if it’s HD, make an HD sequence.

[Dave Francombe] “To get best quality, playing out an HD movie on a computer to a monitor is better than from an SD monitor. “

You mean better than playing from a DVD? Yes – if the monitor is HD itself. You will need to check that the computer you plan to use can play the HD movie smoothly – for 1080 it will need to be a modern and powerful laptop. Try it. One other advantage of this is that Quicktime Player can do the looping for you, so you don’t have to render out 20 mins of logo – just one ‘rotation’.

Ben

Edit Out Ltd
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[Dave Francombe]

Thanks again Ben.

I think I am going to try the HD qt from my computer. The monitor is 1080p so I will look through Qt settings to see if I can find the loop functionality. So the key to getting rid of the crappy looking render is finding the closest setting to the logo settings in apple pro rez, and just accept that the render I am seeing looks crappy because the canvas doesn’t view it clearly and the monitor is SD.

[Ben Holmes]

[Dave Francombe] ” I will look through Qt settings to see if I can find the loop functionality”

Easy – in QT Player, under ‘View’ check ‘Loop’ – or press Apple L.

[Dave Francombe] ” the key to getting rid of the crappy looking render is finding the closest setting to the logo settings in apple pro rez”

Well – sort of. Make sure you’re not EITHER dropping this into an SD timeline by accident, so check there is no scaling under the motion tab of the logo OR creating an animation codec timeline which will not play smoothly – and yes, any HD material with too much detail (like an overly busy logo) may look awful in SD.

Finally – and I can’t stress this enough – NEVER use the canvas as a judge of quality – it’s deliberately lower in quality to ensure smooth playback. ONLY trust your output, and be sure you’re setup correctly on the AJA card (ie. it’s primarily setup in HD with the downconvert to SD on the card, not on your video out setup in FCP).

PLEASE – check your system can play the HD QT before getting on set – I’d take a DVD backup just in case anyway, and ensure you can connect your Mac to the monitor on set as well, and that it will accept the frame size you’ve made – better safe than sorry when everything else depends on it.

Good luck.

Ben

Edit Out Ltd
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FCP Editor/Trainer/System Consultant
EVS/VT Supervisor for live broadcast
RED camera transfer/post
Independent Director/Producer