Banding/Moire witih stillls in FCP

[Jaap Verdenius]

You have to start with the question if the problem occurs in FCP or afterwards. If it is already there in FCP it probably has something to dot with the way you import your tiffs. If it happens afterwards it is an encoding problem.

In many cases the video is OK and what you are looking at is a display problem. So when in FCP, if possible look at a 1:1 display of your video on a broadcast monitor.
I would prefer an uncompressed timeline over DV. I have no idea why Animation would make things any better. Same for the Slug. Keyframes are fine.

I guess DVDStudioPro is more pro than iDVD – but I am just looking at the name! Anyway the essential thing is that you need to be able to tweak the encoding. Therefore I would export the timeline to Compressor and encode in Compressor, using the best settings (variable and two-pass or the “best encode” setting that comes with Compressor). This will give you encoded mpeg video and aac audio that you can take into DVDStudioPro – the process inside DVDStudioPro will be pretty straightforward.

If the fades are really long it may make sense to put a few compression markers on the timeline in FCP (these are forcing Compressor to do an extra effort on that spot).

Jaap

[Dianne Searle]

Thanks Jaap, for your thorough reply. You hit alot of nails on the head. I’m making progress and here’s what’s worked. Re where it starts, I originally was using Jpegs, which were a big problem, and switched to Tiffs awhile back and importing them properly. All but the fades to black are now good.

It was slightly visible in FCP, then more in the Quick time movies and then worst of all in the DVD on a monitor. I have switched from reg 8 bit then to Hi Prec res, then tried Animation and now am Using Uncompressed 10 bit, which is the best ( but not alot different than hi prec res). With the Uncompressed 10bit the Quicktime Movie was terrible (a G5 couldn’t even play it–was lagging and skipping images), but after using Compressor and DV Studio Pro, it worked like a charm, looked much better ( the reverse of what was happening before–when I was using iDVD the QTM was much better than the DVD results on a monitor). Someone helped me with the Studio Pro and said the settings were
all good, but I can’t find how to see if all the things you said are set– where do you set them? ( He’ll be back Monday, and will probably know, too)

I am now using a broadcast monitor, which is a big help in knowing what’s happening as I go. I tried putting in compression markers in but couldn’t see a difference. I am now adding noise, and seeing if that can bring the last long fades (20-30 sec) ones to the point they are useable. I’ll try agin with the compression markers and noise tpgether and see where that gets me.
Thanks sooooo much for your generous help.

[Rafael Amador]

Hi Dianne,
FC is not very good when making long dissolve/fades.
You may try the Nattress “Long Dissolve ” transition.
Other solution can be to put a piece of Black in a layer on top, and bring the transparency from 0 to
100%.

[Dianne Searle] “The suggestions I am following up are: color smoothing filter, “reduce banding” filter, using a noise filter “
The Color Smoothing filter will work only if you change your Sequence codec to any 422; At least DV50.
If you export as DV, it doesn’t make any effect.
Tiff, Gpeg, etc are all 8b RGB. To get rid of the banding, try rendering to a 10b codec. Set Render all in High Precission. If the banding persist you may try to apply a little (very little:0.2 or 0.4) Gaussian Blur to any of the three color channels. See which one works better.
Rafael

http://www.nagavideo.com

[David Roth weiss]

Diane,

Another huge issue in many case such as the one you’re having is making certain that black levels are set properly on all stills. If black levels are not truly black you will often see moire patterns and banding though your fades to black. Blacks should be set at “0” on the waveform monitor for each still using the 3-Way Color Corrector.

David

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

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A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.

[Dianne Searle]

Excellent advice– I will check that. Thanks so much
D.

[Dianne Searle]

Hi Dianne,
Re FCP not being very good at it– you are not kidding! So far nothing has worked, even in Uncompressed 10 bit. I’m not at my editing place now, but it seems to me that when my sequence setting is on that, the hi prec render is greyed out.
Re the Nattress “Long Dissolve” transition, have you tried it? I’ve read forum entires saying great and useless. Just emailed Nattress to see if I can buy just that, not the whole package, and whether it should work on this.
Thanks for the idea of fading the black, instead of the image– that would be elegant in it’s simplicity!
How do I apply the Gaussian Blur to “any of the three color channels”. That’s new territory for me, and don;t get the concept.
Thanks so much,Rafael, for giving this so much thought. Something has to work!