canon 30f -> fcp -> SD DVD = horrible results on action shots

[Chris Borjis]

This is clearly an “out of field order” issue.

use the same DVD preset, but change the field order.

if its set to automatic, force it to upper.

[Dave Blodgett]

thanks Chris – I agree!

I capture the video at 1080p30 with fields set to ‘none’ – this is how the clips show up in the browser.

In the Cinema Craft Options window Advanced settings/First Field I used:
– progressive;
– Source Top/Output Bottom;
– Source Top/Output Top;
– Source Bottom/Output Bottom;
– Source Bottom/Output Top;

Each of the results are either bad or terrible, so, moving up my workflow I tried adjusting the field order in the timeline prior to exporting the QT movie. I’ve used ‘none’ and ‘top’, then ran through all CC options above – again no changes other than varying degrees of bad.

There’s something else I’m missing…

[Chris Borjis]

ah, I missed that you captured 30F

so it plays from fcp timeline out to a crt monitor with no problems….right?

[Dave Blodgett]

I believe the problem is there when played from the timeline – it’s a little hard to see it on the small letterboxed monitor.

And I think that would explain why all the changes downstream in CinemaCraft & compressor have no effect…

[Chris Borjis]

You might try to somehow interlace that.

a dvd player i think only does progressive output
on 24p footage.

if you can somehow do this…maybe pass it through after effects
and add upper field first to the render option.

I think that would fix it.

on another note, 1080 30P is NOT at all supported on blu-ray.
if you encode an HD file to that spec, your authoring app will
reject it or transcode it if it has the option.

that one bit me last week.

I added interlacing to upper field first using compressor (maybe you could try that?)

[Dave Blodgett]

I’ll poke around in compressor and see if I can add interlacing, but I may not have been clear on the outset – I’m just creating a NTSC SD DVD – The source is canon 1080 30f.

I’m using compressor/cinemacraft to downconvert the media as part of the mpeg2 transcoding.

-d

[Dave Blodgett]

Adding interlacing via compressor clearly added interlace, but it was on top of the problem I’m seeing – I can distinctly see both the interlacing and the orginal issue.

I’ve burned more coaters than I care to count at this point and nothing seems to improve the situation, but many options make matters worse.

What I’ve concluded is I’m fighting whats probably understood by folks shooting action sequences – when shooting 30p, the subject has simply moved quite a distance between frames and we get what is more approriately called strobe or judder like scenario. We are very close to the moving subject – sometimes just a foot or less, but more typically 4 – 6 feet, from the subject thats traveling 20 – 50 mph. I set the shutter to 1/1000 so I can pull clean frame grabs of the subject, but the cost appears to be the strobing.

I think my options at this point are – 1) live with it; 2) shoot with a higher speed camera; 3) reduce the shutter speed to improve strobing, but give up on clean slo-motion sequences and frame grabs. 4) Shoot in 60i. (since 99% of what we shoot goes online this wasn’t our 1st choice)

If I’ve totally missed something here, or there are other alternatives I’d enjoy hearing them!

thx,
-d

[Chris Borjis]

wow Dave, I missed that part.

you shot it at 1/1000 shutter?

I shoot a lot of stuff on the JVC HD100 720P at 30P.

I’ve noticed if you don’t leave it at 1/60th shutter your asking
for trouble.

that kind of strobing really bugs me too.

[Dave Blodgett]

My bad – you didn’t miss it – I was convinced the problem I was seeing was at the other end of the line. After searching searching searching I had one of those AHA! moments…

The 1/1000 gives me almost perfect stop motion and the canon produces great frame grabs that we pull into PS & use extensively. Optical flow produces some really crisp slo-motion effects as well. The strobing never became an issue until we tried to create DVD’s.

[George Sloan]

Dave,

I realize this is an old post but I am where you were 2 years ago.
This thread sort of stops before i can fully grasp how you resolved this issue.

I too have horrible results when i get to the dvd stage. For years having same problem as you with same camera equipment.

What exactly did you conclude. I am currently trying to burn a 30 minute program shot in 1080 30F, shutter was set at 1/30 and 1/60.

My Dvds suck but great looking off the timeline.

Are you saying that with faster shutter speeds my footage will look better on DVD?

George

George Sloan Productions
http://www.sloanmotion.com
“Music Mountain” Channel 4 Windstream Cable TV
Cannon Xh A1 1080i>FCP7>ProRes>SD DVD>Delivery on DVD to Broadcast and DVD distribution