Choosing Field Order for DVD menu’s

[Tim Kurkoski]

Use lower field first. You can use non-interlaced, but the footage will be interlaced on a TV anyway, and the motion will be slightly smoother.

Yes, AE will render the fields separately if you specify fields, so there will be a little bit of a render time impact.

[Andra]

Thanks!

Just out of curiosity: Why Lower, and when do you use upper field first.

At work we have a Media 100i editing system. I’ve been told it uses a different field order than usual, so I’m guessing that’s Upper Field First. But if so, how could it ever interoperate between the different tape machines we’ve got?

By the way: does PAL or NTSC make any difference when it comes to field order. I’m from the Netherlands, so we use PAL.

Thanks again.

Yours,
Andra

[Tim Kurkoski]

Field order is dependent on the format and hardware you’re using, and if I recall, Media100 does favor upper field.

I’m not really sure how devices can switch field order, but I think it may be format dependent, and in situations where the order must be adjusted, they seem to have figured out how to do it gracefully.

Both NTSC and PAL can be either field order. I’ve seen PAL associated with upper field more commonly than NTSC, but that doesn’t really mean anything. I actually double-checked on field order for PAL DVD before I wrote the last post, and PAL DVD does appear to use lower field.

[Michael Duff]

you can usually be sure that footage captured from a consumer DV camera through firewire is lowerfield first. I’ve found most professional NLE’s are upper (I don’t know why). If you search the archives you will find a way to determine if footage is captured upper or lower, I just can’t remember the process at the moment.

My guess (and I’m not really sure of this) with tape machines, is that there is no dominate field order until it is captured. The tape machine just plays all the fields in the order they are on tape…..it’s when you capture those fields (half frames) and want to work with them as full frames that it becomes an issue. hmmmmm, it makes sense in my head….

[Michael Duff]

you can usually be sure that footage captured from a consumer DV camera through firewire is lowerfield first. I’ve found most professional NLE’s are upper (I don’t know why). If you search the archives you will find a way to determine if footage is captured upper or lower, I just can’t remember the process at the moment.

My guess (and I’m not really sure of this) with tape machines, is that there is no dominate field order until it is captured. The tape machine just plays all the fields in the order they are on tape…..it’s when you capture those fields (half frames) and want to work with them as full frames that it becomes an issue. hmmmmm, it makes sense in my head….

[Tim Kurkoski]

Thanks, duff. That aligns with my thinking, but stated far more eloquently than I could.

[Dakota Joe]

“You can use non-interlaced, but the footage will be interlaced on a TV anyway, and the motion will be slightly smoother.” I hadn’t heard that before (re: it being smoother with interlacing). Is this common knowledge?

[Michael Duff]

well interlaced footage is “smoother” because you are getting 50 different (half) pictures a second (rather than 25). But it will only look smoother if it was actually rendered interlaced. If you render without fields (full frames) then play on a TV, technically the footage is interlaced, but the two fields are made up of the same frame split in two….
confusing……

so….

interlaced footage is “smoother” – and is how most video is recorded is played back. – but most people will agree that is had a very distinct “video” look

full frame footage is not as smooth, but most will agree it has a more “film” look

For most things we render full-frames (non-interlaced) because we prefer that look.