Cropping doubts

[John Rofrano]

So, it is better to apply Mercalli to the original HDV 50i (50 “half-frames”) then to the interpolated 50p (50 “full frames”)?

Since you didn’t shoot in 50p and you are creating the progressive frames by doubling the fields, I would apply Mercalli to the original interlaced footage. Stabilize it first, then do whatever splitting to 50p and slo-mo that you want.

I made a copy of the template I’m using in my project and created a new template with the same exact name but with “prodad mercalli” at the beginning: is this the only way to tell mercalli which template to use when rendering the effected clip?

You know I’ve never looked into making templates for Mercalli or if that’s even possible. Did it say to do this in the manual? I’m not at my editing desk right now so I can’t look.

What about interlacing? Shall I have to leave the clip interlaced or it is better to do some de-interlacing before applying Mercalli?

No. Mercalli can handle interlaced footage and this is the highest quality you have to give it. Deinterlacing will soften the image and hide some of the motion. Let Mercalli work on the original footage.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Fabio Mereghetti]

Thanks.

Am I doing something wrong or it is not possible to have Mercally in “pre” and pan/crop in “post”?

Shall I have to render to cineform before being able to apply a manual crop?

So, in order to get the smoothest slow motion effect starting from an HDV 1440×1080 50i 1.3333 footage shot by hand to be outputted to DVD widescreen 720×576 50i (or it is better 25p?) which is the more productive (in terms of quality) workflow?

I will attemp my one:

1 – capture as it was shot – 1440×1080 50i m2t
2 – apply Mercalli with static border and no scaling
3 – render to Cineform HD or other editable lossless codec
4 – apply manual cropping (and occasional pan, if you need) with “Stretch to fill” ON
5 – render to Cineform HD 1440×1080 50p with interpolation and smart resampling ON [Eugenia’s hint] (or use a dedicated plugin, if you have)
6 – apply your slow motioning with playback speed and/or velocity envelopes
7 – render to Cineform HD 25p (progressive or interlaced?) to be able to insert the slowed clips into the main 25p project
8 – enjoy!

@John: how did I score? Did I get the 50% right, at least?

Thanks.

[John Rofrano]

Am I doing something wrong or it is not possible to have Mercally in “pre” and pan/crop in “post”?

If you want to crop after applying an FX you need to toggle the Pre/Post button on the keyframe timeline like this:

Click it to toggle. If the arrow points left the FX is applied “pre crop” and to the right (like in the picture) it’s applied “post crop” which is the default.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Fabio Mereghetti]

With just Mercalli and pan/crop I see no arrows.

If I add another FX then I can see the arrows appear.

Thanks.

Do you know if it is possible to apply Mercalli to different events in batch?

Thanks again.

[John Rofrano]

Yea it seems that Mercalli hides the keyframe window since you can’t keyframe it. The workaround would be to add a second FX and then disable it just to be able to toggle pre/post.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Fabio Mereghetti]

It doesn’t work.

Even putting Mercalli in “pre”, with the static border output, when I open the pan/crop window I don’t see the black borders. And if I set “dynamic border” ON, in the pan/crop window I don’t see the cropped frame (by Mercalli) moving around as in the preview window.

I think the only way to apply a manual cropping after applying Mercalli is to render to lossless and import the rendered clip in place of the dry one and then apply your manual pan/crop.

It seems that pan/crop is always put before the effects chain. I tried with cookie cutter and it’s the same.

Thanks.