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Do I need to de-interlace, and how?
Hi there,
I have researched the answer to this question on the forums here already and there’s probably a post that covers it, but I am still somewhat baffled. Please help!!
I am shooting on a Canon Vixia FHM500. I have three choices for frame rate under manual mode. 60i, PF30, and PF24. I have questions on all three modes, but the first is regarding 60i. I have some grasp of the interlacing concept. It is meant to look fine as is for TV and DVDs, but on the computer the interlacing lines are very apparent. I’m referring to the horizontal lines that appear whenever anything on frame moves quickly. I am currently editing for the web and want to get this looking as good as possible.
I’m using Mac OS 10.6.8 Snow Leopard and FCP 7. When I’m in FCP the files and everything on my timeline looks fantastic. No interlacing lines. When I output it however, crazy lines. Those lines are also there when I open the files from my capture scratch folder in Quicktime. I brought them in using log and transfer. I gather the reason it looks that way is because it is trying to put two interlaced frames into one progressive frame, right?
So, my question is how to I make my output files look like they do in FCP. Do I really need to use a de-interlacing filter? I can’t believe they would sell this camera with the extra step as part of the process, but maybe they do. And if I do need to de-interlace what is the best workflow for that.
Again, sorry if this is a duplicate question. I tried my best to find the answer on my own, but no luck.
Thanks,
Victor
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9 Replies
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After exporting (assuming “self-contained, current settings”) from the timeline, are you compressing for the web in Compressor? If so, with the setting that you applied to the job selected, go to the inspector, turn on frame controls and set deinterlace to best. It might take a bit longer to encode.
60i is not uncommon but if you are shooting with the specific intention to deliver to the web, probably just shoot progressive and avoid interlacing all together in the future. I use Matrox MAX to encode H.264 for Web/Blu-ray/mobile and use its deinterlace. It encodes h.264 in just under real time.
I think the general consensus is that FCP7s deinterlace is crap, I’m sure someone will chime in with better details on this whole situation.
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Thanks, David. I will give that a shot and report back. I had beeb compressing just using quicktime. Probably taboo for the pros, but it seems to work fine. I’ll run it through compressor and see what I get.
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Hey David,
Gave it a shot and the de-interlace feature on Compressor didn’t really do much at all. I used the Apple Prorez 422 preset and turned the deinterlace up to best as you had suggested. Here’s a screen shot of what it looks like post-deinterlacing. Argh!
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Hmm, we’re missing something here. What setting are you using in compressor?
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I don’t use Compressor all that often so it’s entirely possible I’m doing something wrong. Here’s what I did:
I opened Compressor and dragged my final .mov file from finder into the “untitled” window at the top left. Then from the settings tab I went under the Apple folder/Formats folder/Quicktime folder and found the Apple ProRes 422 preset. Dragged that up to the same window top left. Then under Inspector I went to frame controls. Everything was grayed out so I clicked on the little sprockett looking icon to the right of frame controls and it allowed me to turn them on. I then clicked on the drop down under deinterlace and selected “Best (motion compensated)”.
Did I miss something?
Victor
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Did you click to select the setting in the untitled window (batch window) before going to the inspector and turning on frame controls? If not, it’s likely that you changed the default setting in the settings browser, and not the setting applied to your clip.
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Just tried again to double check. I did select the setting in the batch window before changing the frame controls. Same result. Crazy horizontal lines.
Thanks, by the way, for trouble shooting this with me.
Victor
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I’ve been researching Compressor and deinterlacing cause of extreme comb/jaggy effect viewing my SD footage on an HD monitor. Not your issue I know, but here are some resources I’ve found:
https://documentation.apple.com/en/compressor/usermanual/index.html#chapter=23%26section=1%26tasks=true
https://www.digitalrebellion.com/blog/posts/using_frame_controls_in_compressor.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinterlacing
https://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/compressor_3.5_basics_stone.html
Some people say that “better” is better than “best.”
Blending vs interpolation seems to be an issue–supposedly the latter better for images with lots of movement.
I’m still working on this.Robert Withers
Independent/personal/avant-garde cinema, New York City
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Thanks Robert. I appreciate the help.
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