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DVCPro HD 720p pixelated in viewer!
Imported 720p source footage, it is crisp and clear. Dragged to comp icon to create new composition with clip settings. Interpreted footage to reflect correct aspect ratio, DVCPro 720 (1.33), 23.967fps and frames are off. Comp settings are correct, 1280×720, 23.967, 720p. Comp window/viewer is set to full, 100%. Pixel Aspect Ratio Corr is off.
Question: Why is the comp footage slightly pixelated compared to that of the source? Even when I double click the source to view the original quicktime, it is crisp and clear. The comped footage, with no fx, full resolution, is slightly pixelated. A test render/output is also slightly pixelated. It seems like I’m losing quality somewhere and I can’t pinpoint it.
Client needs a finished render by Monday, please help…!
-Derek
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4 Replies
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make sure the quality for you footage layer is set to best (its the check box under the diagonal line in the switches panel in the timeline.
also make sure your not using opengl… i’ve never had good results with opengl scaling to fix pixel aspect ration (despite ae’s pixel aspect ratio correction being off, ae is still scalling the 1.33 pixel to fit your square pixel comp… i’ve always noticed opengl having problems with this). turn off opengl in the preview preference and make sure the render settings are not using opengl (the default is normall set to off, but that can get changed).
if none of that helps, try setting the comp to the dvcprohd native 1.33 pixel and rendering that, then compare it to the original in your nle or quicktime.
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— Quality set to best, PAR Corr and OpenGL is turned off.
Any other suggestions?
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you may just be experiencing ae’s not-as-good-as-it-should-be anti-aliasing. have you tried rendering back to the dvcprhd native 1.33 par and 960×720 frame size?
check that against the original, that will tell you if you are losing quality somewhere in the workflow. if it looks the same, then your workflow is good, and it may be just that ae’s scaling algorithms are not as good as you’d like.
your best option then would be to keep it in the native par and frame size, or try to get a 1280×720 square px export/conversion of the dvcprohd out of your nle or other tool, or from who ever gave you the dvcprohd quicktimes, hoping that another piece of software will do a better job scaling the 1.33 par to square.
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— After a few hectic hours, I found a work around (or fix?).
Somehow, AE was not interpreting the source file footage correctly even though all embedded info and settings seem normal. Just to check, I brought the source video back into FCP and it required rendering(?). Tried several sequence settings and could not get the source footage to read without rendering. So…I rendered and spit out another version. Looked exactly like the first, same settings, embedded info, PAR, etc.. But when I brought this newly rendered version back into AE, it was crisp and clear. Replaced the footage in AE and I’m back on track with my edit.
Looking at the embedded info in both my original source and re-rendered source, they are exactly the same. But the one I spit back out of FCP is being interpreted in AE correctly. Perhaps the original source file (which was given to me by the director) was rendered with some weird setting. Never trust the specs…
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