Exported Green Screen Footage from FCP is pixelated in After Effects

[Todd Kopriva]

What does the footage that you exported from Final Cut Pro look like if you play it in another application, like QuickTime Player? Is it pixelated in other applications, too? If so, then the problem is not on the After Effects side.

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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
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[Mark Zemel]

The footage looks significantly better in FCP, Quicktime and Cinema tools. There is a pretty severe resolution lossage in AE for some reason. I shot the footage on Mini DV at 4:3 aspect ratio, at 24pa frame rate, and then reverse telecined it in Cinema Tools. There were no dropped frames or any issues w/ the capture. And it’s especially problematic because I need to key out the green screen background, and the footage is so aliased that I’m getting tons of noise around the edges.

I know Mini DV uses rectangular pixels, so I’ve been messing around w/ the composition settings, trying different aspect ratios and pixel aspect ratios to correct this. I even exported it using the Apple Jpeg codec because that should convert the rectangular pixels to square ones, but the problem persists. Thanks,
-Mark

[Chris Tarroza]

Hi Mark,

Try Export>Quicktime Movie and leave the drop down menu to ‘Current Settings’. If you want to make a reference file, make sure ‘Make Self Contained’ is unchecked. Exporting this way will make a file in the exact same settings as your sequence, which should be the same as your original footage.

As was said earlier, try to play the exported file in Quicktime or some other program and see if the problem still persists.

If all else fails… make sure your resolution in AE is set to ‘Full’. I remember freaking out when I left it to ‘Third’ and wondered what was going on!

[Mark Zemel]

I originally exported the clips at the ‘Current Settings’ setting, as self contained movies. The sequence settings in FCP are correct. And, the resolution in AE was the first thing I checked… I don’t know. I just checked the original capture scratch (which looks perfect in QT). I imported it into AE and even that looks seriously pixelated. The other weird thing is that when I use the footage to create a comp the automatic comp settings are incorrect. The footage is showing up as 16:9 even though it’s 4:3. I feel like I must be forgetting something basic, or missing something obvious. Thanks for all the help so far!
-Mark

[Mohamed Selim]

How did you interpret the footage in AE?

right click on your footage—-interpret—-main

make sure you have the right settings

[Mark Zemel]

Hey Mohamed,
Just checked the footage interpretation. The settings seemed correct to me. It’s using the native frame rate from the file (24 fps). Separate Fields is off, Remove Pulldown is off. The pixel aspect ratio is set to D1/DV NTSC (0.91). The color management is off. This is for the original capture scratch video file. Again, I already did the pull down using reverse telecine in Cinema Tools. Are those the correct settings?

I’ve also included some screen shots of the QT file vs. After Effects. The image is blown up to full screen in QT and 400% in After Effects. Even at 100% this pixelation is very noticeable.
-Mark

[Mohamed Selim]

I don’t think fields should be off, i never heard of dv being progressive so im pretty sure it is interlaced plus judging those images i cant see pixelation but what i can see is that the footage is slightly blurred and maybe this is because you have your fields settings wrong so try interpreting as lower field first and tell me what you got.

Hope this helps

[Mark Zemel]

Hey Mohamed,

Panasonic DVX 100B’s can shoot in 24 Progressive Advanced mode. Which allows for a simple 3:2 pulldown from 29.97 fps to 23.98 fps. I use it regularly for doc pieces and performance pieces. The footage is not interlaced because all the interlaced frames have been pulled down. I’m very fastidious about that. As far as I know the fields should be turned off, because I’m not relying on AE for any deinterlacing. I’ll mess around w/ it, but I don’t think it’s the answer.

And, I don’t know, but the pixelation in the lower screenshot seems pretty apparent to me. Look at the image around her eyes, and in her hair, you can see the aliasing.

Hey Dave,

I hear you on the Mini DV green screen problems. This was my first green screen shoot, and I can promise you I will never use Mini DV for this kind of thing again. However, the footage is 23.98 (actually 23.976 as you noted) in FCP, but it’s showing up as 24 in AE. I don’t know why there is a discrepancy there (I just assumed in that last post that AE rounds up). I also can’t explain why when I create a comp using the footage it makes it 16:9 instead of 4:3. But, that’s easily fixable. What I’m still struggling w/ is the pixelated jagged edged images. But, thanks for the link on color resolution. I’ll give it a listen when I get home.

Best,
Mark

[Yann Figueres]

Hey guys,

It’s been a while since someone respond to this thread but I had the same problem than Mark. Clean footage coming from FCP was pixelated when imported in AE. I tried to export my clip from AE, and then it came out clean as the source footage. So the problem was in AE.

It appears that it is a preference of the viewer which sucks. Go into Preferences > Previews. Then you can change “Zoom Quality” from “Faster” to “More accurate”. And then, everything go back to normal in the viewer. At least it was my case.

I hope it can help someone.

Cheers.