FCP to Avid and Back…..

[Grinner Hester]

I’m not quite understanding the workflow or the reasons for it but you can always lay off to to tape and bring that into FCP with no worries. Depeanding on your Avid, I’d venture to say that too is lower field first so that may be your bottleneck. Of course, Avid’s QT reference files are aliased as all get up where precomutes are unless ya mix it down first so that too may be the problem. I’d export as uncompressed Quicktimes if adding the time and expense for this workflow.

[Greg Huson]

I don’t think Avid’s codecs are 100% compatible with the BMD hardware- and QT references can be, as stated, funky at best. That said, we use them constantly with compressor- though rarely directly into final cut.

Avid is very open to being… open these days. If you’re not on 4.x, I’m amazed what you’re doing works at all. We also mix Avid and FCP all the time- and each version it becomes more manageable. I suggest you get near the front of the line for future upgrades.

As far as field order – it’s not avid vs fcp. It’s NTSC vs Pal vs HD. Interlaced HD formats are upper field first, NTSC is lower field first (pal, too, I think) What you’re describing kinda sounds like a field order problem, in fact. You may not see it on the quicktime, because you’re looking at a progressive monitor (omputer monitors are progressive.) But if you’re putting on NTSC tape, it’s interlaced – all NTSC is interlaced, even when it’s produced progressive originally. Add to that, on the screens in the avid editing application, you’re only seeing half the picture – a holdover from solving the problem of interlace when EVERYTHING was SD (I think this is true for FCP, too, but there may be a way to display both fields, not sure.) So, the ‘jittery’ part may be there, it’s just not being displayed. Once you look at it ‘on tape’ you’re seeing the field order problems you didn’t notice before. I suspect you’re mixing interlaced HD sources into finished SD projects – that has nothing to do with codec compatibility.

Sorry if I’m stating the obvious. I realized I haven’t offered any help, either… One suggestion might be to have a glass NTSC monitor hooked up to your system- this will help you detect these problems sooner rather than later. (LCD and Plasma mostly convert back to progressive. God, I wish interlace would go away completely…) If you need a couple 13″ ntsc monitors, I’ve got a few in the back closet!

Greg Huson
Secret Headquarters, Inc
Greg (at) SecretHQ.com
http://www.secretHQ.com

[Kris Anderson]

Avid is not upper field dominant, and FCP is not lower field dominant. As mentioned, field dominance is related to video standards, such as PAL/NTSC, not an NLE.

I’d say the reason you’re not seeing the error on the QT’s is because you’re watching them on a computer monitor. Computer monitors do not display interlaced fields. DV (Pal/NTSC) and NTSC are lower field dominant. PAL is upper field dominant.

I’d check your digitise and export settings from FCP and your import/export settings in Avid. Both programs will do what you tell them to do. Check what you’re telling them is correct.

[John Babinec]

Actually I think you’re wrong. Everything I digitize into FCP shows up as Lower Field in the field column. And whenever I digitize anything into Avid I’m almost positive it’s Upper field dominant. It has to be one or the other.

And if you import them opposite of what they are, you will get a flicker on the monitor even though it’s a progressive display. I’ve seen it.

Try it!

[Bouke Vahl]

DV is lower field, but Avid dv is upper field, if you use the Avid DV codec (an option to choose on export)

at least in PAL, have not tried in NTSC.

hth

Bouke

https://www.videotoolshed.com/
smart tools for video pros

[Gary Hazen]

The truth is that Kris’ answer is spot on. Field order is dependent on the television standard (NTSC, PAL) and the format (SD, HD). NTSC standard definition is lower field first.

“whenever I digitize anything into Avid I’m almost positive it’s Upper field dominant.” -J.B.

Again, it would depend on your project setting. If you’re capturing from HDCAM into a 1920 x 1080i project the field order will be upper field first (odd). If you’re capturing from a Digibeta into a 720 x 486 29.97 project then the field order will be lower field first (even). How did you come to the conclusion that Avid is upper field first for everything?

In your first post you said:
“…we’ve been pretty good about making sure the various import and export settings are correct”

Post your settings (Avid project, Avid export, Avid import, FCP project including field dominance, FCP export) and the users here will have more information to diagnose the problem. Have you checked the files in QT player to verify that they haven’t been converted to progressive?

Also, as Greg said above you should have CRT monitors in your signal chain (minimum one at each edit station). With your work flow an incorrect import or export setting could screw up the entire process and you have no idea where the problem originated. As evidenced by this very thread.

[Pepijn Klijs]

or you can make everything progressive and you will never have to worry about field-dominance again.

But it changes the look and feel of your programs.

Seriously… Try to find out where things go wrong by plugging a glass monitor to your different devices. I think you will find the problem very fast.

On the whole field debate: as far as I know almost every thing I edit in PAL is upper field dominant.

Avid/FCP Editor, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
http://www.pepijnklijs.nl

[Pepijn Klijs]

except dv, dv is always lower field dominant.

Avid/FCP Editor, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
http://www.pepijnklijs.nl

[Kris Anderson]

John, I think you’ll find my understanding of field dominance as it relates to PAL and NTSC is correct if you research it a little further.

FCP and Avid are both capable of upper and lower field dominance depending on the setup of the project. They are not limited to one or the other.

So we can help you get to the bottom of this can you please tell us your working format, project settings, sequence settings, ingest settings etc. Are you working in PAL, NTSC or HD? If HD, which format?

With FCP, are your ingest, sequence and export settings all the same? Then with Avid, are your import and export settings the same?

There are a number of places your field issue could be creeping in. Let’s start from the beginning of your workflow and see if we can isolate where things are going wrong.

[John Babinec]

Thanks everyone, but I fixed my problem.

The way it works is – Everything captured in FCP is Lower Field. At least that’s what it says in the Field Dominance column for all the clips in the project. I could find no capture setting to specify this. I did find a setting in my Decklink card so maybe that’s where it’s chosen, but I never really have screwed around with any of these settings before.

I know for a fact there is no digitize setting for Field Dominance in the Media Composer software and I remember a very long time ago, back in the 90’s when I was an Avid Tech, my Avid instructor told me that the Media Composer was Upper Field dominant. So that’s why I have always believed this. Perhaps during that time with the old hardware (ABVB and Meridian) that was the case but I still have no reason to believe otherwise. From what I understand every video device from tape machines to editing systems has to start capturing interlaced video with either an Upper field or a lower field first. Something has to come first.

Anyway, long story short. When I exported the quicktime from Avid and imported it back into FCP, under the Sequence Settings you would think making the field dominance in the exported video match that of the sequence by selecting the appropriate field dominance would fix the problem. WRONG! Out of desperation I selected NONE in the field dominance box, and BAM! Everything played back perfectly.

Why does everything have to be so complicated yet so simple….. Thanks to everyone for all their responses though…..

John