FCP will not export progressive ProResfile, only Interlaced…

[Jeremy Garchow]

Hi Chris. I am on FCP 6.0.5.

What are you trying to do?

Jeremy

[Chris Henderson]

I want to capture progressive ProRes instead of interlaced from a PSF source. Right now, the Kona3 framebuffer won’t do it so I’m looking around a capture software that may do it on the fly from the Kona’s input. I’m running the QT update to 7.6 now and will be doing the FCP update (from 6.0.2) shortly thereafter. Perhaps my negligence to update in the last few months is what is leaving me with this issue. I was capturing with the Compression tab’s interlaced setting set to off and it still captured flagged as interlaced. The app we use to do encodes grabs interlaced/progressive settings from the source file’s video header info to attempt to gauge whether to encode with matching field flagging automatically.

Anyway, you verified the info I needed and I’ll see if it works.

Thanks!
Chris.

[Gary Adcock]

[Chris Henderson] “I want to capture progressive ProRes instead of interlaced from a PSF source. Right now, the Kona3 framebuffer won’t do it so I’m looking around a capture software that may do it on the fly from the Kona’s input.”

That is not correct, I do that on a regular basis as do many film houses.
But lets be clear here – Working in 1080 True Progressive instead of PsF is not common and requires effort. The SMPTE spec for 1080 is PsF, it is used around the world in for delivery of 24p and 25p materials.
IT is for TRANSPORT ONLY – your NLE ( that means avid, apple and adobe, GVG, Autodesk etc)handles the content as a progressive frame, then splits the signal into fields when it is passed to a display.

Since I do not know what you are trying to do.

So lets start there.

What is the source content? where did it originate?
What is your delivery? WHY:?

Why do you need P over PsF and are you familiar with the differences ( see above)

gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production Workflows

Inside look at the IoHD
https://library.creativecow.net/articles/adcock_gary/AJAIOHD.php

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Chris Henderson] “I want to capture progressive ProRes instead of interlaced from a PSF source.”

Got ya. The very nature of PsF recording means that the stream that is carrying your video gets played out a field at a time, not a frame at a time like a true p workflow (720 comes to mind). Now, those two fields that makes up one frame are similar, in that they are a progressive image. They are just being handled in an interlaced stream. Only a very select few cameras shoot true 1080p.

FCP is not real smart when it comes to progressive or PsF in that there’s no real way to tell it (at least I am not sure of way) what the format is before capture. It assumes 1080 60Hz material is Upper first, so that how it flags it (and technically speaking it is, as PsF is getting played back interlaced). The problem with this as you have illustrated, is that you want to work progressively. When the footage is captured for all intents and purposes it is now progressive, but FCP is flags it interlaced and your timeline will be interlaced resulting in interlaced renders.

Then came ProRes with the little metadata flag in there. Now, I have seen it work, but I really can’t guarantee it. Just in case it doesn’t work, don’t worry. Capture your material with the 1080i setting. THEN right after you capture, you have to select all of your captured clips in the browser, scroll to the right and find the ‘Field Dom’ column, right click and change the drop down menu from Upper to None. Put those clips in a None timeline and away you go progressively.

Jeremy

[Chris Henderson]

Thanks Jeremy! Will try that and report back to confirm.

Chris.

[Chris Henderson]

I understand that PSF is a manufacturer’s method of making a cheaper card by ingesting and processing the video using 2 fields with the same timestamp versus true interlaced where the fields have different timestamps. The Kona3 control panel clearly states that when a 1080PSF signal is selected as the input, the framebuffer’s primary and secondary outputs cannot select 1080P as an output result. That said, software on my PC capture rigs changes the video from PSF to P on the fly all the time and my automated compression software reads it just fine on a Windows-generated QT file using DNxHD. Granted Avid’s codec has it’s own progressive/PSF handling versus ProRes’. I’ve tried to get this one vendor of mine on DNx, but they won’t have it. They will only deliver FCP-captured ProRes files to us because of it’s realtime capture ability, so I’m trying to work with them on this. That is the why I’m doing this.

Thanks for your help if have a way to do this. I’m also going to try Jeremy’s method with them as well.

Chris.

[Gary Adcock]

[Chris Henderson] “I understand that PSF is a manufacturer’s method of making a cheaper card by ingesting and processing the video using 2 fields with the same timestamp versus true interlaced where the fields have different timestamps. “

NO. PsF is a specification for baseband delivery as determined by SMPTE (SMPTE 367 and 387)
SMPTE is the governing body for the universal technology and terms for Television and Film.

PsF is also used to mimic the shutter mechanism in a film projector, which opens and closes twice per frame when celluloid is being projected. It has nothing to do with one MFG or another unless you are talking about Sony, who owns the patents on the process.

[Chris Henderson] “. That said, software on my PC capture rigs changes the video from PSF to P on the fly all the time and my automated compression software reads it just fine on a Windows-generated QT file using DNxHD.”

Sorry but that is not correct- the content is not being labeled correctly, the specified delivery format for 1080 video is ALWAYS PsF in the broadcast playback and transmission world, and unless it has changed with the very latest build, Avid has always delivered PsF to the display.

gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production Workflows

Inside look at the IoHD
https://library.creativecow.net/articles/adcock_gary/AJAIOHD.php

[Michael Magallon]

Aye, you don’t have to recapture all your material.

If you want to change the interlaced/progressive flag, you can do it using Dumpster. It will be instantaneous and you wont have to render in FCP.

However, use at your own risk. Just look for the following Atom:
‘trak’ > ‘mdia’ > ‘mdhd’ > ‘vmhd’ > ‘stbl’ > ‘stsd’ > ‘fiel’
Fields = 1
Details = 0

The above values will provide a progressive flag in the QT file.

Once again, try it out on a short clip first. I am not responsible if something goes wrong :S

—
MM