field foes

[Roman Flute]

Fields are fun! Wait until you get to play with pulldown!!!

Seriously,

Video is based on fields and will be in the future since the main HD concepts are interlaced as well. If you don’t pull the field out – they are still there because your imported video is exactly what it was before you imported it and it can cause all sorts of interesting effects. You need to deinterlace the footage. That way you can put it with other elements and it will play nicely. Every thing I render out has fields – if I am staying on the computer I just rip them out in the compression stage.

DVD elements. Everything is video. That is all a DVD is. Your still frames are converted to a MPEG video element. There is such a thing as progressive – but we will stick with the interlaced right now. The MPEG encoders are looking for video with fields when they convert. That is what everything is based upon. I tend to use motion menus on all my DVDs so a rarely use a still frame – but if I do use a still frame I make sure that all the elements are video friendly – no thin lines and such. That will cause jitter. Small text with serifs. Stuff like that will cause you headaches – looks great in QT but horrible in video.

Your AE work going out with fields will look fine. It is original so it has never had fields. Your video you are adding – you have ripped the fields out so it merges fine. Render out with fields. Lower Field is the more typically used order = DV, etc… You are just accomidating how a TV builds the image on the screen. The DVD player is acually converting back an MPEG file to an NTSC signal – so it is putting the fields back in. An MPEG is not a 29.97 video but rather a sampling of that video arranged in a “Group of Pictures.” If you want more on that – the term is GOP. To much info… it will give you complete brain fade.

Check out your Encode settings as well and make sure they are lower field. Also – check the setting and turn of the field option and encode what you have and see if it is liveable. There are all sorts of places you can shoot yourself in the foot. Once you have the process down – you won’t have a problem. I just built it into my workflow.

Have fun! Hope that helps a little. It is complicated – but it isn’t. Just something we have to deal with.

Roman

Roman Flute
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