flickery graphics from Motion in FCP

[Stephen Hope]

Sounds as if your render in Motion isn’t the same field order or frame rate as your project in FCP.

Check, particularly that the field order is correct. I work exclusively in PAL an the field order for DV in PAL is Lower field first. I believe that it should be upper field first in NTSC.

Steve Hope

Stephen Hope
New Hope Media
Video and Multimedia custom made for business!

[Rafael Amador]

Appart of having a look to the interlacing issue that Stephen points, have a look to this article:

Why Your Beautiful Motion Text Looks Bad in Final Cut Pro?

https://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/motion_text_in_fcp_spencer.html

This is from another web site, but this Cow is not a jealous one.

Mac OX 10.5.2-FC 6.02-QT 7.4.1
G5 2x2Gh 4GbRAM-BlackMagic Extreme
PMBP 17″Core2Duo 4GbRAM-AJA ioHD
JVC DTV-17″
SONY EX-1 . SONY PD170
..and always a big mess on top of the table.

[Rob Alexander]

A small correction Stephen. PAL DV is indeed lower field first (which is an idiosyncracy as the PAL standard is upper field first), however all flavours of NTSC are also lower field first.

The advice is sound though – check the field order.

Rob

[Stephen Hope]

Rob

Thanks for the correction on field order in NTSC and other PAL formats… haven’t progressed past the DV codec for video as yet, though I’m budgeting for an HD camera at present, but don’t deal with NTSC at all.

The DV codec article was useful for this problem. I always view my work on a broadcast monitor so that I can see what the end output will really look like on a television.

It’s really the only way to know what your end product will look like.

Stephen Hope
New Hope Media
Video and Multimedia custom made for business!

[J. Tad newberry]

Thanks for the link Rafael. I did read Stephen’s article, and it was pretty informative, but didn’t really answer my question as to what would be the best solution. I really mis-spoke in my original post, as my graphics aren’t so really “flickering” (getting light and dark), but the edges are getting a bit jagged as the text (and some small horizontal boxes that are moving towards the camera and at a slight angle) move closer to the camera. From his article, it seems to be that DV is the problem. So what to do to have great graphics in a DV project? Maybe change the rectangle boxes to some other shape? Should i create the Motion project in higher res (HDV or HD?) and then bring it into FCP? I figure there must be an answer.

As an aside, i also had just purchased Stephen’s two Motion tutorials that he mentioned. They are FABULOUS filled with lots of detailed info on how really dive into Motion 3…but nothing in them (that i’ve seen) about jagged Motion graphics in FCP.

Any other ideas that might help?

thanks again!

mh

[Rafael Amador]

Hi Mortimer,
In which format you want your movie to end up, tape, DVD, Web?
Yes, DV is a real problem for graphics. I only render in DV if I’m printing back to DV tape.
Abut your Motion graphics, Are you repositioning them in FC? If so, you know that you can displace the center horizontally with not problem, but if you want to displace it vertically you need to do it an even number of lines. Displacing the center an odd number of lines makes miss match the interlacing pattern.

Mac OX 10.5.2-FC 6.02-QT 7.4.1
G5 2x2Gh 4GbRAM-BlackMagic Extreme
PMBP 17″Core2Duo 4GbRAM-AJA ioHD
JVC DTV-17″
SONY EX-1 . SONY PD170
..and always a big mess on top of the table.

[J. Tad newberry]

delivery format will be DVD. it was shot in BetacamSP and brought into FCP as DV files, but i guess i could re-do it in NTSC 8-bit if that would help the graphics. i’m wondering if i did the Motion graphics at an even higher res (say HDV or better) would that help? so far, the best i’ve found is to render a DV QT out of Motion at the “best render” quality, import into FCP (on a DV timeline), and render – rendering “twice” here because the Motion project is keyed over the video in the timeline.

thanks again!

mh

[Rafael Amador]

Hi Mortimer,
If you can avoid the DV codec, do it. If you can capture 8b Unc, don’t hesitate to go that way.
Normally I shot DVCam and end up in DVD. I edit in a DV time-line (I set my graphics, Chroma Sharpening, Color Correction, some times MagicBullet). When everything is ready, I set the sequence to 10b Unc, and High precission rendering. Then I send to Compressor from FC.
For the graphics I use Sheer (!0b Unc with Alpha channel). Instead of Sheer,you can use Animation.

Mac OX 10.5.2-FC 6.02-QT 7.4.1
G5 2x2Gh 4GbRAM-BlackMagic Extreme
PMBP 17″Core2Duo 4GbRAM-AJA ioHD
JVC DTV-17″
SONY EX-1 . SONY PD170
..and always a big mess on top of the table.

[J. Tad newberry]

thanks Rafeal, i tried going all 8 bit NTSC on this and it only changed a tiny bit (probably not worth the rendering time). i wonder if there are any other alternatives? i’m going to try to go ahead and send it through the Compressor for DVD SP and see what happens, but i’m guesssing it will only pick up a few more artifacts along the way…

thanks again!

mh