Fuzzy DV-NTSC playback/output in FCP

[Bret Williams]

Sounds like FCP isn’t invoking the “high quality” setting in the QT. You’ve proven the files are just fine, but they just look bad in the canvas. Open them in QT and turn on the high quality setting. You’ll find it by pressing cmd+j and checking the video track settings.

[Ron Dulin]

The “high quality” setting is enabled (I was very excited that you’d figured it out, and I thank you for the suggestion because I had not checked that previously). Unfortunately, that isn’t it.

I should point out another strange fact: If I convert the fuzzy-looking DV-NTSC quicktimes to any other codec, they go back to looking fine.

It’s probably something simple, but I am baffled.

[Paul Dickin]

[Ron Dulin] “It’s probably something simple, but I am baffled. “
Hi
Where are you assessing the quality of the DV-NTSC movies with new audio that you are creating in FCP?

Because… (as Groucho or Mel Brooks would have said at this time of year its the Santa Because :headbang!)

QuickTime Player always shows you a proper movie display , but for historical reasons FCP doesn’t bother to display codecs like DV at more than quarter-frame resolution in the Canvas.

FCP expects regular movie codecs to be displayed on a regular external TV monitor – and with an older codec like DV it expects an interlaced CRT display.

So does your reedited DV-NTSC look fuzzy on an external interlaced TV screen, fed from either a FireWire link, or through an AJA/BMagic/Matrox breakout box?

[Ron Dulin]

The quicktimes look fuzzy in any program — FCP, Quicktime, Pro Tools — but I have not checked them through an external display. Comparing the DV-NTSC quicktimes from FCP with the DV-NTSC quicktimes from Media Composer is enough to show that there is a (major) problem with the FCP outputs.

I think calling them fuzzy is flattering, to be honest. The TC burn-in is borderline unreadable. And I’ve checked all the obvious possibilities I can think of (quality is set to highest, etc).

For now I can just continue exporting from Media Composer, which works fine, but it would be nice to not be hogging the system doing the HD to SD compression on my primary workstation.

[John Pale]

What are the dimensions of the Quicktime File. Avid has the ability to output a non standard 720 x 486 DV file (using their own DV codec). This will cause the fields to be out of order on anything but an Avid. Try adding the Shift Fields and see if it looks better.

[Kenny Miracle]

I am having this same problem with the DV NTSC codec in FCP. When I capture from DVCam Tape it even comes out fuzzy – or when I rip a DVD into DV NTSC it is fuzzy in QT & FCP. Even downgrading from HD into SD inside FCP gives a fuzzier image.

It’s very odd. Any other thoughts?

Thank you!

Kenny

[Bob Paris]

K……

Did you ever figure out the mystery of the fuzz?

I’m not outputting from Avid, but I’ve come across the same issue on TWO recent projects and it’s absolutely stumping me. In short, footage output to SD DV looks god awful. While exporting the same video to, say, MPEG 4, it looks MUCH better.

But it shouldn’t! What the hell is happening?

[Kenny Miracle]

The best solution I’ve come across is using MPEG Streamclip (free software) to transcode or rip from DVD into “Apple Motion JPEG A” It doesn’t match any other codec, but it comes in the clearest, and if needed you can use Compressor to transcode it to the codec you need.

Peace,

Kenny