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Help please! – weird lines on one part of DVD footage
I have looked but not found an answer to my problem… I am a first time user of Final Cut Express and, over the last few months, have created a 1 hour 20 minute NTSC project comprised of a mix of photos, DV and VHS footage. All of that is fine. The highlight of the whole project is some footage shot in 1959 on 8mm film from the back seat of a USAF jet flying inside the Grand Canyon.
I copied a file with the converted Canyon footage (VTS_01_1.VOB) off a DVD into Final Cut and then edited clips in the timeline, adding music and jet sounds. The result looks great (given the age of the source material) on my computer. However, I then made a self contained Quicktime movie and then plugged the laptop into the plasma TV to watch. Everything in the whole project is great except for the Grand Canyon sequence which has horizontal lines all over the place which made m wonder about interlacing issues. I figured it might all be resolved when I rendered it all and sent it to IDVD. I did that and ran the movie on my Blu-Ray DVD / Plasma TV this morning – same problem, the whole movie is fine except the Canyon footage.
Is there an issue with importing this kind of video file directly into FC even though it looks good when I play it on my computer? Do I need to convert it it Quicktime first and then edit? I was trying to go with the source material and avoid converting the material multiple times.
I hope someone can give me a definitive answer as I am running out of time for experimentation – I am trying to get this ready for duplication this coming week and need to send it out before Christmas. Any help is really appreciated. Thanks ……………….. Gary
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3 Replies
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try reversing the fields on the one clip, see if that helps
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Thanks – I’ll try changing fields when I get home this evening. I looked more closely and found that the original DVD plays perfectly on the TV – perfectly blended and no lines anywhere. If I watch the DVD file with MPEG stream clip on my computer, there are thin lines in the dark areas where motion occurs in some places (I assume between frames of the original 8mm film). When it has been through Final Cut/IDVD and played on the TV from the new disc the lines are much more evident, spread wider apart and over more of the image and more of the footage.
………………Gary
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I tried changing field dominance and it did not change the outcome.
I also exported the sequence using both dv/dvcpro-NTSC and H264 ad got the same result. The clips look OK in the timeline but once exported, even on my computer screen, I can see lines everywhere. I would begin to wonder if it was looking OK inside FC because its not full resolution on the canvas, and the lines show up because of more detail in the final product except for the fact that the original DVD material looks great.
I thought of analog capture of the DVD thru my camcorder but for some reason the aspect ratio gets distorted so I can’t try that. I think I am going to try going back to the original 8mm film and having it converted to DV directly – I am having it sent FedEx to me.
Meantime, here is a particularly ugly example of what I am talking about – its a fast motion frame showing a wingtip tank coming into shot as a small tower in the Colorado river goes by below – you can see all the lines. In the original, there is just a grainy film look and blurred motion.
…..Gary
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