How come my HD footage looks blocky in DVNTSC Sequence?

[Shane Ross]

[Matthew Abourezk] “when I put the keyed footage in a DV NTSC sequence, I pick up a unique brand of blockiness.”

Yes…that is called the “DV CODEC.” When you drop HD footage into a DV sequence and render, it renders out to become DV. Why are you doing this?

Shane

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[Matthew Abourezk]

Hi Shane,

I am using this workflow because it made the most sense to me. But clearly it is not working, as such, I am posting to find a better answer.

When I shoot DV NTSC, it isn’t blocky. I didn’t imagine that compositing a high resolution image into a DV sequence would result in a blocky image.

The graphics that I am creating in After effect do not appear blocky, only the HD footage of the woman.

Since I am going to be taking this to a SD DVD, I thought I should use a DV Sequence since I have done that a hundred times before and have been happy with the results.

Any thoughts as to what would be a better process?

Talkingbox Digital Media Group, Inc.
http://www.talkingboxdmg.com
(203) 327-6617

[Alan Langdon]

I am having the same problem, without even using a chroma key… I posted my question today, maybe read it so we can help each other out. I am currently trying AfterEfefcts as a downconverter, and it looks like it COULD be the way to go. More info soon!

[Matthew Abourezk]

Hi Alan,

I have resolved a huge portion of the problem. I was watching a tutorial on text manipulation in FCP. The host talked about issues with blocky text and how to fix them. He also talked about combining HD and SD footage into an SD timeline.

The light went on in my head, so I tried some of his text manipulation suggestions on my keyed greenscreen footage and the difference was dramatic and immediate.

Here is what I did…
1 )In the Motion Tab of your clip viewer…. Check the scale, and coordinates. Make sure they are all even WHOLE numbers, nothing goes after the decimal point. (I.e. if the center of your image is 13.88, change it to 14, if the scale is 25.69, change it to 26… etc.

2) If you are mixing hd and sd footage, double-click your blocky clip to open it in the viewer, go to the motion tab again, go to the Distort item. Make sure your distortion is set properly. for example, If you are compositing hd (720) in a NTSC DV (3:2) sequence, you should set the distortion of the HD clip to -33.33. This will give you the proper height and width.

In my case, I had shot some of the footage with the HD camera on its side, this allowed me to do full height shots of the woman (host), giving me a lot of editing, cropping, and zoom options in post. For the shots that I turned the camera on its side, I needed to adjust the distortion to -66.66. For the shots where I used the camera normally, I needed to adjust the distortion to -33.33.

Hope this helps.
Matt

Talkingbox Digital Media Group, Inc.
http://www.talkingboxdmg.com
(203) 327-6617