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I’m losing quality from AE to FCP!
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Thank you all for all of the good advice!!
This is a post I sent in response to sam.mltn on the AE forum that should explain where I am with this project now:
To answer your questions, I added my answer to the end of your question.
Q: did you separate fields? A: I interpreted my footage as ‘lower field first’
Q: did you reintroduce them with the render? A: I rendered my footage as ‘lower field first’
Q: did you move the image up say 1 pixel or an odd number of pixels without separating fields? A: I made sure that the footage fell on an even number on the Y cooridinate. For instance, 242 or 290.
Q: what codec did you render to? I rendered as ‘Quicktime DV NTSC 48kHz’ (I had originally render as lossless. Walter Bicardi on the FCP forum helped my out by recommending I render to the same codec. Thanks Walter! The softness issue improved but its still a little soft. Is it field order problem now?)
What would really be helpful is if you would outline the procedure from import to export that you would do to maintain top quality using DV footage.
Already I am very thankful for the help that I’ve received from both the AE and FCP forums. Thanks Creative Cow!
Just an addendum. Walter’s name is Walter Biscardi, not Bicardi. Sorry Walter.
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[Darren5102] “Q: did you separate fields? A: I interpreted my footage as ‘lower field first'”
This is your problem. Like I said, when you do this, AE will deinterlace your footage so as a consequence you loose resolution. Switch it to Off and render back.
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I’ve switched ‘lower field first’ off in the interpret footage window. Should I still render with ‘lower field first’ selected in the render settings, or should I leave that off as well?
Sorry, I’m just trying to get all of this straight. Thanks for your patience.
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Ok, bad advice. You’re now creating a project that IS dependant on footage that you might delete. Render files are included. Render files come and go. Almost nobody gives the advice to NOT check the make self contained. Advice on this board is almost universally to make movie self contained and NOT recompress. There is no extra compression cycle. Simply put, the bits and bytes are simply copied into a new file, and only the bits and bytes needed are copied into the new file for use in AE. Making a dependant clip by not checking this box could mean you have to leave a 1 hour clip on your drive just because a 10 second portion is referencing it. There’s a place for reference movies, but for me it’s usually for exporting a 1 or 2 hour long clip for DVD compression or something like that.
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It should be interpreted as lower field first since it is lower field first DV footage. Then you should render it as such as well. Not doing so will create a stuttery fake progressive scan look you don’t want.
Perhaps you’re just not rendering right in AE. Best quality, full, 720×480, lower field first, non-square pixels, 29.97 etc. Make sure your comp is ntsc DV comp of same above.
There should be absolutely no need to worry about the even or odd or inbetween numbers in AE, but it can’ t hurt.
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[Le Coyote] “This is your problem. Like I said, when you do this, AE will deinterlace your footage so as a consequence you loose resolution. Switch it to Off and render back.”
Actually this is incorrect. Any DV or Uncompressed SD NTSC footage should be Interpreted in After Effects as Lower Field First. To leave this “off” will result in a lower quality render.
Footage always needs to be intepreted correctly in the native format for the best quality render.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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[walter biscardi] “Actually this is incorrect. Any DV or Uncompressed SD NTSC footage should be Interpreted in After Effects as Lower Field First. To leave this “off” will result in a lower quality render. “
In AE, the “Interpret footage” dialog is an unclear matter. The “Separate Fields” should be read as “Deinterlace Footage”. When you select “Off”, nothing i done to the footage; if it’s progressive it stays progressive; if interlaced, it stays interlaced. When you select either upper or lower field, it will deinterlace the footage, either by field duplication or field blending (I suppose it is field blending).
When you are not doing any DVE move, if should be set to Off. When you are doing DVE moves, you have no choice to deinterlace because field order will be messed up. But you do loose quality when you choose activate “Separate Fields” because it will deinterlace.
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[Darren5102] “Should I still render with ‘lower field first’ selected in the render settings, or should I leave that off as well?”
In most situations you want to render with interlacing (e.g. “lower field first”). If you don’t do so, any added effect (like animated backgrounds) will be progressive while your interlaced footage will be rendered as-is, e.g. interlaced. So unless your background is totaly static, you want to render with fields so that it matches your foregound.
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[Le Coyote] “When you are not doing any DVE move, if should be set to Off. When you are doing DVE moves, you have no choice to deinterlace because field order will be messed up. But you do loose quality when you choose activate “Separate Fields” because it will deinterlace.”
I have never heard it explained that way in all my years of using AE, nor do I see the results you mention. If Interpret Fields is left of “Off” whether you do any sort of movement to the video or not, the resulting render from After Effects is degraded. The only time you leave Interpret Fields set to Off is when you are working with progressive footage.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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[walter biscardi] “I have never heard it explained that way in all my years of using AE, nor do I see the results you mention. If Interpret Fields is left of “Off” whether you do any sort of movement to the video or not, the resulting render from After Effects is degraded. The only time you leave Interpret Fields set to Off is when you are working with progressive footage.”
Here’s two screenshots:
the first is rendered with Separate Fields set to OFF: (you see interlacing lines)
The second is rendered with Separate Fields set to Lower: (you don’t see interlacing lines, but it’s a bit more blurry and lores)
Of course, once you move/scale/rotate interlaced footage, you NEED so deinterlace it since the field order will be screwed if you don’t do so. If you don’t move it, you can put the Separate Fields to OFF and the fields will stay as-is, be it interlaced or not.
Try it, you will see. If still unsure, go ask in the AE forum.
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