Interlaced Footage

[David Bogie]

Many possibilities but let’s start with “still has lines running through it.” You mean it’s not supposed to? Is the original footage interlaced? Are you viewing on an interlaced display?

bogiesan

[William Saviola]

I captured all the footage in to my sequance and in FCP on my MAC screen it is fine. There is no lines running through it.

Since i have compressed with the de interlace box checked there is now lines running through it.

[Kevin Camp]

yep, more info would help…

what do you have to start with in ae: comp settings…? any footage…? if so: sd, hd? frame rate, file type and codec?

it sounds like you are going to h.264… i wouldn’t recommend go to h.264 straight from ae, an nle or compression utility will do a much better job… you’ll get smaller files that look better. whats’ your destination… editing, web…?

if you render out as something other than h.264 do you still see the problem?

and as bogie asked, were the lines there initially (on original), during ram previews in ae or only after rendering? if they are there only in ae, where can you see the clip (what application) without the lines?

ae doesn’t normally put lines on renders, so we just need more info on what you have and what you are doing with it….

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[William Saviola]

I am editing in FCP and the footage captured is fine before and after rendering.

the comp settings are 720×576 DVPAL
4.3 AR

What is a NL file ????

[Kevin Camp]

[William Saviola] “What is a NL file”

that was probably a typo on my end, it was supposed to be nle (non-linear editing system, generic term for fcp and the like).

so, the file you are exporting from fcp looks good in ae, until you render it in ae and take it back to fcp… i assume you are working in h.264 in fcp, since that is what you are rendering to in ae.

if you are exporting h.264 in fcp to go to ae, then back to h.264 to go back to fcp, i’d recommend using a different intermediate codec (an intermediate codec is a term for a codec that is used just to go back and forth between stages in a project).

ae doesn’t handle codecs that use temporal compression (as h.264, mpeg2, mpeg4, hdv and some others do). temporal compression (also called interframe compression or p or b frame compression) will remove parts of frames that are similar to frames that surround it to save file size which forces ae to do a lot more work when rendering. in addition ae cannot write a file with temporal compression, to do that it would need to compare a frame that it is rendering to a frame that it is currently rendering and the the frame it will render next… it just can’t do that. so it tries to conform to a codec using only intraframe compression which usually results in poorer image quality.

i would recommend using using quicktime’s lossless animation codec to export from fcp when you are going to ae, then use it again to go from ae to fcp. you should be able to have fcp convert the file to h.264 when you import it so you can work with as easily as your other footage.

as for the lines in your footage, how are you ‘exporting’ from ae? if you are choosing file>export, you should choose composition>add to render queue to have a lot more control over your render. in the render settings from the queue you’ll be able to set whether to interlace your render of not (default is progressive). in the output module you’ll be able to set the codec (lossless animation is the default). you can create presets based on your workflow and easily bring those settings up from dropdown menus in the queue. in addition, if you have multiple cores and have enable multiprocessing (ae>preferences>multiprocessing, check the option for ‘render multiple frames simultaneously’) you’ll get faster renders than using file>export.

the only thing i can think of for lines in your footage is that ae in deinterlacing your footage by default, then you are setting the export to deinterlace the footage that ae has already deinterlaced, resulting in a filed doubling like effect. or it’s problem with h.264 in ae then exporting back to h.264. using the render queue and avoiding h.264 should help.

if it’s not that, can you post a frame so we can see the lines?

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[Michiel Van haren]

from what I’m reading, he’s not deinterlacing at all. He says he’s rendering interlaced H.264
That’s probably the problem he’s seeing when it playing back.

The footage is originally DV format? If it’s DV it’s probably gonna be lower field first interlaced.
Make sure the footage is interpreted correctly in After Effects, then either render out to animation (lossless) with no interlacing, then compress using another program, setting input and output to progressive.
Or render out interlaced from after effects, and set a deinterlacer in your compression program.

[Kevin Camp]

he says he has widescreen interlaced footage, and he compresses with the deinterlace box checked and the final render has lines running thru it…

what i’m still not sure of is how ae is interpreting his interlaced footage and where this deinterlace check box is… i don’t see that in any of my output module settings in ae… but if ae was separating fields as it would for most footage that it thought was d1 or dv standard, then this extra deinterlace option at render could cause problems.

but ae also has problems working with codecs that use temporal compression and has never done a good job compressing to those codecs either, so it would be nice to just remove that from the equation here and use lossless animation (or another codec that doesn’t use temporal compression).

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[William Saviola]

This is all being done in FCP

I am editing in 720/576 and then changing the dimensions to 872/480 using h.264 1800 kbs de interlace box is ticked

The footage has no lines running through it intill i compress it using the above settings.

thank you for all answers

[Kevin Camp]

[William Saviola] “This is all being done in FCP”

if you meant to post in the fcp forum your post somehow ended up in the after effects forum… which would account for some of the confusion… 🙂

i’m not sure we were able to help you too well, so you might repost in the fcp forum.

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW