Interlaced issue, missing pulldown frames?

[Brandon Kraemer]

Let me clarify my post.

In FCP we can frame advance through the footage, but we never see two repeated frames like we would expect to see with 3:2 pulldown footage. What we do see is field tearing or mismatched fields on two sequential frames that have unique images to them, but we do not see the zipper effect of mismatched fields on the other frames. De-interlacing removes this unwanted effect on these frames, but still does not reveal two repeated frames the way we would expect 3:2 pulldown footage to have.

Also, if we de-interlace all the footage on this same roll, on the shots that do not seem to have the zipper effect, de-interlacing distorts the images, like half a zipper, so to speak.

Sending these clips to shake doesn’t change this, but if we interperate the field order of the clips in shake the bad interlacing disappears. Sending renders back to FCP look normal. If sent on from FCP to Color, interlaced frames re-appear!!! Color renders back to FCP pick up a ghost image where motion is concerned on these two frames, but there is no zipper effect. Color is apparently frame blending these fields into the frames in a different cadence. Color’s renders are not really the problem, just symptomatic of the over all issue which starts with our captured clips.

We digitize this footage to FCP via a Kona 3 and a Phillips Router from a Sony Digital Betacam deck. All footage is 29.97 fps, lower field dominant. Is this a bad cadence issue, a timing issue in our video path? Anything we file export of this keeps this bad interlacing look on playback. Playback of this on the FCP timeline looks normal, but stepping through frames shows the interlace issue.