Interlaced video

[Jeremy Garchow]

SOrry to keep bothering you. ANy chance you have raw footage instead of edited footage?

That clip you gave me has a codec of ‘none’ again. I need just the straight dv movie. How are you exporting? It’s also at 30.0 fps instead of 29.97

Thanks a ton.

Jeremy

[Jon Gagnon]

Sorry more secrets for you….

I changed the sequence settings to none just prior to exporting because it’s been the only setting where the after effects graphics look good. When I have it set to dvntsc the graphics look pixelated.

here is the link of 30p captured using easy setup

https://rcpt.yousendit.com/617756857/50a9aeb270ccc6b35f88ec00cbce4b98

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Jon Gagnon] “I changed the sequence settings to none just prior to exporting because it’s been the only setting where the after effects graphics look good. When I have it set to dvntsc the graphics look pixelated. “

I would stay away from that. Make sure that if you are watching these movies in Quicktime, you have high quality option selected.

DV does trash graphics. I would suggest using a dv50 timeline for graphics. Better resolution for graphics and it will still keep your dv stuff in the proper video space (8 bit YUV), none will change it to 8 bit RGB.

Anyway, download this link:

https://rcpt.yousendit.com/617777501/f2b5520c0ddde248f859a1afe2195252

I have provided three example here all from a progressive timeline.

Clip1 (the 30p clip) has not been changed in anyway except for field dom is set to none, it’s just there for motion reference.

Clip2 is the 60i clip. All of this was done a progressive (field dom none) timeline.

The first one, Clip 2 is deinterlaced (with a plugin called Fields Kit) which more accurately matches the look and feel of clip 1. This will keep the highest quality possible as you won’t have to deinterlace your web movie because the movie you export will be progressive already.

The second one, Clip2 is set to Lower Field Dom. You will notice how soft the image is. That’s because FCP isn’t handling the fields correctly and this looks bad (the resolution is halved).

The third one, CLip2 is set to None Field Dom. This is where is gets interesting. You will notice the clip looks fine when playing back on an interlaced monitor, but you will notice the motion characteristics do not match CLip 1. In this case you will have to deinterlace the movie for the web. That means you will be cutting the resolution of your 30p footage in half while deinterlacing your 60i footage.

Jeremy

[Jon Gagnon]

ok. Thanks alot for all this.

My only issue is these all have their problems. When I put it on the web does it automatically change it to progressive somewhere along the line? Cause if not my exports from a interlaced timeline look better than these three. I would rather have some clips slightly pixelated then have the interlaced lines that noticeable.

What we’ve been doing is exporting full quality then using visual hub to make them smaller (usually around 25MB for a 2 minute video)

[Jon Gagnon]

Also I dont know why but I have yet to get the 30P footage looking as good as the one u sent on a 30p sequence. In FCP or quicktime it looks bad but the captured source material looks great. Could u send me a screen grab or info on ur sequence settings?

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Jon Gagnon] “My only issue is these all have their problems. When I put it on the web does it automatically change it to progressive somewhere along the line?”

Usually all encoders will deinterlace unless you specify not to. If you don’t, you get horrible scan lines. You have to remember you are watching progressive content on an interlaced screen (If your monitor is a CRT) out of FCP, but the ultimate destination is a progressive monitor (of which ALL flat panel computer screens are).

[Jon Gagnon] “I would rather have some clips slightly pixelated then have the interlaced lines that noticeable. “

If you look at the first clip frame by frame (right arrow through it), there are absolutely zero interlaced lines which will translate to a very nice web movie.

If you arrow through the other two clips, you will notice interlacing on the Clip2. Not so nice.

In my personal opinion the method of the first clip (progressive timeline with clip 2 deinterlaced) is the best way to solve this.

[Jon Gagnon] “Cause if not my exports from an interlaced timeline look better than these three.”

I will do the reverse on an interlaced timeline and show you the difference, but I don’t have time at the moment. I will also make web movies of these. What settings are you using to go to the web? H264? WMV?

[Jon Gagnon] “Also I dont know why but I have yet to get the 30P footage looking as good as the one u sent on a 30p sequence.”

First, you have to change the 30p footage itself to a field dominance of None in the browser.

Hit control-q and choose the dv-ntsc easy setup.

Make a new sequence.

With the sequence selected in the timeline window, hit command-0 to being up the seq. settings.

Change the field dom. to none and now add you 30p footage to that progressive timeline.

Jeremy

[Jon Gagnon]

OK, thanks again.

It looks like I have a proper 30p sequence now and the exported 30p footage from that sequence looks good.

Now there are a few things I will try. First it appears that on the 30p sequence the 60i footage loses the visible scan lines and just becomes more pixelated, so It wouldn’t be necessary to de-interlace. ???

I will try different exports from after effects to see if its possible to have the graphics exported looking as good as they did on a 60i sequence with no compressor.

Also I was exporting using the sequence’s current settings (60i, no compressor) and that quicktime export always looked perfect. (and was usually 3.5GB for a 2.5 minute video) Then I would take that export bring it into visual hub and compress it down to a smaller size, using the WMV setting and Itunes setting (which makes an MP4) However in Visual Hub there is a de-interlace option which I don’t select. So that would mean during my exporting there is no de-interlacing going on.

Because of this I will try exporting the project from a 30p sequence and a 60i sequence and do the usually compression in Visual Hub to see which one looks less pixelated. Because at the moment the graphics from AE look crap in Final Cut so I’m imagining they will look horrible by the time I do all the compression. I need to see is that outweighs the benefits of a proper 30p timeline export.

Either way, I am very thankful for all your help. I’m so close to getting the workflow figured out.

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Jon Gagnon] “Now there are a few things I will try. First it appears that on the 30p sequence the 60i footage loses the visible scan lines and just becomes more pixelated, so It wouldn’t be necessary to de-interlace. ??? “

See, that’s where it goes wrong. When you put the 60i in the 30p, it’s essentially doing a crappy deinterlace. You will notice in my second example that the footage is very soft compared to the first example. In the first example, there’s no pixelation, it’s all a very nicely deinterlaced progressive movie.

[Jon Gagnon] “I will try different exports from after effects to see if its possible to have the graphics exported looking as good as they did on a 60i sequence with no compressor. “

I would render you AE stuff in the animation codec with no field rendering. I would then bring that animation file in to FCP and change the sequence settings to dv50. You will be compressing your footage again, but your graphics will take less of a hit.

[Jon Gagnon] “I need to see is that outweighs the benefits of a proper 30p timeline export. “

I forgot, do you have a capture card or are you capturing via firewire?

Jeremy

[Jon Gagnon]

“See, that’s where it goes wrong. When you put the 60i in the 30p, it’s essentially doing a crappy deinterlace. You will notice in my second example that the footage is very soft compared to the first example. In the first example, there’s no pixelation, it’s all a very nicely deinterlaced progressive movie.”

I have 30p and 60i footage don’t have to do mix them and hope for the best? Or deinterlace the 60i prior? I’m confused.

I’ve tried those AE export settings and they were not that good. But i’ll play around with them tomorrow.

capturing with firewire.

[Jeremy Garchow]

[jon gagnon] “I’ve tried those AE export settings and they were not that good. But i’ll play around with them tomorrow. “

YOu have to make sure that high quality viewing is enabled in your QT preferences. It’s imperative. Rendering an Animation file from After Effects should look very good, unless you are doing something wrong.

[jon gagnon] “I have 30p and 60i footage don’t have to do mix them and hope for the best? Or deinterlace the 60i prior? I’m confused. “

OK. Stay with me on this one.

You setup a progressive timeline. You change ALL of your clips in the browser (both 60i and 30p) to have a field dominance of none. You edit. At the end of the edit, you use a plug in to deinterlace JUST the 60i clips (leave the 30p clips alone). You then export that now totally progressive movie to the encoder of your choice and encode. There’s no reason to deinterlace at that point.

Jeremy