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Interlacing Troubleshooting
I’ve been receiving more and more digital files from clients that are asking us to output their commercials and content to either D.Beta tapes for SD material or HDCam tapes for HD material, all of which have an increasing amount of field issues and the like.
Very often these clients are sending us Quicktime files that are either Motion JPEG or JPEG 2000 codec’d. Our common workflow is to render these files that we are sent into an Apple ProRes timeline in FCP 7 and send it out to the machines via a KONA 3 card.
As I said, though… there are a growing number of spots I have to ask for re-sends because the spots have what appear to be inherent field issues. There is visible jitter lines that appear when the video is paused in Quicktime player, and when played real-time out to a monitor the motion often looks jittery and not smooth.
A little more detail that I’m not sure is relevant or not (and as I write this I now have a hard time describing in words) is that the jitter I spoke of in the freeze frames in QT player seems to be intermittent, showing up for 2 frames before disappearing for 3 frames and repeating as I go through the video frame by frame.
It’s impossible to speculate what systems these clients are working from and what settings and setups they are exporting their material out of, so I am searching for as many tips and tricks I can find to fix all these problems on my end with my FCP equipment. I have no illusions that occasionally it will simply be a matter of “they exported it wrong”, however I prefer to give them all the benefit of the doubt by exhausting any and all options on my end before resorting to that and asking them to fix their spots and re-send them.
I’ve often resorted to filters like “Shift Fields”, “Flicker Filter” and “Deinterlace” to clean the footage up from time to time, but they don’t always work.
Any thoughts are appreciated.
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Dan Charrington
Supervisor, Non-Linear TechnologiesMIJO
635 Queen St E. Toronto, ON
416-964-7539MacPro 8-core Xeon 2.8GHz, 10gb Ram, AJA Kona 3 SD/HD
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8 Replies
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Hi Dan,
For interlacing issues, don’t even look at your computer screen.
trust only your external interlaced monitor.[Dan Charrington] “A little more detail that I’m not sure is relevant or not (and as I write this I now have a hard time describing in words) is that the jitter I spoke of in the freeze frames in QT player seems to be intermittent, showing up for 2 frames before disappearing for 3 frames and repeating as I go through the video frame by frame.”
That footage has added pull-down.
rafael -
Good call Rafael.
The problem I have with the monitors at least is that the bosses are all dead set on replacing our CRT monitors with big shiny flat screen JVC monitors. My co-workers and I hate them. They never display interlaced material properly since they are HD monitors and act like progressive scan computer monitors.
The added pull-down you mentioned… what would that be a result of? I’ve noticed that any footage we digitize into our FCP system via our KONA 3 card tends to pick up a slightly less severe amount of that as well. Is it something that is added via exporting from certain software? Is it something that can be controlled through a setting?
Thanks, as always, for your time.
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Dan Charrington
Supervisor, Non-Linear TechnologiesMIJO
635 Queen St E. Toronto, ON
416-964-7539MacPro 8-core Xeon 2.8GHz, 10gb Ram, AJA Kona 3 SD/HD
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It sounds like it is 23.98 footage that was converted to 29.97 improperly. Pulldown added wrong. Problem on the clients end. Ask them what frame rate they are editing. If 23.98, ask them to send the files on that format. Your Kona can add the proper pulldown.
Shane
GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
Good thought. It makes sense since a lot of the material I work with is commercial material. Chances are they are mastering to 23.98 SR tapes and pulling 29.97fps files from those to send to us for distribution to televisions stations and the like.
Thanks for the insight.
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Dan Charrington
Supervisor, Non-Linear TechnologiesMIJO
635 Queen St E. Toronto, ON
416-964-7539MacPro 8-core Xeon 2.8GHz, 10gb Ram, AJA Kona 3 SD/HD
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Hi Dan,
If this has anything to do with spots for Fox Home Video email me at:joeydotburnhamatmacdotcom
I route stuff that goes to your company all the time and I want to make sure it’s not on our end. Granted it goes through a dub house first before it gets to you, but I want to make sure we aren’t the ones you are talking about. It would have been the first I’ve heard of it.
Best,
Joey Burnham
TM Productions -
Dan, a little off subject. I notice you have 10GB of Ram on your 8 core Mac Pro. How is that configured? I am curious because I too have a simarily configured computer, and I am wondering if I have the Ram placed wrong on the sleds. Thanks
don walker
Texarkana, TexasJohn 3:16
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Not to worry Joey. The majority of stuff that we receive in the production room for all the movie clients is always pristine. (I can’t speak for the guys upstairs in the Post department).
Most of the material that is afflicted is commercial material.
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Dan Charrington
Supervisor, Non-Linear TechnologiesMIJO
635 Queen St E. Toronto, ON
416-964-7539MacPro 8-core Xeon 2.8GHz, 10gb Ram, AJA Kona 3 SD/HD
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Sorry Don. I didn’t build these machines. I just use them as best I can.
Wish I could be of more help. Good luck, regardless.
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Dan Charrington
Supervisor, Non-Linear TechnologiesMIJO
635 Queen St E. Toronto, ON
416-964-7539MacPro 8-core Xeon 2.8GHz, 10gb Ram, AJA Kona 3 SD/HD
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