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is my very long fade impossible in FCP?
My project uses DVCPro50 footage, I’m using high render qualities and viewing everything on a calibrated broadcast monitor. There’s no problem with my field orders, or anything else basic or obvious. i want a very long (4 mins) static clip to fade to black from the start. I tried all the usual ways (opacity keyframes, dissolving to slug or black matte, cross dissolve, etc etc) but no matter what i do when the fade hits the last 3% or so before black, it goes into a succession of really awful looking compression contours. my image comprises a blurred view of buildings in the distance at dawn, with a horizon line (so the middle of the image is darker than the top and bottom); the successive contour streaks emanate from this horizon and progressively wipe across the screen for the last few seconds. really really awful looking.
is this just to be expected in FCP? am i asking it to do something that it only does quite roughly, far too slowly? I’ve exported the sequence as a QT clip wondering whether anything would happen in the encoding but of course that was just blind guessing. so far no dice. anybody have any clues or will i have to ditch this fade?
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7 Replies
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That’s the gradation from the compressed (DV50) format. You need to work with uncompressed 10bit footage in an uncompressed 10bit timeline to remove that altogether.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.STOP STARING AND START GRADING WITH APPLE COLOR The new Color Training DVD now available from the Creative Cow!
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ok.. so using any compression at all, even at the higher end of the spectrum, means i’m always going to have this problem?
in theory i could recapture this one clip but i’d be stuck then with being unable to play it back on the system that’s in place (this is for a gallery installation, it’s playing from mini macs so i don’t reckon they’ll handle the uncompressed 10-bit too smartly). though i could try.
thanks for the info. every day you learn something.
d
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[Daniel Jewesbury] ”
ok.. so using any compression at all, even at the higher end of the spectrum, means i’m always going to have this problem?”Yes, it’s called banding. You will see it across the board unless you are working in a full 10bit pipeline.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.STOP STARING AND START GRADING WITH APPLE COLOR The new Color Training DVD now available from the Creative Cow!
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The only known solution is to add some noise to the clip to confuse the quantization or “banding” of color values. Adding a little noise breaks up solid areas enough to minimize this. Call it an “artistic” intentional effect. 😉
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will try fading in a bit of noise just as the black gets to about 96% or so. then it shouldn’t be that noticeable.. let’s see what happens..
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i had some stills that caused banding problems.
i was off-lining in DV sequences, and the banding was pretty noticeable.but when i;d finished my cut i changed the sequence settings to PhotoJpeg.
i think the Quality was set to 75%i rendered and exported, then made Standard Def PAL DVDs for a theater show,
and the photos looked great.dont know if this will help as you’re starting with DV
you could also add the colour smoothing filter to the clip.good luck,
nick -
I’ve got a long dissolve plugin that uses dither to try and extend the range of a good looking dissolve out further: https://www.nattress.com/Products/BigBox/Transitions/GLongDiss.htm
It might work for you!
Graeme
– http://www.nattress.com – Film Effects and Standards Conversion for FCP
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