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Jagged lines
Hello —
I’m helping a friend editing and mastering his short to send to festivals.
The movie was shot in DV. Captured in FCP/DV PAL settings, my friend edited it. I added title and some type, did some basic and less basic color correction, then exported directly through compressor (which did the rendering).
Image quality (resolution) is rather low, I thought this was normal with DV (I’m more used to edit HDV material), some lines appeared as jagged (as in the example below, top line of the parapet), I thought this was because DV was expanded to my full screen resolution, and that it would be ok on a TV set, but my friend said it didn’t appear as much jagged in his initial DVD export (before I did color correction and titling), and that image quality was somehow better. I can’t compare, because I don’t have his DVD, and I don’t have a TV monitor (or set) either.
Any hint? Where could I start to troublesoot this? Sorry, I know this sounds vague and newby-ish.
Many thanks in advance.
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6 Replies
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A couple of quick things to check.
First, if you open a DV file in QuickTime, make sure that the “high quality video” box is checked under visual settings.
Also, in my opinion, coloring DV (4:1:1) video with the 3-way color corrector makes the video look manipulated. It just feels like it’s been played with. I’d suggest using Color as it deals with the colors in a much more natural way.
-Russ
Russell Lasson
Colorist/Digital Cinema Specialist
Universal Post
Salt Lake City, UT -
Many thanks Russell for your quick reply.
I just checked that “high quality” box in QT, and it didn’t seem to change a lot as far as this jagged line is concerned.Any other idea?
As to Color, I’ll give it a try later, thanks for the advice. I forgot to mention that I’m using FCP 5.1 for this (2×2.66/3 Mac Pro).
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Hi there
DV is notoriously jagged on diagonals and edges, especially on things which are red in colour. And for some reason on wide shots … close ups seem to look OK !
I would say copy + paste the edit into a new 8 bit uncompressed sequence. This will make titles and colours look a bit better, then try exporting your quicktime as 8 bit uncompressed
then master to DVD
dont forget about the difference in field order and that 8bit uncompressed uses the opposite field dominance to DV
ab
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[Ignatius Gorin] “then exported directly through compressor (which did the rendering).”
Please explain this. You didn’t render in FCP? You exported from Compressor? As what codec? That is recompressing your footage, not simply rendering it. Even going from DV to DV in compressor is adding more compression than simply rendering in FCP.
Shane
GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
Put the clip in pause and zoom way in on the black/white edge until you see the individual pixels start to resolve, should be about 200-400% zoom. You will see that DV’s pixelation is built into the codec. That’s as good as it gets and those pixel blocks are one of the major reasons chromakeying blows in DV. The matte will always have those huge blocks on the edges unless, of course, you’re using a superior keying filter.
interlaced fields help hide the diagonals but the only way to improve them is to add a bit of vertical blur. Like anti-aliasing, a slight corruption of the image actually makes it appear to be clearer.Editorially speaking: Most of us just learn to live with DV’s many insurmountable drawbacks. Why we accepted DV as a viable video format 10-15 years ago is beyond me. I’ve always thought it was a huge step backwards from BetaSP, component, and, in some cases, even VHS.
bogiesan
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Thanks to all who responded. Actually, I gor a chance to compare the original DVD with my version, and pixelwise, it wasn’t worst (and it looked better with my color correction). I copied the whole project and we took it to a facility where they will do the beta output.
Thank you again.
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