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Mixing iPhone and HDV footage: any tricks for improving the look of the iPhone footage?
I’m working on a project shot in HDV on the Sony EX1R. The director shot some additional footage on the iPhone (originally not intended for the project, just some footage from his daily life and trips).
He wants to mix this iPhone footage into our HDV sequences, and while it looks better than I expected, it has bad aliasing and moire (obviously), and it’s generally a bit jarring when intercut with the HDV footage.
Has anyone here found specific tricks (filters in After Effects, settings in Compressor, etc.) that can reduce aliasing and moire in iPhone footage or otherwise improve the picture quality?
I should mention that the director avoided rolling shutter issues by keeping the shots static, so at least we don’t have to worry about that!
I understand the answer to my question may be a simple “no, you can’t improve it,” but even that is helpful. Thanks in advance!
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6 Replies
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First, you’ve got to ID the iPhone fir us, because iPhone 4 is HD, while all others are SD, and we have no idea how to begin to help you without that most basic information.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
https://www.drwfilms.comPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Business & Marketing and Apple Final Cut Pro forums. Formerly host of the Apple Final Cut Basics, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.
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Oh, sorry! It’s the iPhone 4. I didn’t know the other iPhone models had SD cameras.
Here’s what FCP reports:
Dimensions: 1280 × 720
Framerate: 29.97
H.264, 1.3MB/secThe main footage (99% of the project) is HDV 1080i60, 3.2MB/sec, shot with the Sony EX1R (and some of it with the EX3, but with the same settings).
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Scaling the iPhone 4 footage from 720 up to 1080 isn’t ideal, but that’s not your big problem, the aliasing is because the iPhone footage is progressive segmented frames, i.e. two identical fields that comprise a frame, which you have put into an interlaced timeline.
You need to transcode the iPhoine h.264 material to proRes anyway, as h.264 isn’t really editable. Do that in Compressor, change the ProRes preset to force interlaced frames, and turn on frame controls and change Output Fields to Top First. See how that works and report back…
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
https://www.drwfilms.comPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Business & Marketing and Apple Final Cut Pro forums. Formerly host of the Apple Final Cut Basics, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.
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[Rafael Amador] “Does the new iPhone 4 have HD/SD-SDI or HDMI out?”
Rafa, apparently you didn’t hear that Steve Jobs added a built-in mini AJA Kona 3 card with dual link 4:4:4 capability to the iPhone. And the latest firmware enables shooting 4K frame sizes that rival the Arri Alexa.
NOT!!!
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
https://www.drwfilms.comPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Business & Marketing and Apple Final Cut Pro forums. Formerly host of the Apple Final Cut Basics, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.
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Here’s a much belated thanks. Our schedule changed and I never got back to this issue until this afternoon. The Compressor settings worked very well; far less moire/aliasing (it’s a detailed shot of fire escape steps with grills, etc.).
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