Motion Tracking Issue

[Kevin Camp]

dave’s right, you need to have deinterlaced footage, otherwise the tracker will go crazy…

but once that’s taken care of, the inner box is the ‘feature region.’ if you made the box surround you ‘x’ you should be pretty well set for that box…

if you think the luminance values are what’s giving you problems, toggle thru the color channels in the preview window (the little colored circles, or bars depending on your version, at the bottom of the preview window). check each channel (r, g, b) to see if one makes the ‘x’ stand out more (my bet would be on red). if there is a channel that makes that ‘x’ pop, then try applying the channel combiner effect, and set the ‘from’ parameter to the best channel (say, red) and the ‘to’ parameter to lightness only. you should now only see that channel as a black and white image.

i think you can now try the tracker again (or you may need to precomp the footage with channel combiner on it and track off the precomp).

Kevin Camp
Designer – KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[Dustin Barrons]

Dave, Kevin…
Looks as if we meet again. Through Premiere, there is a checkbox to remove the pulldown on the footage. Now that I understand what’s going on with everything, I am realizing that the video is coming in as 29.97 with pulldown (as it would have to be, recorded to DV), then once into the system, the pulldown is removed through Premiere.

I still am getting little issues that I’m not entirely happy with. Basically weird waves every 3-4 frames, but that is only periodically. What I mean by this is that if I play the raw footage through, lets say Real Player, or if I play it back from my GL2, I do not get these artifacts. It is only once it is in Premiere and AE that I get these.

I’m running some render tests through AE to see what happens when I re-render it both back (raw and with keying effects) to 23.97 with no fields, no pulldown, then a second time convert it to 29.97 with lower field first and a 3:2 pulldown added back. Those are still rendering. I am going to bring those into Premiere and recheck it, then also export it to tape and recheck it. If I am without artifacts or problems on the 29.97 pulldown re-added version, then I know that I am probably in 24p through editing, effects, then am adding the pulldown in AE before export. This will give me a workflow to work with.

If you understood that rant, which I hope I was clear about, then you’ll know that, in a nutshell, I’m pretty sure I still am in 24p. I just think something could be up with either a the previews within the programs or a setting still isn’t correct. If I still have problems, I am going to find a way to re-import with the original camera and start all over again :-).

About the tracking, thank you Kevin for the suggestion. I will try that later tonight to see if that helps. I’m pretty sure it is not interlacing that is doing this because the tracker will stick for a while, but it’s like the markers are not contrasted or luminant enough (at this point) to have it stick for long periods of time. So, I will try your method, then repost later tonight or tomorrow.

Thanks again guys.