NTSC display looks like jagged, single-field?

[Bob Zelin]

you have not stated what monitor you are using. You have not stated what Easy Setup you are using.

If you are using an LCD monitor with an S input, you will get terrible results. If you are using a CRT monitor with an S input, go to FCP, select an easy setup like 8 bit uncompressed, bring up the Color bar pattern. How does this look – does it look “jaggy” or does it look ok.

bobzelin

[Tom Donnelly]

I am using a CRT monitor w/ s-video in with my own custom “easy setups” (some are ProRes HQ, some DVCPro HD, some using Apple Intermediate Codec depending on footage – I typically allow the sequence to set itself when it asks as I drop the first clip in.)

I tried the color bars and they look fine, no jaggies or apparent missing field, even when I rotate them to get diagonal angles.

Does this help to diagnose?

[Bob Zelin]

yes, this does help diagnose.
Until you figure out what is going on STOP using custom “Easy setups”. Use uncompressed 8 bit (for example), with no custom settings, just to see if your “custom setups” are screwing up things. Use the easy setups that AJA gives you as default settings. This is not the way you have to work for a real project, but will help you diagnose if your custom setups are screwing things up in your display.

BobZelin

[Tom Donnelly]

OK, here’s what I tried:

– Created new sequence
– Selected an “Easy Setup” (tried multiple, like the one you suggested above, as well as many others including Aja setups.)
– Dragged a piece of my footage into the sequence
– FCP asked if I wanted to conform the sequence to same specs of clips, I say yes (again, tried clips of different resolutions and codecs, same results with all…)
– All of the combos and scenarios brought up the same jagged, single-field-ish looking display on my monitor. Tried s-video as well as composite out of the Aja.

Argh.

Tom

[Tom Donnelly]

Additionally, I opened an old SD sequence, filed dominance set to “none,” and full of frame-based animation. This stuff plays perfectly on the monitor.

I pasted in all of the HD stuff, various codecs and resolutions (FCP auto-scaled that stuff to be the correct size to fit in the SD frame…) and that stuff played great there. I changed seq settings to make the seq an HD res, and then 1.) All of the HD stuff is suddenly small and I would have to go through sequence manually, increasing the size and changing the “distort” pan in the Motion tab for every clips and 2.) – when I do this to one clip just to see if it plays w/out the jaggies, no dice, jaggies still present…

Double-argh.

TD

[Tom Donnelly]

One final thought – its almost as if the AJa IO LA is not capable of even passing through something as large a res as an HD signal (through any of the outputs…), and breaks it up before it hits the monitor – is this possible? As SD files, and outputting an SD sequence, seem to play crisp and fine to the CRT.

TD

[Gary Adcock]

[Tom Donnelly] “One final thought – its almost as if the AJa IO LA is not capable of even passing through something as large a res as an HD signal “

that would be correct on that product, your IoLA is only capable of SD output.

The IoHD will handle both SD and HD signals.

gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production Workflows

Inside look at the IoHD
https://library.creativecow.net/articles/adcock_gary/AJAIOHD.php