Pixel Masking

[Grinner Hester]

there isn’t a plugin for this that I am aware of. None needed.
It’s a duplicated layer, scooted over a couple of pixels then animatte is used to cut out the bad pixels from the camera. This utilizes good pixels with the same motion to overlay the blank spots.

[Tim Maloney]

Thanks Grinner,

I know nothing about this process.

Our camera is one of seven in the Audition phase of Australian Idol.

Is this something that can be applied in the online:

1/ Simply. IE set up once then drag and dropped to all the clips from our camera in the sequence?
2/ Isolated to our camera.
3/ With ??? extra render time?

Can you explain virtually telling us the keystrokes and process??

Best

Tim

[Terence Curren]

In Avid, you can use the “Scratch Removal Tool” to handle this if it’s available on your system. If not, you can also use the “Dirt Fix” plugin https://www.3prong.com/

To do what Grinner mentioned, put an exact copy of the shot on the next video layer up. This can be accomplished by selecting the shot on it’s current layer, then option + C (Mac) or Alt + C (PC). This loads the selection in your source monitor. Then move up to the next empty track and overwrite. Now apply a “resize” effect to move the clip over by how many pixels you need, then holding the Alt key, carry over the animatte effect. Holding the Alt key allows the effect to go on top of the resize as opposed to replacing it. Using the tools in animate, cut a hole over the bad pixels through to the layer with the good shifted pixels.

Anyone who is handling your footage on an Avid should know how to do all of this.

Caveats: It is render intensive. The shifted pixels will be obvious when there is motion in that area.

Terence Curren
http://www.alphadogs.tv
http://www.digitalservicestation.com
Burbank,Ca

[Ra-ey Saleh]

Unless I’m mis-understanding your problem, wouldn’t just be easier to ‘Resize’ the shot slightly. If it’s just the top 5 pixel lines then a very slight Resize would be needed. If you have the render time, you should upgrade it to HQ.
Any Onliner will be used to blowing up shots slightly in Online to get rid of a myriad of rubbish around the edges.

[Grinner Hester]

I have never degrigated the quality of an entire shot to get rid of an imperfection in it. Cropping and masking would be much better for the overall image.

[Ra-ey Saleh]

For the first time ever, I’ll have to disagree with grinner.
It’s really diff’rent strokes, but if you have as many shots as you suggest in a sequence that need the same correction, Resize is by far the quickest and most satisfactory way of fixing your problem.
AniMatte, Cloning and Scratch Removal are all great tools for fixing particular shots, but Terence is correct, depending on the shot, often repeating part of the shot again is ‘obvious when there is motion in that area’. This can often look like a technical mistake and cause problems in QC.
Also, the amount of work it would take to individually work on each of these shots, deciding which tool is best, experimenting etc…, would make it very time-intensive.
Knowing the turnaround of Idol, what you need is a fast drag and drop solution, and that is Resize (HQ optional), in my opinion.

[Terence Curren]

[Ra-ey Saleh] “Knowing the turnaround of Idol, what you need is a fast drag and drop solution, and that is Resize (HQ optional), in my opinion.”

Better yet, open the console and type in “setresizetype 9” for a higher quality blowup. Allows the use of polyphase filtering.

https://www.avid.com/exchange/forums/thread/281184.aspx

Terence Curren
http://www.alphadogs.tv
http://www.digitalservicestation.com
Burbank,Ca

[Ra-ey Saleh]

Very true.
Something you’d have to tell the Online guy about, not much point in the offline.

[Grinner Hester]

did I misunderstand the problem? I thought there were a few missing pixels due to a bad chip in the camera.
we talkin somthing up in the VITC?

[Ra-ey Saleh]

Ha, now I see the problem.
Tim wrote ‘Probably need to mask around 5 pixels tops’ and I read it as, top 5 pixel (lines).
My mistake sorry.
In THAT case, I’d simply do it in Paint Effect. Zoom right into the pixel(s) and apply a very small blur (feathered) on each pixel. Once you’ve made it, you can reapply the same effect to all the shots from that camera.
This is a process we use occasionally for ‘dead pixels’ which works great and is unnoticeable.
My apologies grinner, should have knon better…