Please Help Me 30p to DVD

[Michael Sacci]

The comb effect and black of your video, they are not related, probably.

I never shot in 30P but I do a ton of 24P work for DVDs.

If the footage was shot in 30P, captured 30P and you want a 30P DVD the timeline shot be Progressive. Switch back and forth is never a good thing. (29.97 is the correct frame timing)

If record and capture were 30P set your timeline to progressive, if you have to render all the footage something is wrong.

Export to compressor from FCP

Make a new CBR, yes CBR mpeg 2 present, with 29.97 and dominance set to Progressive. Make it as high as you can (up to 7Mbps) and then encode the audio as an ac3. This should help the black problem. Blacks is a hard thing to compress, and VBR does a crappy job of each.

Keep field order (or the lack of one) constant throughout the entire process. This should fix your combing problem.

[Videovideo]

i will try the cbr thanks and thanks for your continued research, all.

i have cross dissoves and other transitions so —
this means I should set seq to none.

but should i be using reg capture dv ntsc or the progressive setting?
i would like to use the regular ntsc as this is what i edited to, and it was orig captured cpture now (shoot me) and bacth capture is not working with multicam edit so I have read.

it apears as if ther is not much difference when burning the test dvds– still small combing on **movement** of dancers bodies close up cam. there is a thin line aroud their bodies. am i looking too closely.

[Michael Sacci]

Capture and seq need to match, especially since your end result is a 30P DVD. You should capture as progressive.

[Sean Oneil]

I’m not going to be too definitive with this, but I think everyone here is mistaken. I could be wrong. If I am, someone please say so and explain why.

In your FCP Browser, change the field dominance of the actual clip you captured (not just the sequence) to “None”. THEN, and only then, drag the clip(s) to the sequence (which is also set to “None”).

My understanding is that there is no actual difference between 60i and 30p within the confines of the DV NTSC codec. It is always stored as 60i, 25mbps CBR. All that matters is how QT/FCP interprets it during export or playback. Certain “flags” tell it to playback at either 60i, 30p, or 24pA. These flags can be changed – one way to change it to 30p is by changing the field dominance to “None” like I described.

It’s just like the anamorphic flag. It makes no difference if you capture it with or without “Anamorphic” checked in the capture settings. You can change it back and forth after capturing as you like. It doesn’t re-render anything.

This isn’t the case with most video, but with DV, I believe it is.

Again, someone correct me if I’m wrong.

[Don Greening]

[Sean ONeil] “It’s just like the anamorphic flag. It makes no difference if you capture it with or without “Anamorphic” checked in the capture settings. You can change it back and forth after capturing as you like. It doesn’t re-render anything.
“

That part I know for sure is correct. You can check and unckeck the anamorphic box at will in the clip properties window and you see the clip pop out to 853×480 or back to 720×480 each time. No rendering required.

The rest of your post sounds logical, to me anyway.

– Don

[Videovideo]

Thanks, still not working.

when i look at the field dominance of the footage captured at reguklar dv ntsc settings in the Browser– it is set to lower.

when i look at the field dominance of the footage capture settings as progressive in the Browser– it is set to lower. If it was true progressive footage, wouldn’t it default to “none” ?

Good suggestion re: anamorphic- and I was really hoping this would be the trick– I have seen the results from adjusting the clip setting in the browser for anamorphic but did not see much difference when changing the clip in the browser from lower to none. There was also no change in render status in the tl when I changed the field dominance of the clips. I did not do a dvd test though.

Again, when working with footage that is set to lower in a sequence that is changed to none– I do see results– less comb. FCP manual does confirm that clip and seq settings should match– but I did not see a visible difference in the canvas or my tv monitor when I make this adjustment.

Is it worth it to change each clip? I did a multi cam edit– and tried to change the field dominance from lower to none of the multiclip clip produced in the browser, but it would not change from lower. I changed the clips cam a and b in the browser to none which produced the multicam clip- but this did not update in the timeline. I tried to select all clips in tl and change the field dominance but this did not work. Will I have to change each clip in this timeline individually?

In terms of the black and shifting, I have added the brightness/ciontrast filter and will know the results tonight as I am not by my computer at the moment.

thanks for reading.

[Tom Brooks]

[Sean ONeil] “My understanding is that there is no actual difference between 60i and 30p within the confines of the DV NTSC codec. It is always stored as 60i, 25mbps CBR. All that matters is how QT/FCP interprets it during export or playback. Certain “flags” tell it to playback at either 60i, 30p, or 24pA. These flags can be changed – one way to change it to 30p is by changing the field dominance to “None” like I described.

It’s just like the anamorphic flag. It makes no difference if you capture it with or without “Anamorphic” checked in the capture settings. You can change it back and forth after capturing as you like. It doesn’t re-render anything.”

Sean, I’m sure you’ve seen that FCP doesn’t always “store” clips as 60i. 24PA material is captured with pulldown removal in real time and the clips are stored as 23.98P.

It’s true that Final Cut will OUTPUT that 23.98 timeline as 60i by inserting pulldown either in realtime over FireWire or on export. I think you’re right that the key thing to understand is that the output to DV is always 60i because DV itself is a 60i format. You’d have to ask the heads in any DV VTR and they’d tell you, “Yup, it’s 60i.” All the 24P and PA stuff is just trickery to superimpose progressive frames over a 60i medium.

In the case of 30P, though, there will be no difference in the output of captured video whether you change the sequence field dom to None or leave it at Lower. Final Cut knows what Dave LaRonde has said: “It doesn’t NEED to do anything different” to output 30P because the timebase of 30P frames is compatible with 60i. FCP just treats 30P like it’s 60i, no matter what–on output that is.

The sequence field dom set to NONE is to make sure moving titles are made with no fields and to let Compressor know the sequence is meant to be progressive for MPEG-2 that’s going to DVD. We’re starting to sound like a broken CD here.
-Tom

[Sean Oneil]

[videovideo] “when i look at the field dominance of the footage capture settings as progressive in the Browser– it is set to lower. If it was true progressive footage, wouldn’t it default to “none” ?”

No, it wouldn’t. Change it to “None” and you will accomplish what you are trying to do. I just tested this myself. Notice you don’t have to render anything. You wont’ even get a dark green bar. This proves my point.

There is no such thing as a “true progressive” DV file. An NTSC DV stream is always the same format – interlaced 29.97, 25mbps. It’s a universal standard. If it wasn’t, you wouldn’t be able to capture it over firewire.

Yes, your camera records and probably encodes in progressive scan. But once it’s stored on your miniDV tape – a DV stream is a DV stream. It doesn’t care if you want to playback with the fields combined or seperated. It stores it the same way regardless.

Your footage is progressive-scan. And it is also interlaced. This is how digital video works whenever field 1 matches up perfectly with field 2 (since you recorded in 30p mode on your camera, they will).

I and P are completely interchangable in this case, and changing the clip proerties in FCP’s browser is a way to switch back and forth. As long as you are not using a deinterlace filter (that re-renders it) this is a completely lossless process.

That is why chainging field dominance to None is your solution.

[Sean Oneil]

[Tom Brooks] “The sequence field dom set to NONE is to make sure moving titles are made with no fields and to let Compressor know the sequence is meant to be progressive for MPEG-2 that’s going to DVD. We’re starting to sound like a broken CD here.
“

Tom,

We’re are in complete agreement.

However, in regards to 60i/30p, I think it is much wiser to also set the clip to “None” – not just the sequence.

Even if Final Cut is aware of that there is no difference, I wouldn’t trust every scenario. For example, certain plugin filters may render differently if it thinks the source footage is interlaced.

[Sean Oneil]

HOLD UP!!! I think you are mistaken Tom.

I just played around with it. Do NOT put a DV clip set to “lower field” on a sequence that is set to “none”. Viewing it on my external monitor (via Kona 3) the image is horrible. It appears to be line-doubling one field only while throwing away the other field – which of course equals garbage.

Change the clip to “none” as well as the sequence and it looks great. So I think this is mandatory – not just a good idea.

BTW, this footage was captured as interlaced from a digibeta. So even in this case it’s a clean process to switch between interlaced and progressive-scan.

You are right in some sense. FCP does not require rendering when placing lower-field in a “none” sequence. FCP knows there’s really no difference. But appearantly the Kona does not know this. And who knows what other plugins don’t know this either.