ProRes 422HQ to WMV for Power Point – please help

[Paul Crowe]

Actually, I’ve just looked at the wmv via Power Point through a projector and the Jaggy interlacing looks really bad. I was feeling pretty relaxed about it because the same wmv (via QT/F4M) on my Cinema HD display doesn’t looks okay.

But now that I’ve seen it via power point – sheesh, those jaggies look crappy. So I really am going to need all your advice please.

Cheers
Paul

[Craig Seeman]

Did you deinterlace?
What was target frame size and data rate?

Why did you shoot 1080i50 and not 1080p25 or 720p50? If it’s not for broadcast there’s no reason to shoot interlace. In fact even if it is for broadcast there’s often no reason to shoot interlace.

[Paul Crowe]

Hi Craig thanks for your response.

No, I haven’t deinterlaced. But I’m trying to. Although on some tests I did change some settings to ‘progressive’ (out of M100 and in AE) thinking this would deinterlace the footage but it looked the same.

Yes, you are quite right we should have shot in 1080p or 720p. I can’t really answer your question re why we didn’t – a big oversight on our part.

Frame size: well I was aiming at the full 1920×1080 because I assumed it would end up looking better projected to 3mtr wide data projector screen. But I’d be guided by you on that. We’re happy enough with the overall quality of resulting wmv file via this workflow, just the interlacing is driving us nuts.

Data rate: If you mean the coding settings out of QT pro(?) the bit rate was set to 7200 (CBR). Which has run fine off the laptop set up being used.

Hope this answers your questions.

I thought I’d try exporting out of M100 as 720p and 1080p and process it through AE with the same settings and see if that helps. I know magic bullet does a deinterlacer as well. But I’m pretty sure I can do it with my current tool set. What do you think?

Thanks for your time and patience.

Cheers
Paul

[Craig Seeman]

[Paul Crowe] “, I haven’t deinterlaced. But I’m trying to. Although on some tests I did change some settings to ‘progressive’ (out of M100 and in AE) thinking this would deinterlace the footage but it looked the same. “

You need to confirm whether source is interlaced or progressive before encoding so you can set Flip4Mac to go from interlace Upper Field (most likely) to Progressive.

[Paul Crowe] “Frame size: well I was aiming at the full 1920×1080 “
[Paul Crowe] “Data rate: If you mean the coding settings out of QT pro(?) the bit rate was set to 7200 (CBR).”
That combination should be very good if the laptop can handle it. Make sure you do a 2 Pass encoding. I’d do 2 Pass VBR but you have to check if the peaks cause problems (stutters) otherwise you can Constrain or do 2 Pass CBR.

[Paul Crowe] “I thought I’d try exporting out of M100 as 720p and 1080p and process it through AE with the same settings and see if that helps. I know magic bullet does a deinterlacer as well. But I’m pretty sure I can do it with my current tool set. What do you think? “
It’s all in the settings you use. If you not sure, export using sequence settings (interlace) and let Flip4Mac deinterlace as I note above.

[Paul Crowe]

Wicked. Thanks heaps for that Craig. Very helpful indeed.

Weird thing is though. I might be being dumb here but I can’t seem to get a two pass option out of F4M studio Pro V 2.2.3.7

I think I can see where they’re meant to be – with all the single pass CBR and VBR settings. But they’re not there. Am I missing something?

Cheers
Paul

[Craig Seeman]

Ahh. You need Studio Pro HD for 2 Pass. Also need that to do HD frame sizes. You’re probably getting a standard def frame size and a 1 Pass CBR encode. That may not look good blown up to a big screen. Spring for the HD upgrade and the results will be much better.

[Paul Crowe]

I think that will make a big difference – I’ll upgrade now.

So here’s the flow I’m heading toward now.

Export out of M100 as Proress 422HQ ensuring Upper field first (as per existing footage).
Keep the same field settings as I Import into AE do my grade etc and possibly try the ‘interlace flicker removal’ fileer on a 0.5-1.0 setting. Then again check render settings to Upper first Proress 422 HQ on the way out of AE.

Then rely entirely on F4M Studio Pro HD to create a progressive file as per the settings we previously discussed (2-pass VBR). If that doesn’t work I might try exporting out of M100 and AE as progressive files and see what difference that makes.

I guess it’s just a matter of which program does the better job of it – is that right? It’s funny because I’d swear I’m still getting interlaced footage when I export progressive settings out of both M100 and AE. But I’ll double check that.

Thanks again.

Cheers Paul

[Joey Burnham]

You could try bringing the files into compressor, and make the highest quality H.264 QT you can. Turn on frame controls to deinterlace. THEN, make your WMV from that. I know it sounds weird but it’s gotten me out of many WMV woes before.
Joey