-
Slo-Mo Frustration
I have been struggling with the poor quality of slo motion clips when down converting to SD resolution, at least when working with interlaced footage.
For me, the best results have been to edit and then copy and paste the HD timeline into a DV-NTSC sequence before exporting to Compressor. This gives me a sharper, less muddy image than exporting from the HD sequence. However, clips with slo-motion applied do not look good when rendered and played in the SD timeline. The only way I’ve been able to get acceptable results is to go back to the HD sequence and make self- contained .mov files of the slo-mo clips, and then replace the clips in the SD timeline with those movies. I’m speaking of regular clips with slo-mo applied, not overcranked footage.
I’ve working with 1080/60i footage in a DV-NTSC sequence with field order set to “none.” -
4 Replies
-
[Chris Babbitt] “I’ve working with 1080/60i footage in a DV-NTSC sequence with field order set to “none.””
EX interlaced footage is upper field first. DV NTSC is lower field first. Make sure your DV NTSC timeline is set to lower field first then drag your EX footage into it. Highlight the clip, right or control-click and choose Media Manager from the pop-up menu. Under Media choose “Recompress”. Use the DV NTSC Anamporphic setting. Uncheck everything else in the Media Manager window. Base media file names on: existing file names and choose where to save the file.
When Media Manager is done delete the EX clip from the timeline, navigate to your new file and import. In the browser window make sure the clip properties says “lower field first” for the new clip. If it doesn’t then right/control-click in the field order box and change it. Drag your new clip into the sequence and apply your slow-mo stuff.
– Don
-
Don,
Are you sure about setting the DV-NTSC timeline to Lower Field First? Every tutorial I have read regarding moving EX footage to an SD timeline says to set the field order to “None.” This includes articles by Larry Jordan, Ken Stone and Doug Jensen. Or, does that just apply to progressive footage? None of them made the distinction.I think what you suggest accomplishes the same thing as exporting a self-contained clip with the correct properties, which has been my solution…..still not very elegant, especially if you have a lot of clips.
-
Hi Chris and Don,
Set your DV sequence to: “Render all YUV in High Precision” and “Motion rendering: Best”.
You will see a big difference. A down-scaling is quite critical operation. is not the same to do it in 8b or 32b floating point.
If your footage is Interlaced and you go to a DV NONE time-line, you MUST de-interlace.
The “shift-field” is not an issue anymore when you set HD in an SD sequence.
Think that you are setting 1080 lines on top of 480 lines.Mac OX 10.5.2-FC 6.02-QT 7.4.1
G5 2x2Gh 4GbRAM-BlackMagic Extreme
PMBP 17″Core2Duo 4GbRAM-AJA ioHD
JVC DTV-17″
SONY EX-1 . SONY PD170
..and always a big mess on top of the table. -
I always render in YUV and “Best”
I just set up a new sequence with field order set to lower and it seems to be working better, although the slo-mo clips still need to be brought in as separate movies, exported from the HD sequence.
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up