Testing DV Captures – Mac/PC – & codecs – “G Nicer”

[Gunner Jones]

Sean,
Are you checking this on a NTSC monitor and not the Canvas?
It the Timeline set at Safe RT?
Have you rendered with the dark green FULL bar checked in the Sequence>Render menus?
Did you apply the 4:1:1 color smoothing filter ahead of the key filter (G Nicer performs the same function)?
Are you using the Chroma Keyer and not the Blue Screen Filter?
Did you use the same technique as this article?
https://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/chroma_key_fcp_hd_monahan.html

A few things to check here to make sure you’re properly keying in FCP before you make more judgements.

Thanks!

[Sean Freehill]

Thanks Gunner,
That is a great article. Actually I’m keying and comping in After Effects.
Using FCP for capture and editing. The footage is 24pa with the pulldown removed in AE.
It’s not a keying issue as much as it is the Apple-DV codec.

The G-Nicer and 4:1:1 color smoothing filters do fix the chroma pixelation issues nicely.
My point is that DV footage in Quicktime format must be processed and rendered with one of these plugins whereas on a PC it does not necessarily.

Fine if your in FCP all the time. But for AE I haven’t found quite as simple a solution (Is there an equivalent plugin for AE out there?).

For now I’ll be rendering out of FCP w/filter to uncompressed when going to AE.

THX

[Guy]

You could try downloading Avid free DV and using the Avid DV codec.
It gives smoother chorma then the FCP codec.

Comparison between avid and FCP DV codec:

https://www.24p.com/codecs.htm

[Sean Freehill]

Was happy to have found this excellent article here
https://www.adamwilt.com/24p/#CodecDifferences

Really clarifies the codec and chroma issues for me..

Thanks Adam!

[Sean Freehill]

Yea good idea.. will check it out.
‘Cept I think the codec will only be able to be utilized from within AVID.. Hmm. Will try.

Thanks!

[Graeme Nattress]

Sean, thanks for checking out my plugin. It realy does help with chroma keying, and I’m working on even better improvements at the moment. I just did some testing with the new 4:2:0 chroma sharpening plugin I’m working on, and it was producing excellent results with some PAL DV footage.

As for chroma sampling, SDI etc. Read this: https://www.nattress.com/Chroma_Investigation/chromasampling.htm

It tries to explain everything. The Apple DV codec is not bad. It’s actually excellent and very accurate and has excellent generational capabilities. However, one of the ways it achieves this is by not smoothing the chroma. This is not a bad thing once you understand it. Apple provide a free 4:1:1 smoothing filter with FCP you can try for yourself and see how much it helps. Download the free “G Take” plugin from my free section and you can use it to see the Y, Cb And Cr components, and see what all these filters are doing.

All decent chroma keyers have some kind of chroma interpolation built in to them to get around the issues of chroma reduction. Even 4:2:2 footage should be smoothed to 4:4:4 (if the codec doesn’t) before keying.

Going uncompressed does not provide a better picture. People think it does, but I wrote the above article to prove otherwise, and that it’s a lack of understanding of what is going on with chroma and smoothing (or not) that adds fuel to the uncompressed SDi DV myth. However, for certainl workflows, it can be more advantageous to capture DV over SDI, but it’s an expensive route and not to be taken lightly.

Hope that helps,

Graeme

– http://www.nattress.com – Film Effects for FCP

[Guy]

I think the problem is he is trying to get chroma smoothing directly in AE, so FCP filters won’t work without having to go through FCP first.

The chroma sampling article great!

[Sean Freehill]

Graeme,

Thanks for being such a wealth of knowledge and for making some great plugins.
I think I’ve got a grasp of whats happening now with the dv codecs.
I agree going SDI uncompressed with DV is not necessary with a decent chroma smoothing plugin such as yours. Although outside of FCP the options seem limited for smoothing in Apple’s dv codec.
I understand Apple’s reasoning in omitting chroma smoothing but although it may be beneficial to users who are compressing multiple generations in the DVcodec(??) it hinders those who would like it smoothed without having to re-render. I wish Apple could’ve incorporated an on/off switch for chroma smoothing ala the HiQ property.
My issue is unless I can find an excellent plugin like G-Nicer that will work in After Effects, I am forced to apply filters in FCP and render uncompressed to go to AE.

Not the end of the world but an inconvenience time wise and storage wise. Especially on a project with tons of footage.
One that is not an issue on other (PC) dv codecs.

Porting your filters to AE anytime soon?? 🙂
or are there others for AE that I might try?

So far Magic Bullet’s deartifacting is the closest..(no control over the settings though)

Thanks!!

[Graeme Nattress]

Yes, a chroma smoothing on/off switch for the DV codec would indeed be useful. If you just want basic smoothing, a horizontal 4 pixel blur on the chroma will work in AE. My main issue with that is that AE is strictly RGB, whereas my algorithms rely on access to the original Y’CbCr data, and I’m so busy coding FCP plugins, I’m not able to look at doing AE ones as well.

Graeme

– http://www.nattress.com – Film Effects for FCP

[Oliver Busch]

Another FCP choma resampling plugin is the