Understanding Moire in FCPX?

[Noah Kadner]

Which drone?

Noah

FCPWORKS – FCPX Workflow
FCP Exchange – FCPX Workshops
XinTwo – FCPX Training

[Kasey Gay]

Drone is a phantom 4 standard.
I also shoot on Sony mirrorless cameras. An a6000 and occasionally an A7S II.

I feel like I’m making mistakes somewhere that’s costing me quality. I believe I’m making the “right choices” but still end up with export mush.

I’ve never tried using Premiere before, but I didn’t know if that platform offered more precision in how it exported that might help me along.

[Steve Connor]

[Kasey Gay] “I believe I’m making the “right choices” but still end up with export mush.
“

I think you’re probably not as I have zero issues with quality of encoding out of FCPX with footage from those cameras.

[Kasey Gay] “I’ve never tried using Premiere before, but I didn’t know if that platform offered more precision in how it exported that might help me along.”

Not really! Give us more details about exactly what you’re export settings are and post a link to an example of the problems

[Kasey Gay]

Hey Steve, Thanks for the reply.

Here’s some recent stuff that’s been coming out of the cameras.

https://youtu.be/ALZdpk1f_pI
https://youtu.be/aSQWlVtV4EM

I’m trying to get some of the raw originals onto youtube for comparison. I really just need someone with a greater knowledge base to tell me where I’m breaking my footage at.

I JUST re-exported and uploaded this to youtube with these settings.
https://youtu.be/PdUHFFauRp4. (is currently uploading)

I mean, feel free to tell me I’m a monkey who just can’t get his exposure right, or is wrecking my footage in the grading process.

Just trying to figure out where my miscarriage is happening so I can start improving.

Thanks team!

[Steve Connor]

Do you know what data rate you are using? Youtube compression is very unforgiving!

[Kasey Gay]

Is there a selection for data rate in FCPX?
I shoot 4k on the drone, and I was shooting like 60-100mbps in the a7.

Are there other additional setting in FCPX to sniff out?

[Steve Connor]

Do you have Compressor installed as well

[Kasey Gay]

I have access to it, yes.
Should I be exporting master files/uncompressed and then exporting through compressor?

[Steve Connor]

[Kasey Gay] “Should I be exporting master files/uncompressed and then exporting through compressor?
“

No, you can use add compressor settings to FCPX export

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3_y7r6_4Hs

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[Sam Lee]

I have similar problems using consumer level drones with 8-bit, long-gop drone originated footage. The most common is slight dithering and color banding that originated in the highly compressed 60 Mbps MPEG-4. It’s not just me. I see numerous of other productions that originated in consumer level drones shot in UHD and downsampled to 1080p. There are simply too much video artifacts. Did you try to shoot in RAW? At this level, any moire pattern and other common artifacts should not exist. But the costs will be quite high.

What helped was shooting in 1080p. But video artifacts are not 100% though due to the moderate amount of video compression already exist before the file is processed in FCP X. You can blame the compression originated in the raw .mp4s for these artifacts.

Unfortunately these artifacts will fail qc if submitted to major OTT platforms (Netflix, Amazon Video) are good examples.