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URGENT: Quality Horrible when scaling and Rendering (?interlace issue?)
In Final Cut 6, we are having issues with the quality of footage when scaled and rendered. I will get into the settings below AND there is a link to show a sample what I am running into.
https://www.jonesinc.com/tech/fcp_interlacecomp.jpg
We are simply scaling footage to 26% and adding a shadow. As soon as the footage is rendered, it looks unacceptable — Like a field issue, or comparable to a draft quality in After Effects. Any footage we capture from tape looks this way, but this example is Beta SP footage. The footage plays back fine full frame, it is when altered/scaled that is looks bad after rendering.
The scaled footage looks this way no matter where in the frame it is placed, thus we tried up/down a pixel to adjust from laying on half-fields.
Scaling colorbars, a solid color, or any FCP generated object looks fine. We can take the same footage into AVID OR After Effects and it looks great when scaled. As expected, scaling in After Effects is best as it seems to calculate interlaced footage better — but surely we can get better result out of Final Cut Pro?
We can export a clip from Final Cut and look on any Mac, PC, or monitor to see the issue is within the software converted file, not the video display.We thought it was due to playing interlaced footage on a progressive monitor, but when we playback from FCP to any NTSC tv it looks bad.
One other note, It is odd to me that when I scale the footage, it looks ok until rendered.
The ONLY other time it looks ok is when we change the sequence settings so the FIELD ORDER is NONE, rather than Lower-field. However, this of-course will cause issues with the interlaced footage during playback for Broadcast.I am not finding a lot of discussion about this and what other users are doing. I have been an AVID editor for 12 years and new to Final Cut Pro; however, our veteran FCP editors do not not have an answer other than sending this to Motion which is not feasible under many time/budget limitations for such a simple task.
Any assistance would be great!
AGAIN, Here is a link of a screen-grab with description.https://www.jonesinc.com/tech/fcp_interlacecomp.jpg
SETTINGS:
FCP 6
Captured: 29.975 525 Uncompressed 8-Bit
Sequence: NTSC 601 Lower Field 40:27 720X486
Piel Aspect Ration 720X480 -
30 Replies
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Interpret the footage in AE to remove the pulldown, or use another program. make it progressive then you should be fine.. or you can blur the image a little..
del
you cant hear my inner voice scream… can you..?
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I am willing to bet the center values of your scaled footage do not sit on an even number.
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I would fallow the Jeremy’s advice and, even if your footage is 8b try rendering in High Precision and Motion> Best.
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. -
In my original post, I failed to mention that we have been certain all position are on whole numbers. Even, whole numbers to be exact. I double checked and that is not the problem.
If that WERE the issue, why would shadows look bad on just those shots???
I notice you mention rendering in High Precision and Motion>Best. Humor me and tell me exactly where you do this. I want to make sure that I have this setup. Our FCP editors and our engineer has looked at this too, but I want to follow up with this, thanks!
I am also seeing the same results when bringing in ‘progressive’ footage and scaling the progressive footage in a 525 8-Bit project, it seems. However, if we capture at 720p and drop in a 720p comp, we do not see the bad shadows etc.
Using a deinterlace filter in FCP does no good, etc.
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Following up on the last post..about render sequence settings…
I created a new sequence and verified that Render Settings Precision is High Quality and Motion > Best.
Still looks the same. The fact that we are getting the same results on 3 different systems concerns me.
One of the Edit Suites does NOT have a capture card, but when output via Firewire DV 720X480 we get the same unacceptable results.Any other suggestions? Thanks!
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“The ONLY other time it looks ok is when we change the sequence settings so the FIELD ORDER is NONE, rather than Lower-field. However, this of-course will cause issues with the interlaced footage during playback for Broadcast.”
I’m curious what issues this would cause for you exactly?
Thanks.
All the best,
Tom
Class on Demand DVDs “Complete Training for FCP6,” “Basic Training for FCS2” and “Final Cut Express Made Easy”
Author: “Final Cut Pro 5 Editing Essentials” and “Final Cut Express 3.5 HD Editing Workshop” -
Thanks Tom for the response, any insight is helpful.
As an AVID editor for years, I have always setup for “lowerfield dominance” for NTSC-Broadcast. When I did not work in a fielded environment, the ‘issues’ I would involve strobing of fast moving objects — such as simply moving a box across the screen.
In the AVID Media Composer software that we used before switching to FCP, there was not a good “motion blur” to help blend any strobing artifacts. BUT we never has this ‘quality anomole’ so it was not a problem.However, FCP has a motion blur tab — but I do not know how well it will hold up for professional broadcast work? Will this work in “most” cases, I do not know — Again, I am fairly new to FCP, but NOT to broadcast production so Maybe you have some insight on this?
Also, I am afraid that much of our footage would lose it’s integrity if it was edited in FCP in a sequence without fields. If you have experience in FCP outputting for broadcast, then that might shed some light for us, thanks!
On another note — When we render animations out of Maya or Max, we typically dont have to render to fields, but motion blur will suffice….for the most part.
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I really don’t know about the broadcast output on this, which was why I was curious if you had experience with this. It might be worth testing, but unfortunately it’s not something I can check.
All the best,
Tom
Class on Demand DVDs “Complete Training for FCP6,” “Basic Training for FCS2” and “Final Cut Express Made Easy”
Author: “Final Cut Pro 5 Editing Essentials” and “Final Cut Express 3.5 HD Editing Workshop” -
Hi Les,
In a case like this, I would start by making sure that the footage has been captures with the field order that is supposed to be captured. This you can test it in Shake, AE or any application that allows 1 field steps.
Then I would make sure that FC is interpreting properly that field order. FC do not make such a strange things unless there is a parameter wrong.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.
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