-
Using clips of different field dominance
When I edit a project in FCP 7 using files from my DSLR camera, I have to manually change the field order in the browser from Upper (Odd) to None due to FCP not recognizing the correct field dominance.
I also have some .mov files I downloaded from Footagecrate.com and when I import them in the browser it says they’re Upper (Odd) or Lower (Even). Should the field dominance of these clips be changed to None or are they actually most likely Upper and Lower? And if they are, should I leave them that way in the browser or change them to None? Is it okay to mix clips of different field dominance in a sequence?
-
6 Replies
-
In order to see fields you must have an I/O card displaying a true video signal to a video monitor – if you’re working on a laptop or with computer monitors only you’ll be guessing about the field order of the stock footage, which could bite you later if you create DVDs or broadcast the project.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist & Workflow Consultant
David Weiss Productions
Los AngelesDavid is a Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Apple Final Cut Pro forum.
-
Some of the clips are 720×480 .mov files with a pixel aspect of NTSC – CCIR 601, with PNG codec, and they say “Lower (Even)” in the browser.
Other ones are the same except they’re 1920×1080.
-
I forgot to mention that the 1920×1080 clips say “Upper (Odd) in the browser. Lower and Upper both mean interlaced, right? And is it okay to use those clips in my progressive sequence where 99.9% of the footage I’m using is progressive? My project is a video for the web.
-
I read on another forum that sometimes FCP 7 misinterprets progressive footage as interlaced. And then this person said you shouldn’t change the sequence settings to progressive (which I assume is “None”) because then half the fields will be discarded. Is this true? I thought if your footage is progressive and FCP misinterprets it as Upper (Odd), then you should change the field dominance to “None”, so that both your clips and sequence settings are “None”. Can someone explain which one is correct?
-
Bobby,
If all if your footage was progressive and was being misinterpreted as interlaced, switching to “None” would fix the issue… But, you have a mixture of progressive and interlaced, so there’s no magic bullet one click fx for you in FCP Legacy.
If the majority of your footage is progressive, your seq settings should be set to None, but you’ll “most likely” have to deinterlaced the remaining interlaced footage, because FCP Legacy does not deal with field mismatches well at all. FYI, Premiere and all modern NLEs do a much superior job.
FYI, FCP’s deinterlace filter also sucks, so you may have to use a third party deinterlacer.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist & Workflow Consultant
David Weiss Productions
Los AngelesDavid is a Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Apple Final Cut Pro forum.
-
Thanks guys. If some of my clips are 720×480 .mov files with a pixel aspect of NTSC – CCIR 601, does this mean the frame is being stretched horizontally a little bit? I thought 720×480 was only for DVDs (non-square pixels) and a computer reads them as 640×480.
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up