Vertical Banding in FCP, But Not QT

[Andrew Saliga]

Almost forgot to mention that this “banding” is not present on my broadcast monitor when I come out through my Kona.

-Andrew Saliga

Steelehouse Productions
http://www.steelehouse.com (undergoing a much-needed redesign)
http://www.vimeo.com/steelehouse

[Michael Gissing]

Is the banding on the I/O card output to a proper monitor? The FCP viewer is not the place to make technical judgements.

Also why ProRes HQ? There have been a lot of posts here advising against using HQ except for 2K projects and that standard ProRes is best for all other frame sizes.

[Kevin Monahan]

What happens when you set Canvas to 100%?

Kevin Monahan
60 Blu-ray Templates for Final Cut Studio 2009
http://www.fcpworld.com
Author – Motion Graphics and Effects in Final Cut Pro

[Shane Ross]

People need to stop…STOP trying to judge the quality of the image via the computer monitor. This is in no way an accurate, full quality representation of your footage. Never has been…not on Avid, not FCP. The resolution is in fact LOWERED to ensure full frame playback.

External monitoring…that is the only proper way to judge the quality of your image.

And I agree…ProRes HQ is overkill for 1080. It is meant for 2K and higher formats. All you gain by going HQ with your footage is increased file size.

https://forums.creativecow.net/faq/applefinalcutpro#75

Shane

GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

[Joe Murray]

[Shane Ross] “And I agree…ProRes HQ is overkill for 1080. It is meant for 2K and higher formats. All you gain by going HQ with your footage is increased file size.”

In my experience this is not true. I rendered a project in Color at 1080 using ProRes (not HQ) and saw noise in a dark, blurry part of the picture. Re-rendering in 10 bit uncompressed fixed the problem. I didn’t try ProRes HQ but regular ProRes was not good enough.

Joe Murray
Edit at Joe’s
Charlotte, NC

[Shane Ross]

[Joe Murray] “In my experience this is not true. I rendered a project in Color at 1080 using ProRes (not HQ) and saw noise in a dark, blurry part of the picture. Re-rendering in 10 bit uncompressed fixed the problem”

YOu aren’t comparing ProRes versions, so this is a moot point. Uncompressed 10-bit is superior to ProRes, as ProRes is a compressed format. Well, 10-bit UC is as well, but far less so. I am not surprised that the results are better.

Shane

GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

[Joe Murray]

I incorrectly inferred that by saying ProRes HQ is overkill for 1080, you were suggesting that regular ProRes is good enough. Which is what I thought until I saw this noise and then upgraded to 10 bit.

Andrew, if you system will handle playback of 10 bit uncompressed 1080 you might give this a try on your footage, but the other posters are correct that if you don’t see the banding on your broadcast monitor, don’t worry about it.

Joe Murray
Edit at Joe’s
Charlotte, NC

[Rafael Amador]

I think there is nothing overkilling when you want to keep the quality of your movie.
We should work Uncompress but simply we can not afford it (this is why Apple came with Proress).
What I have understood so far about ProresSQ vs Prores HQ is that ON CAPTURING THROUGH AN IO CARD may be no apparent advantage on recording HQ.
The performance of the capture will depends very much on the system we use, so in certain configurations we can get even a better result using SQ.
The last Prores White Papers clearly shows the advantages (S/N, multigeneration) of the HQ over the SD.
The size of the picture (2K, HD, SD) have have nothing to do here. The “target’ data-rate of the codec change with the size.
Rafael

http://www.nagavideo.com

[Andrew Saliga]

Thanks everyone for your feedback.

Kevin, you nailed the problem. I should have known better, but have never seen this vertical “banding” in such a perfectly spaced pattern. I was starting to think it was an image sensor issue on the camera or something. So FCP just was having issues interpolating; setting canvas to 100% solved it.

For those who mentioned that a computer monitor is not the place to judge the quality of footage, yes, I realize that and said that I did check out to my monitor. I was more interested in the behavior of the footage in FCP rather than the apparent quality.

I do appreciate the discussion on codecs and would like to keep it going. Allow me to make sure that we understand what I meant by vertical banding as I feel I may not have been clear. The issue I was having wasn’t related to compression artifacts inherent in a codec. Nothing to do with poor compression of gradients.

Michael and Shane, thanks for the input on the ProRes HQ. Shane, thanks for the link. I’ll read up as soon as I finish this post. The reason ProRes HQ was chosen this time along was because I have 5.5 hours of footage. In a ProRes HQ workflow this would be 556.9GB while in a 10-bit Uncompressed workflow this would be 3TB. Not exactly practical in my opinion. I’m definitely open though to any suggestions regarding codec choice.

-Andrew Saliga

Steelehouse Productions
http://www.steelehouse.com (undergoing a much-needed redesign)
http://www.vimeo.com/steelehouse