Why does my footage look so poor in FCP BUT NOT AE?

[Zane Barker]

What is your video p;ay back quality set at in FCP?

There are no “technical solutions” to your “artistic problems”.
Don’t let technology get in the way of your creativity!

[Don Greening]

Hi Diego,

Welcome to Creative COW.

The fact that you’re editing in a 23.976 timeline leads me to believe that your footage is progressive (24p) and not interlaced. If your sequence settings are DV NTSC Anamorphic the default field dominance setting for the sequence will, however, be interlaced. Go to the Browser and in the field dominance column for the sequence it’s most likely set to “lower”. Right or control-click in the column and choose “none” from the pop-up menu. If you already have down-converted-from-HD progressive clips in that sequence you’ll have to make sure that all their field dominance settings are set to “none” as well. Changing the field dominance setting for the sequence alone will not clean things up unless all the clips within the sequence also are flagged as progressive. Just assume that anything imported into a DV NTSC project will default to interlaced and that you have to check everything and change to a field dominance setting of “none” as part of your workflow.

See that cleans everything up in FCP.

– Don

[David Roth weiss]

Diego,

Your screenshot from FCP shows clearly that the canvas is sized to 123%. You need to size the canvas at exactly 100% to see your footage properly.

As far as the QT Player, go to Window>>Show Movie Properties>>Video Track>>Visual Settings and make certain to check the “High Quality” box.

Also, your aspect ratio in QT Player is displaying improperly, and to fix that you need to go to Window>>Show Movie Properties>>clip name>>Presentation and check the box “conform aperture to, and select “clean,” which should properly display the aspect ratio.

In addition, go to Quicktime Player>>Preferences and check t ebox all th eway down at the bottom that says, “Enable Final Cut Studio color compatibility.”

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.

[Rafael Amador]

And just to add something to the advice of Zane, Don and David, with AE you can easily check if your footage is Progressive or Interlaced.
Set to “fields increment” so the play head will step field by field instead of frame by frame. If you see that every to steps you get the same picture, then is Progresive.
Rafael

http://www.nagavideo.com

[Jeremy Garchow]

I would also like to add, that according to your picture Diego, you HAVE to win an award for youngest FCP user.

Ever.

[Rafael Amador]

Yeah, I vote for Diego too:-)

http://www.nagavideo.com

[Don Greening]

Keeping this thread on topic then, I have to point out that I’ve never seen you looking so…….young, Jeremy.

– Don

[Diego Garcia]

Haha! Thanks my niece! Her face is way cuter than my mug!

Thanks for your helpful replies everyone. Okay so setting the canvas window to 100% in FCP solved that! Thanks David. Also on quicktime checking the “high quality box” fixed my problem with QT. The only thing that was strange was that the “conform aperture to, and select “clean”, was already checked and selected.

How can I tell if the footage is interlaced or progressive? Rafael where can I set that fields increment in AE? Is there a way to check/analyze the footage in FCP? I’m guessing it is interlaced since I’m getting window blinds effects when my subject’s hands moves around when he’s speaking.

Sincere thanks to everyone who has taken their time to respond!
Cheers!
Diego

[Rafael Amador]

[Diego Garcia] “where can I set that fields increment in AE”
Hi Diego,
Sorry I can not help you about this. I’m still working with AE 6.5 (no money to upgrade) and this function it doesn’t exist in this version. I think is available from AE 7 on.
FC have an “Analyze” function (Tools) but won’t helps you to determine the correct field order.
Rafael

http://www.nagavideo.com

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Don Greening] “I have to point out that I’ve never seen you looking so…….young, Jeremy.”

Thanks? I guess?