XDCAM .mov footage – a field issue?

[Craig Seeman]

[Deirdre O'Lavery] “I checked with the client to see if they had the original BVAP folders instead, but he had dumped them and only has the .mov’s. I don’t seem to have the problem with the native XDCAM .mp4 footage, only the .mov footage.”

Clients who toss camera masters are nothing less than fools. That said, the mov is nothing more than the rewrapped .mp4 and some metadata changes obviously. There’s no essence change.

The issue is either downscaling and/or field related but you haven’t described your workflow in enough to detail to get more than guesses.

[Deirdre O’lavery]

Hi Craig – thanks.

My workflow is as follows:

The .mov clip properties are:

XDCAM-EX 1080p30
1920x1080x24
Field: Progressive
Pixel aspect: 1.0000

I have tried starting off with a timeline in Vegas 9 to match the final output, which would be 720×480, NTSC with the following settings:

Field: Progressive
Frame rate: 29.97 fps
Pixel aspect: 0.9091

I have also tried matching the timeline settings to the .mov clip properties, then rendering out to 720×480 progressive, 0.9091 .avi.

Both yield the same results.

I have further tried rendering different fields first, to see if I noticed any change (which I didn’t), as well as adjusting my timeline properties to different deinterlace methods (interpolate, blend, & none). Still, the output looks the same.

When I edited the scene, I had down-converted the clips to 720×480 .avi to edit, since this particular type of .mov doesn’t play nice with my system. Then replaced the down-converted clips with the original media before rendering out the final edited scene.

I haven’t added any effects or re-sized the footage at all.

Also, I have tried converting to 720×480 mpeg2, with still the same results.

I haven’t had any issues with .m2t HDV footage, and it looks like the native XDCAM .mp4 clips for another scene are rendering out just fine, too. It’s just this XDCAM .mov that’s problematic.

I don’t have an HD television, so I am only able to view these on a CRT television, which is where I am noticing the problem. Rendered files look fine when played on my system through Quicktime and WM Player.

Thanks!
Deirdre

[Deirdre O’lavery]

Did some more testing. If I run the XDCAM clips through Adobe Media Encoder (CS4) and output to 720×480 NTSC/lower fields, then render those lower field clips out in Vegas as progressive, the result is much, much better. Of course, I would prefer not to go through the additional generation loss or time spent encoding.

I’m not sure what is happening, or why the above method done within Vegas (rendering the XDCAM mov files out as 720×480 lower field) doesn’t yield the same results, but there it is anyway.