XDCAM Transfer to Final Cut Pro quality problem

Apple Final Cut Pro Legacy

XDCAM Transfer to Final Cut Pro quality problem

Posted by Stan Ilchev on September 18, 2010 at 10:46 pm

Hi all,

I really hope that someone could help me. I have footage that was shot on a SONY EX350 camera and I am trying to edit it in Final Cut Pro 6.0.6. I’ve downloaded the XDCAM transfer plug in and I have imported all of the video files into Final Cut and they play.

The problem that I have is that the quality isn’t very good, especially when you look at the video on a Broadcast Monitor. It seems that it needs to be de-interlaced (which I tried, but no progress)

I would really appreciate it if someone could give me some advice and suggestions. The client is coming in on Monday, so I’m in a bit of a rush.

Thanks so much.

Stan

Stan Ilchev replied 15 years, 7 months ago 3 Members · 6 Replies
6 Replies

Rafael Amador
September 19, 2010 at 2:59 am

Hi Stan,
You only need to de-interlace the footage if you want it to look Progressive.
You shouldn’t have any problem watching EX Interlaced footage in a Broadcast monitor.
Check the footage and the sequence setting and also how is configured your monitoring.
rafael

http://www.nagavideo.com
Stan Ilchev
September 19, 2010 at 5:17 pm

Hi Rafael,

Thanks for the quick reply. The sequence settings match my clip settings because whenever I drag the file into the timeline, I click YES to match my clip settings to my sequence settings (I hope that would do it).

It doesn’t just look bad on the Broadcast Monitor, it looks bad on the Final Cut preview window as well. Is there anything else that could be causing this problem. The original footage looks bad and when I convert it to Apple ProRes, it has the same problem.

Thanks so much for your help.

Stan
Chad Tingle
September 19, 2010 at 9:45 pm

[Stan Ilchev] “I’ve downloaded the XDCAM transfer plug in and I have imported all of the video files into Final Cut and they play.”

What xdcam format and framerate was the footage acquired at and what xdcam setting did you import it as..

Chad Tingle
Producer/Editor
Rafael Amador
September 20, 2010 at 2:01 am

Hi Stan,
Being the footage interlaced, is not strange that looks bad in your computer monitor (Progressive), but shouldn’t happens in a Broadcast monitor.
Being all the interlaced HD formats “Upper-first”. Is also very difficult any field-order miss management. Aside of this I think is difficult to miss interpret the field order on the XDCAM stuff. This codec flag the field order properly.
I work almost only XDCAM (EX) and never had any problem.
I really don’t know what to suggest you.have a look on filters tab of any of the clips in the sequence. May be that by mistake FC has added a Shift-fields filter. Some times its happens.
rafael

http://www.nagavideo.com
Stan Ilchev
September 21, 2010 at 2:14 pm

Hi Chad,

Thanks for the reply.

The settings are:
Video Format: MPEG HD
Bit Rate: 35Mbps (VBR)
Frame Rate: 59.94i (59.94i)
Aspect Ration: 16:9
Frame Size: 1920×1080
Codec: Apple XDCAM EX 1080i60 (55Mb/s VBR)

I imported them with the same settings because it never gave me an option to change them.

Appreciate your help.

Stan
Stan Ilchev
September 21, 2010 at 2:15 pm

Thanks Rafael, still working on it 🙂

Stan

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