[Andy Mees]

i’m with you … as noted, technically you’ll be absolutely fine, so if you’re OK with the look then you’re good to go.

as for a good deinterlacer … not something I have need of so I’m no expert in this field (groan, sorry) but do take a look at Re:Vision’s Fields Kit which I believe is considered to be very good.
https://www.revisionfx.com/products/fieldskit/

then there’s Graeme Nattress’ excellent plugin collections which include filters which apply his big brain to the task of deinterlacing
https://www.nattress.com/Products/filmeffects/G_Smart_DeInterlace.htm

in the cheap seats you might want to have a look at JES Deinterlacer
https://www.xs4all.nl/~jeschot/home.html

[Andy Mees]

[Rob Grauert] “I didn’t really see a difference”

were you looking on a external reference monitor or just in the canvas/computer display? you’re not seeing interlaced output on your canvas/computer display so you probably wouldn’t see any difference there … adding the deinterlace in FCP is basically like throwing away half of the vertical resolution of your source. how drastically that affects your footage, whether adversely or not, is something only you can judge.

[Andy Mees]

[Sarah Kali] “I have shot DV Cam PAL which is lower field first. “

Thats correct.

[Sarah Kali] “Editing in FCP 6.03 in DV Pal sequence upper field first, with shirt field filter on the DV footage “

That’s the problem. Your sequence settings for DV PAL should be Lower Field first, there should be no shift fields filter applied on your DV footage in this sequence Do as Walter says. Use the Easy Setup presets and don’t mess with the settings unless you really have a good handle on what you are doing and the consequences of doing so.

[Sarah Kali] “Importing into FCP Livetype Animation QuickTime Codec Movies which is upper field first

I am using 12 frame cross dissolves between the DV footage and Livetype movies. I have also applied Colour correction to the DV footage.

Footage looks fine on Broadcast monitor but the dissolves are a liitle bit unstable and look like there is a field order problem. “

Thats right, because the rendered DV sections of video are being stitched together according to the sequence settings ie with fields in the wrong order due to the settings snafu above. Your sequence settings should be DV PAL / Lower field first, the DV footage should NOT have the Shift fields filter applied, however, the Animation codec footage if upper field SHOULD have the shift fields filter applied

[Andy Mees]

sounds symptomatic of a field order issue whereby the jittering footage is being rendered with a reversed field order. to overcome this check these clips in your timeline … open each affected clip into the viewer by double clicking it in the timeline, check under the filters tab and see if there is a Shift Fields filter applied: if it is already there then remove or disable it … if it is not there then add it it (Filters > Video Effects > Video > Shift Fields). Now re-render and see if the jittering issue is fixed.

hope it helps
Andy

[Andy Mees]

i have a Safe Guides plugin you can use in FCP that will allow you to add the guides needed
you can get it from http”//web.mac.com/andymees

[Andy Mees]

Well. as I posted over there, from a technical standpoint I don’t see how they could facilitate this …

Separating the pro and non pro versions of quicktime would almost certainly require splitting it into two frameworks, either with the pro framework sitting on top of the regular qt framework host (and so inheriting any and all of the problems that come with the non pro releases) or as two entirely discrete frameworks for the same quicktime layer, and there is surely a whole heap of pain down that road

Then again, thinking about it afresh, I guess you could have the pro framework entirely replacing the standard framework so that it would not see or accept regular qt updates, only pro ones … but this is all just idle chatter as the OS developers are not likely to be heading in this direction any time soon (or indeed ever)

In reality the only feasible way to deal with the issues of beta testing updates is the same way that these things have always been dealt with in any pro production environment … that being that YOU (we) act as the gatekeeper …. never EVER update a working production machine until you have thoroughly tested the update on a non production test bed. Honestly its very basic stuff and has been rule 1) since time immemorial, and I don’t mean that simply as an off the cuff fanboy defense of Apples shoddy QC / limited beta testing.

As for your specific needs … well thats a perfect an example of what’s wrong with the current QC/Beta testing setup. i have no doubt whatsoever that AC3 passthrough and LT bouncing were NOT tested as they are probably too esoteric to have caught anyones attention, which of course doesn’t help you a bit.

Toke, if you haven’t done so already, post your thoughts (as politely as possible) over on the FCP feedback page. Its really only if enough folks make educated noise that things might change. I’m quietly optimistic that Apple will lead a new charge with FCP, and the better thought out comments they receive will help to mould that charge.

For now, clone your hard disc (discs are cheap). Install the updates and personally test your intended workflow, see if it works. If it doesn’t then clean reinstall stopping and testing as you go. Try to find the sweet spot for your setup and then stick with it until you have a chance to thoroughly test later updates to see if they are suitable for you. Always keep a clone before you commit to the upgrade of a production machine, even if you have already tested on a secondary machine. Agreed. its no fun … heaven knows we all like an update with all the tempting new bells and whistles it brings, but you have to turn off not just the madness of automatic software updates but also the mentality that drives it. Its the only sane solution.

Cheers
Andy

[Andy Mees]

that confirms the problem I think …

the footage was ingested from the DV deck as Uncompressed 8 bit PAL without first telling FCP that the incoming footage should be treated as Anamorphic 16:9

note : telling FCP to treat the footage as Anamorphic 16:9 does not change the captured media in any way, it is just metadata added to the ingested clip data that is stored in the FCP project file

the easy fix is to add that meta data now, after the fact, so that FCP can start treating this footage the way that you want it to. open up / scroll your project’s browser window in list view so that you can see the “Anamorphic” column running down next to your source clips. now click in that column for each clip and you will see that a check mark is added there. that check mark tells FCP to treat/display these clips as 16:9.

try it. take one of these clips to which you have added the anamorphic flag, and edit it into your 4:3 timeline. you should now see it correctly displaying letterboxed and with all in its correct aspect.

one thing you might want to consider: as all your footage is 16:9 you might like to edit the entire project as full frame 16:9 (using a sequence that is also flagged as Anamorphic) instead of editing the whole thing letterboxed. In that scenario you would simply nest your finished sequence into a 4:3 timeline as a final step to produce your 4:3 delivery master.

hope that helps
Andy

[Andy Mees]

do you actually want to edit this as 16:9 in a 4:3 frame or as 16:9 in a 16:9 frame?

regrading your problem it would seem that although you intended to capture as DV PAL Anamorphic, in fact it captured as plain DV PAL

check your clip settings (one of the clips in the timeline that is displaying incorrectly) … select the clip and press Cmd-9 to open the Item Properties >> Format window. is there a check in the Anamorphic column?

[Andy Mees]

me too, Toke
the present offering is one that is working solidly here for me … however clearly not so for you there are a number of factors that might influence the success or failure of any particular combination of OS and application versions and updates:
a lot might hinge on specific hardware variations ie processor revisions, gpu’s/gfx cards, ram etc
other factors might include which other software is installed that could potentially cause a conflict with other specific software and hardware permutations
plus all of the above combined with a specific workflow, codec or even specific media files

as such a definitive list of known good software configurations for OS and FCS alone might be hard to nail down, for sure someone somewhere would disagree (your own current situation would be a prime example)

all that said and done there is a list you can refer to over on Jon Chappel’s blog on the Digital Rebellion website although its still dated back to the end of January so may not have been revised for the latest versions:
https://www.digitalrebellion.com/blog/posts/recommended_quicktime_and_mac_os_configurations_for_final_cut_pro.html

hope it helps
Andy

[Andy Mees]

Shane, you do realise that for British TV you don’t have to repeat every shot 3 times? Cheers, Andy 🙂