[Dan Powers]

The problem with using SMPTE EBU N10 is that when you calibrate and record with it, you are fine in your world but take that beta dub to the station and your chroma levels are going to be really low. You would be really lucky if you find a master control tape op that actually checks the levels on scope. They leave the deck in preset and dont check a waveform or vector scope and your spot is going to air with low chroma,

Dan Powers
P3 Media
Austin, TX

[Dan Powers]

Thanks Sean, I must admit I have ignored Cinema tools up to now. I use a Kona for output so I usually have it create the output as needed. I also use Natress to add and remove 3:2. So apparently Cinema tools just changes the header in QT so that other apps can see it the way you choose in Cinema Tools. Why cant other Apple products see this or have access to the same information? I see that if it was modified while on the timeline it could cause problems but while still in the library it seems a framerate conform would be simple. But thanks for pointing out the process as it is in QT and Apple world.

Regarding 23.976, yep I get it was just pointing that out for others who may not have found that yet.
When in the Render que there are no frame rate presets, only a box where you type in the number.

As to my other problem of resolution changes, it appears I may have an anomaly in my system. My office machine is a quad G5 with KonaLH and I can duplicate the problem with the image quality looking bad if the frame rate is different than sequence frame rate. (Again, I dont mean motion artifacts).
But I just tried the test on my MacBook Pro Intel and it does not exhibit the same artifacts when using the same settings. This is going to have to take some additional testing before I can identify why it is only happening on my G5. Will get back with you when I nail that down.

Thanks all for the input.
Dan

[Dan Powers]

I put bug in the subject so it will get proper attention from apple. I have been editing on-line for 30 years and used all platforms. I love FC but this is a real problem that needs more attention. On platforms like Quantel you can mix any frame rate on the timeline and can overide the default duration and make the framerate conform to the new timeline. I agree that for motion purposes they should be transcoded, but not for resolution. Example would be to put 5994 on a 30p sequence and the clip should be able to play back at twice the duration (slowmo) without transcoding and the rez should look great. I completely get why motion artifacts exist but I don’t like resolution artifacts and there are far far too many situations in FC that will hammer your image quality. Motion tab for example. I don’t do offline anymore. Its online all the time. would love to keep this thread open for a while and see if we can get some help from apple for V7. frame rate and resolution issues are my main problem with FCP and I would love to get it tweaked up.

One more thought… a clip with 300 frames should be 10 seconds on a 30fps timeline and 5 seconds on a 5994 timeline. A checkbox in clip properties to choose conform to clip duration or conform to sequence frame rate. I really don’t want to put a clip on a timeline and have the application throw away every other frame unless I tell it to.

For another resolution test create a graphic still in title motion that matches your sequence and save it, then modify it to a different frame rate and save with a differet name. now put both on the same timeline. they are still graphics yet the resolution is different but the only real difference is the frame rate. On a non motion graphic why do they look different? That would be FCP doing something odd to the clip in a temporal mode which is not needed and should be able to be disabled on a clip by clip basis.

sorry for tiepos. On my crappy cell phone without spell Czech.

Dan

[Dan Powers]

I am sure your 1080p HQ footage did look progressive since it is. THe problem is that we used the 1080p SP setting for an extended record time for an event and that SP mode is field interlaced instead of progressive. Thanks sony for that inconsistency.
Right now I have applies the Nattress Plug In to remove the 3:2 and it is working out well but will add to the render.

From my experience no mater what composition settings and field settings you use in FCP or any other editor for that matter, if the source is field interlaced and you scale it down you have to options. One is to let the fields also scale down and look like crap, or to deinterlace the footage and have it basically be field doubled so you have half resolution. I have never found any application that will scale fields and have them align with where they should be in the new scaled position. It will usually field blend any time a scale is applied and your resolution will be altered. Thus the reason for wanting a progressive source. Lesson learned. Dont us the SP mode on the EX1. Rather pointless unless you are going to deliver in 1080 resolution and fields are ok.

Thanks for the input.
Dan Powers

[Dan Powers]

Got the answer from Sony. 1080p 23.98p SP is NOT 23.98p. It is 59.94i with a 3:2 cadence. Its supposed to look like something shot at 23.98p transfered at 30fps interlaced. That sucks. It is so consumer.
In the HQ mode 23.98p is progressive. BE CONSISTENT with the naming conventions!
This is CineAlta, not A1U prosumer. Sony please dont label something as one thing and give us another!! 23.98p should have 24 progressive images per second NOT 3:2 interlaced cadence. That should be 23.98pi or some other dumb arse designation for a format we cannot work with!!

Now how the heck do you scale down 1080i and have it look decent in SD?
Interlaced fields suck when scaled.

[Dan Powers]

It’s not just motion. FCP 6 is much slower. I have been rendering clips all week long on the previous version 5, just compression exports and they were running 11 minutes. Now after upgrading they are 1 hour! This sucks bigtime. I have deadlines!
I followed all the rules. First upgrade OS to latest version 10.4.10 from 10.4.5 also upgraded QT to latest version then did the upgrade to FC Studio 2. This is really a dog. I am on a Quad G5 2.5 with 4 gigs ram. It is rendering like a single G3!

[Dan Powers]

Thanks for both helpful suggestions. I didnt realize you could add a speed change in the viewer. Makes perfect sense. Thanks again!

[Dan Powers]

Here is something to consider. Where is your CPU going to be?
The Apple Cinema displays are Digital DVI and cable distances are a problem. We went with the Dell because they have VGA inputs as well as DVI. We needed VGA for the 25′ cable lengths. We currently have two 24″ Dell displays and when you set the Apple to display at the native resolution, the dell monitor says it cant do it. So we are running in non native display and viewing the images stretched! That sucks.
We cant find the problem with the display resoltion cause Dell says it is an apple problem. Apple says it is a Dell problem.

One more thing, I used dual 30″ displays on a job recently and found it to be massive overkill and my head was constantly turning left and right to view across the screens. I ended up just putting all the FCP windows on one of the monitors and using the other monitor of other appliations.

Dan

[Dan Powers]

Thanks for the clarification and for all the input. I just started using Motion today and had a little bit of a curve to figure out how it integrates. Pretty cool application. Like to see some improvements in keyframing but overall not bad at all for a V2 product!

Thanks again.

Dan

[Dan Powers]

Thanks Jeremy, but I need to swap out Track 5 in Motion correct?
I think the pain is that I havent yet found the way to copy all parameters from one layer and past them onto another in Motion.