[Jd Marlow]

I recently purchasd a Blackmagic Decklink Studio 2 card to use with FCP, not really thinking about whether or not I’d get support with MC 5.5. Has anyone heard anything new about future support for Blackmagic products with MC 5.5? I would hate to have to go out and replace my decklink card with the Matrox Mini, but would be willing to wait if support wasn’t too far off.

[Jd Marlow]

1:1 is essentially uncompressed, but not needed unless you’re onlining 1:1. 220x will look great.

Just be wary of DNX codecs when delivering to people who are taking the media into FCP. There can sometimes be gamma shifting with that particular codec in Quicktime wrapped files.

[Jd Marlow]

I figured out the problem just this morning. I’ve been creating a 1080i 29.97 interlaced BD-R. The field order of my original ProRes 422 media coming out of Final Cut Pro is UPPER (odd). When I create a custom preset in Adobe Media Encoder, for whatever reason it decides that my media has a LOWER (even) field order. It takes this across for the transcode — there isn’t anything I can seem to do about it.

So I end up with transcoded media that is an incorrect field order with respect to the project and the original media. That is causing the Code 14 error in this case. When I default to AUTOMATIC transcode setting (using the project settings to transcode my media) it transcodes correctly using an UPPER (odd) field order. This is correct and has allowed me to successfully build my ISO file.

I’ve had other issues with Encore including the fact that I cannot seem to transcode in AME and bring it into Encore without it wanting to re-transcode. So now I’ve defaulted to using Encore to take care of the transcoding (via AME, but within the Encore software). It’s working so far — have yet to test my BD-r though.

[Jd Marlow]

It’s strange as this has never come up before. I always use the Adobe Media Encoder CS5. I’m going from 1080i ProRes 422 QuickTime to H.264 Blu-Ray @ 25mbps, VBR 2-pass with PCM 48khz 16-bit audio. Profile is High at level 4.1 with maximum render quality.

I’ve used this as my transcoding template for H.264 BluRay before without any issues, especially with 1080i.

[Jd Marlow]

Couldn’t you produce a single stream image that is frame packed (i.e. side-by-side) and create your Blu-Ray that way? Would just be a matter of setting your 3D TV to the right setting to play back properly. It’s essentially “half” resolution, but then again the way 3D Blu-Ray is being authored today it has to be 720p 60 or bust.

[Jd Marlow]

Problem solved. For anyone who is interested:

I ran a number of tests in both Compressor and MPEG streamclip using de-interlace settings (despite the file being progressive already). Best solution I came up with was in Compressor doing a De-interlace to the video (set to Blur), as well as a de-interlace in the frame control tab. Here are the results:

https://www.jdmarlow.com/ats_deint01.png
https://www.jdmarlow.com/ats_deint02.png

Compare to:
https://www.jdmarlow.com/ats_artifact01.png
https://www.jdmarlow.com/ats_artifact02.png

Much improved, without further degrading the quality of the up-conversion.

Thanks all for your suggestions and help.

[Jd Marlow]

Cadence was definitely removed properly. Nothing to be found in the original DV timeline. Even once it was transcoded to ProRes and bumped up to 10-bit prior to upres I didn’t notice anything that might suggest it would be blown up into a bigger problem.

I am thinking of trying some more tests as far as doing some de-interlacing filters on to the HD file. But I might also go back to the SD source and try some of that as well.

My first thought about this was that I’m dealing with PsF here — it’s not true progressive material coming off the other system. But I’ve also seen material captured from HD PsF sources and not had this issue.

[Jd Marlow]

Gary,

My delivery is for HD, not the web. I’m really just trying to find out if what I’m seeing is an inherent product of the conversion from my XL-2 “progressive” footage or if there is something else I could be doing (i.e. running a blanket de-interlace to the footage prior to upconverting, etc) to improve upon this. The only reason I’m even bringing it up is because largely the upconversion looks terrific. It’s just in some details where there is certain types of motion that I’m seeing the artifacting.

[Jd Marlow]

It was shot to Mini-DV obviously with 24p advanced pulldown (2:3:3:2) that was removed upon ingest into Final Cut Pro. It’s not like those Sony “Cine-Look” formats.