[John Crossfield]

Hi, I think I’ve sorted it. The source info in mpeg streamclip for these files was reading:
Video Tracks
224 mpeg2 720 x 576 16:9 25fps 9:10mbps upperfield first

audio 128 AC 2/0 48khz 256kbs

so on your advice I checked the interlaced box in the settings and jagged lines are gone. I’ve also discovered the batch setting for mpeg streamclip which was the one benefit of using iskysoft. Still can’t work out why that particular software spits out converts with audio that need rendering in FCP so will stick with Mpeg streamclip.

thanks a lot for the help and advice

John

[John Crossfield]

thanks will check out both these things and report back today.

[John Crossfield]

great, cheers Kevin

[John Crossfield]

thanks Michael,

Just to check that I’ve understood your advice.

“Your work flow means that you have a mixture of upper field footage (everything in PAL except DV is upper) and DV, the lone lower field codec.

So HDV and H264 are both upper field?

As you are making a DVD, I would suggest using ProRes both as the best codec to convert your h264 footage too and as the SD sequence setting. So anamorphic ProRes 422 720 x 576 for the sequence. You can just drop the HD content into that time line but it will need to render.

Do you mean the HDV footage of the sony Z1 can just be dropped in and then rendered or the HD (h264) footage.

Will I lose much quality converting it first?

As I’m only creating and SD DVD should I downconvert the HDV footage from the Sony Z1 straight from the camera when capturing to FCP or capture as HDV?

The speed changes will be a problem with the DV footage as the field order is changed by the shift fields filter. Unfortunately, the frame blending that happens with a speed change happens before the field shift so it look jerky. Best way to fix this is to convert the DV footage to ProRes in Compressor which will then change the field order to upper on the ProRes files and that solves the problem before you do speed ramps.”

If I then have a timeline with HDV, (ProRes) converted H264 footage and (ProRes) converted DV footage for the time remaped stuff, can I still use other (non speed changed) DV footage in the same timeline without causing any problems or losing significant quality?

As I ask this I also ask myself should we not just stick to one camera format per project!!

again, many thanks Michael.

[John Crossfield]

Thanks Chris,

No deck, I’ll just capture SD from the camera and edit as DV

[John Crossfield]

reset the library path in the preferences, worked for me

john

[John Crossfield]

thanks Rich, will try these

john

[John Crossfield]

No, all straight forward sd footage though it is a 12gb .mov file!!

john

[John Crossfield]

Thanks Dan, that makes sense I’ll try it on Tuesday. My intention is to trial exporting a number of smaller clips from the bigger project. Once I have a clean Mpeg2 version I’ll export the lot.

thanks again
john

[John Crossfield]

Thanks Dan, I was advised to export via QT conversion as the vid file would file when exporting to compressor. I think (i’m not at the computer until early next week)I selected mpeg2 if this is possible? Of course then instead of converting that .mov file in compressor I naively just threw it into idvd to get a quick draft copy out to the client.

The motion files and FCP titles all stutter and when you have a zooming FCP title over a piece of footage you get the jagged lines.

any other thoughts very welcome, thanks again for responding

john