[Jon Barrie]

Hi Tim,

I’m not going to doubt your TV experience, if I have the BetaCAM field incorrect then I would like to correct it. I’m in PAL land, in the past my research has always pointed to all SD NTSC (not just DV) recordings being lower field first as that suits the TV tracing in 60Hz reception.
What I do know is that a computer system can ingest the fields in which ever way it wants to and still produce the correct playback. Matrox cards can ingest DV PAL as UFF even though the tape signal recorded in LFF and it still plays back properly through a CRT monitor. Adding LFF footage ingested without the Hardware into the Matrox timeline would still look correct because the signal is playing back in it’s original Field dominance of ingest, a frame is a frame in Video (not cine 24P into interlaced format) the ingest can interpret it however it likes so long as it’s exported the same as it is in the sequence as each clip is playing in it’s ingested dominance.

Perhaps I have it wrong, perhaps its just the way the NLE Hardware suppliers have it? But I’m always happy to be corrected by someone in the doing it end of things.

As I said earlier, all my research suggests that NTSC is a LFF format so that’s what I’ve gone off. My personal experience has been with PAL.

Cheers,

JB

Jon Barrie
aJBprods
http://www.jonbarrie.net

[Jon Barrie]

Sounds like it may be an interlacing issue.
Field dominance list:
DV/DVCAM (lower field)
HDV (Upper field)
SD BetaCAM PAL (Upperfield)
SD BetaCAM NTSC (Lowerfield)
HD 720 (Progressive)
HD 1080i (Upperfield)
HD 1080p (Progressive)

The project should have the same settings as the originating capture device/format.

Exports should follow suit for the best outcome.

Cs4 can force Progressive export from interlaced footage/sequences and make the export look like Deinterlaced – but slightly better.

– JB

Jon Barrie
aJBprods
http://www.jonbarrie.net

[Jon Barrie]

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but unless you have an Apple system with FCP or FCS on it you can’t read the file format. The codecs are proprietary for FCP environments and that means no PC support either.

You need the file converted or re exported to a non-FCP environment, namely ProRes (can get downloads for the playback of it, PC too, you will get a gamma shift in the export) or Animation. File sizes will be much larger in Animation, but you won’t lose any quality and you can use it on any system.

– JB

Jon Barrie
aJBprods
http://www.jonbarrie.net

[Jon Barrie]

Color Match is going to be the effect to get the best result. It looks like the camera’s have completely different saturation and exposure levels running also. the whites are not true either. the SR clip is a true white, but the XL is not showing true white at all. the angle of the shot could be causing an odd hue in the BG wall colour making it very hard to match the rest of the shot. It’s upto you, is the wall the part that the eye determines is the mismatch over the costume colors? There looks to be some fast color corrector stuff required too.

Start by stacking the shots on top of each other XL on top of SR.
Use color match effect on XL shot
set method to curves
sample 1 the wall in the original XL shot (prog mon)
hide the XL layer or unenable the shot (right click untick the enable listing)
the layer underneath should be in the program monitor
target 1 the wall in the original Sr shot (prog mon)
open the bottom twirly in the color match effect to see the match button.
click the match button.
turn on the XL layer or Enable (right click to set tick to the enable listing)
The shot will look weird and wrong. Don’t stress.
Change the color match method from curves to HSL. It should be pretty close.

Use the levels in fast color corrector to get a close match.
– JB

Jon Barrie
aJBprods
http://www.jonbarrie.net

[Jon Barrie]

You have a clip that is widescreen and a sequence timeline that is not. Make a new sequence and be sure to select the widescreen preset. Copy the clip/s already cut in the previous sequence and paste into the new widescreen sequence.
BTW – the red render bar should go away too.
– JB

Jon Barrie
aJBprods
http://www.jonbarrie.net

[Jon Barrie]

The problem with slowing down video is that the frames are probably interlaced, which will degrade the image more when slowed down.
Slowing down Video or Film is never a great result.
Did you get the cine done with the frame rate at 25fps on the film playback? if so you could get a half decent result by interpreting the video to 18fps.
– JB

Jon Barrie
aJBprods
http://www.jonbarrie.net

[Jon Barrie]

Adobe Media Encoder can convert multiple clips for you, set up the 1st conversion to (whatever codec/settings) and the place you want it saved to. The rest of the media you add will then follow the same export settings and Save Path as the last one.
I’ve found P2 export to convert AVCHD footage for my laptop to be a great format to work with.
Metadata can be added directly in PPro CS4 and it is embedded to the clip and can be viewed in the other CS4 products that have the metadata option.
– JB

Jon Barrie
aJBprods
http://www.jonbarrie.net

[Jon Barrie]

I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but you can’t go backwards.

Theres one thing you might be able to do:
Export an AAF.
It might import, if it does it might not bring in all the things you’ve done in your edit (effects), but at least it’s better than starting from scratch (IF the AAF works!)

Another possibility is Export EDL. You will have your own set of problems going down the EDL route.

There is no Professional Editing program I know of that can save backward compatible versions. PPro has never done it. I’d say you need to either keep working with your CS4 on a laptop at school or only cut at school on their very very very old version of PPro.

PPro 1 can’t edit HDV, P2, AVCHD, SONY XDCAM. Pretty much only DV footage.

– JB

Jon Barrie
aJBprods
http://www.jonbarrie.net

[Jon Barrie]

Hey Hamid,
Short answer is no.
You can import the separately made AE comp and then Dynamic Link it to PPro manually.
There is no option in AE to Replace clips with PPro Sequence.
You can probably copy all the clips in your AE comp and paste them into a PPro sequence, but that means you won’t have many compatible AE plugins that will work properly with the clips once they are in PPro.
– JB

Jon Barrie
aJBprods
http://www.jonbarrie.net

[Jon Barrie]

Is your audio muxed into the MPEG? Or is it a separate WAV or mpa file?
Are the gaps consistent with audio cross fades?
– JB

Jon Barrie
aJBprods
http://www.jonbarrie.net