[Josh Aderhold]

Well I haven’t been looking at an interlaced monitor, at least I don’t think I have.

This is what I have tested the footage on.

* Multiple computer monitors
* A 46 inch Plasma TV
* A 32 Inch LCD TV
* A 22 Inch Classic GE Tube Television

That’s all I have access too. My assumption being if progressive looks better on a 46 inch Plasma and almost flawless on a 32 inch LCD, Progressive should be the way to go.

The image is a little to small to determine on my Tube Television (which is interlaced, yes?) but Progressive looks fine on it as well.

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[Josh Aderhold]

Split screen as you’d like to see both images at once? Well you’ll have to create two different video tracks. Yea?

Just duplicate your multiclip, one on track one, one on track two. Then crop, resize or do whatever it takes to get both images to fit on the same screen.

Yea?

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[Josh Aderhold]

So you’re saying that if I want my outbound field order to be Progressive, the best choice is to select my incoming field dominance to match my HD footage. Being HD and 29.97, my field dominance is upper. So my incoming field should be set to upper and my outbound field should be set to whatever I want it to be.

Like I said before, “same as source” doesn’t give me near the quality that progressive does. With the exact setting you suggested and your image shows I get:

Jagged edges.
Visible Interlace lines.
Pixelation on edges.
Color trails.

Time and time again my picture looks better when I set Frame Controls to Progressive. For the most part I’ve been leaving encoder to auto which shows an upper field dominance. I have switched this to Progressive as well, but you’re saying I should leave it to match my incoming footage. Either way, changing my encoder settings or not, I just get a better picture with progressive in my frame controls.

Another aspect which is misleading is whether or not you can turn deinterlacing off in frame controls. It seems I have a choice. Leave frame controls off and suffer from a poor resizing job or turn frame controls on and suffer from a poor deinterlacing job. This has been my experience with it thus far. I would much rather the ability to completely shut off deinterlacing while being able to resize my frame with Frame Controls. It appears this option has been left out. Like I said earlier, if I leave “Same As Source” selected, it still deinterlaces whether I want it to or not. This is proven by the drastic change in exporting time when selecting the quality at which it would do the job. I don’t have an option to turn it off. “Same as source” doesn’t turn it off.

Thanks for all the help. As long as there is nothing wrong with deinterlacing into progressive, I’ll stick with that. It’s given me the best quality image so far.

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[Josh Aderhold]

I always fade in and out both my video source and my replacement image at the same time. That has always worked for me.

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[Josh Aderhold]

Well NTSC is what it is encoding into? Yes?

Here are my settings within Final Cut:

https://img.skitch.com/20100114-bbah1bix9awr9akts36ir2ccj4.jpg

This is HD. Correct? When I was prompted by Final Cut to match the sequence settings to my media clippings, I selected yes. So they should match up exactly.

Here is how the file looks in Compressor:

https://img.skitch.com/20100114-rhx8eqmjcn9sg872u5jf1t1wfx.jpg

Everything seems to be fine. Encoded bounds 1920×1080. Display bounds: 1920×1080.

Then I drop in a setting. I originally dropped in a default settings. DVD Best. Then I made changes and “Save As…” to a new setting type. The Summary:

https://img.skitch.com/20100114-gyj6jcw83qm9tdybdxmwgsb8ai.jpg

Now my Encoder says:

https://img.skitch.com/20100114-erj1stnqniifncqrgdgd225n25.jpg

I switched dominance to Progressive. NTSC is just the format it is encoding into, correct? Even if I turn off auto I can’t change it to anything except PAL. Every other option is grayed out.

My Frame Controls:

https://img.skitch.com/20100114-bu7amx2hkypnuxun2x1uu27u3s.jpg

I have set this to Progressive as well.

Like I said before, in every test I have gone over, Progressive just looks better. I have tested it on Tube Televisions, LCD televisions and Plasmas. As well as my computer monitors with VLC. Anything other than progressive is pixelated, has artifacts, jagged edges, light flickering, color trails, etc etc. It’s not disgusting (Not all of it. Frame controls auto, encoder auto, that looked the best out of everything I left alone.) But comparatively, progressive has yielded a better look.

Now please tell me if I’m doing something wrong. Or if I should check some setting, something I’m over looking. Anything that sticks out. Because I’ve looked over almost every post I could find on the forums here and across the web, trying to figure out WHY this might be happening. Maybe I’m just picky and expecting too much from Compressor. But I found that with the settings I’ve shown you, progressive gives me the cleanest looking image.

Thanks

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[Josh Aderhold]

You can use a program like Mpeg Streamclip and convert it into a quicktime file with a different codec.

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[Josh Aderhold]

Clipwrap is probably your best bet.

You don’t need to have the camera connected to do it through FCP or even the memory card, but you do need the original folder structure (at least that’s what I’ve run into with similar digital footage). Have you tried throwing them all into one folder and opening it with “Log and Transfer”?

Take a look at this wiki and see if you can re-create the folder structure as it is shown. Then with that set up, and all your files in the correct directories (note that each different file type will most likely be in their own folder), use log and transfer to get your clips in to FCP.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVCHD

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[Josh Aderhold]

Just to throw this out there…

Typically when I need to reconnect files, it will show up with an entire list of things that “no longer exist.” Sometimes instead of just my media files, it will also show render files (if I’ve deleted them.) Until I tell fcp to skip those render files, because I’m not looking for them, I can’t even tell fcp to look for my media files. So have you tried that?

You can skip a file one by one or even skip a directory. So skip any files that are render files and see if you can then search for the actual media files.

This is all I can suggest past trashing your prefs. Worth a shot.

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[Josh Aderhold]

Hi Rafael,

Thanks for the response. I’ve just found that progressive tends to look better than my other tests. Even with the encoder tab set to auto, it shows the correct parameters. NTSC, 29.97, 16:9, Top First. That’s what the auto shows. Will simply turning it on instead of auto change anything?

Also I have found that the deinterlacer can’t be turned off in frame controls. The manual states you can leave the settings to “same as source” and it will determine what needs to be done. But I’ve found that even if you do this, it’s trying to deinterlace. This is proven (I believe) by the fact that if I change the quality at which it’s supposed to deinterlace, my exporting time grows significantly. That says to me it’s doing something when set to fast since changing it to better slows down my export.

The only reason I’m using frame controls is because I’ve found the resizing option leaves me with a far better looking image than with it turned off. I’ve tried both and consistently I get a better looking image with my resize filter turned to best oppose to frame controls turned off. My problem comes into the fact that I don’t seem to be able to turn off deinterlacing, even with “Same as Source” selected. Because of this, and because setting the deinterlace to fast results in a jagged picture, the best work around, I have found, was to turn on progressive.

I’ve also experimented with exporting a SD clip and bringing that into compressor. My result is actually twice as worse.

If you have anything to add, I would appreciate it. Otherwise, thank you for the answer to my “progressive” question.

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[Josh Aderhold]

Compressor is rendering everything in a new unit of time. So I think the point of not rendering is that it’s not bypassing areas that may already be rendered. I was under the impression that once a timeline is sent to compressor, all the rendered files are “discarded.” They aren’t actually discarded, but for the purposes of encoding in Compressor, they are ignored.

What I understood from Michael’s post was that if you dropped everything into a new timeline with a Pro Res codec set to that timeline, you may see the results you’re looking for. I would try exporting to a self-contained quicktime file and then go into compressor. Then as a comparison, go straight from your new timeline into compressor. Compare the two results. If you think you’re getting better results in your quicktime file by rendering, go ahead and do that for the quicktime version. But I would avoid doing that when you go straight into compressor.

I have found the best way to seek results you are looking for is to troubleshoot everything yourself. Do it in small portions to minimize your wait.

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L2 Cache: 6MB
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