[Karim Daire]

Hi Shane,

thanks for clearing up the DVCPro question!

“Well, DVDs can be progressive. Most are. Hollywood films…European films…shot 24fps, 25fps. They aren’t interlaced…and when put on a DVD, they STILL aren’t interlaced. They are progressive. So if you shoot progressive, you can make a progressive DVD…or interlaced and an interlaced DVD. If you want to shoot progressive, do. Know that it will work on DVDs just fine.”

I know you can put progressive material on DVDs… but we want to use the smoother motion of interlaced footage with 50 frames or fields per second. Thats why I habve been asking about 720p50 or 1080i50… which is better to achieve both interlaced with 50 fields and progressive with 25 frames best quality.
I am asking because 1080i to me is just 540 pixels height when carrying 2 fields. Therefore I was thinking using 720 pixels height AND 50 frames per second should be theoretically the better quality.
I always get mixed information on that subject.

“Pardon me? I thought we were talking about P2 here. That’s DVCPRO HD or, with some higher end cameras, AVCIntra. Panasonic P2 cameras don’t shoot XDCAM. Sony cameras do, and a couple JVC ones.”

Oh sorry for the mixup … the DVCPro question was about material I got from an external company. We are shooting on XDCam HD with a Sony camera of course. the 720p50/1080i50 question is rather a general one.

Karim

-Karim-
Freelance Cutter, Compositor and Animator from Hamburg/Germany

[Karim Daire]

Thanks a lot for your answers.

So to sum it up… there is no quality difference unless I work in a DV Sequence and add graphics/text/composites that get messed up by the DV Compression?

Like I wrote there will be no composites but a lot of texts and graphics added in between.
Since with my equipment given I have no other way but capturing in DV via Firewire I guess the best way would be working with DV Material in a ProRes Sequence and add graphics/titles there and then mastering to a ProRes QT (I do not playout on DV).

Is that right? And if so, should I transcode the material to ProRes via Compressor or just throw the DV Material in a ProRes Sequence and render it in FCP?

Karim

-Karim-
Freelance Cutter, Compositor and Animator from Hamburg/Germany

[Karim Daire]

Hi Scott,

no, both OS and FCStudio are upgrade installs.
Can I install the Updates without having the previous installs before on a Macbook, I know that FCStudio will work but especially wonder about the OS 10.7 Update?

Thanks for your help,

Karim

-Karim-

[Karim Daire]

I had the same problems with a 3D project just this week and wanted to throw my laptop out of the window at times until I realized that AE tends to mess up interpolation when you work with eased keyframes. If you set keyframes and ease them… everything is fine. If you change eased keyframes or copy them (like I guess you did with the same position twice) you get strange results. It took me a while to realize that you have to set back all messed up keyframes to linear interpolation for time AND position (Right klick+Keyframe interpolation). I knew the problem soon but It took a while to see I had to change both, now it works fine and i finished the project without any harm to my hardware! 😉

Hope this helps!

Karim

-Karim-

[Karim Daire]

If I understood you correctly someone shot a full circle around an object with still photos changing position fixed degrees from shot to shot??

I mean, if you only want a 360 rotation with the photos, you simply import them as a picture sequence and place them in your project and adjust the timing with time remapping or the time warp filter if you got too few pictures for a slow move. I guess thats the easy way…. if like another poster proposed you need only the flag and not the hall you got a lot of rotoscoping ahead of you plus fitting it to a faked 3d surrounding and camera move… that should be a little more work, useless work… i hope a picture sequence is enough!

Karim

-Karim-

[Karim Daire]

Hell, the new marker features are some of the most time saving for me. I did many DVD Projects with loads of chapters which I used off the timeline with Final Cuts Chapter Markers. Now when you change anything in you sequence you move every marker by hand to its new location… and that includes the already pretty bad marker handling in FCP (I think they could also work a little on this as well as the keyframing which can get pretty tedious in my oppinion). I also like the share option and the new searchability… I hoped they’d snatch some more off the Premiere CS4 ideas.

-Karim-

[Karim Daire]

Hi Steven,

thanks for your response. I already know the Canopus products and they are pretty expensive compared to my old Dazzle Bridge. Besides the ADVC costs around 160 Euros and only works in one direction, so like the Pinnacle Products in the lower prices segment they are basically for getting VHS/Hi-8 etc. Material INTO your computer. The specifications only state S-Video/A/V Inputs, the ADVC 110 has In- and Outputs but with 260 Euros is way to expensive for a quick and dirty solution for my taste.

I don’t quite get it … the old Dazzle cost 70 Euros and had In/Output on Firewire/A/V/S-Video. It reminds me of the DV-Cameras that used to come with DV-In Option that has been taken out for the european market, so now you get Equipment with less functions for the same price and need a recorder and a player. I hate that kind of product policy, but I guess that is the main reason for my problems and the price for the same functions going up around 300% in a few years.

Karim

-Karim-

[Karim Daire]

Hi Kathy,

just use the basic templates that apple delivers for DVDs in compressors template window unter Apple/DVD… you got several qualitys for shorter and longer material for the MPEG and a template for the AC3-Audio in one folder. Just drag your desired quality on your clip and render. Should work fine.

Karim

-Karim-

[Karim Daire]

Hi Jason,

are you also working on a Macbook??
And what do you mean by “break the render”?? Just trash the render files and re-render??

Karim

-Karim-

[Karim Daire]

Hi Kathy,

in which program did you finish your cut and export the Quicktime and which is the size of the Quicktime?? If you have an anamorphic sequence in Final Cut, export it to QT and encode it in compressor compressor usually recognizes it as 16:9 and flags it for use in DVD Studio/IDVD. So is your clip regular NTSC/PAL norm with anamorphic pixels??

Karim

-Karim-