[Ken Pugh]

I get this a lot with XDCAM footage. As mentioned above – it helps to turn off the AJA output -if it gets really serious I remove the AJA drivers completely with AJA uninstaller. The other solution is to render the footage – even force render the ‘realtime’ footage (to the ProRes codec of course – 422 is best for XDCAM not HQ). Also turn off the icon display in both bins and in the sequence – this can exacerbate crashes with XDCAM. FCP X? Maybe not such a bad idea….

Best,

Ken.

[Ken Pugh]

Export the clip from FCP (right click then ‘send to’ ‘Motion’)

In Motion choose Behaviours / Motion Tracking / Stabilise – apply

In HUD change Method to smooth
change Borders to zoom
change adjust to select Position scale and rotation

Analyze and Save

Go to FCP and render – I had fantastic results.

Ken.

[Ken Pugh]

Restarted AE and the cosmetic progress bar issue has vanished now too, all well,

Thanks,

Ken.

[Ken Pugh]

Hi, sorry not to reply sooner – yes the update fixes the problem for me, thanks! I seem to still have a cosmetic issue of the XML import progress bar only completing about 50% of the distance and then stalling. But when I close the bar down using the red x, the import is fully completed in the AE project, and all the media is correctly placed.

Thanks again for such a speedy fix,

Ken.

[Ken Pugh]

Thanks, that worked really well.

Ken.

[Ken Pugh]

Great thanks. Working on news style documentaries, there’s not always a lot of time, or budget to do a comprehensive grade. But one intriguing aspect of using superflat is the claimed 2 stop increase in dynamic range – potentially very useful in low light, or when wanting to balance a bright sky with a dark landscape – anyone much experience with trying this?

Cheers,

Ken.

[Ken Pugh]

Following up your comments, I came across this rather amusing tutorial. It outlines how you can use the Canon picture style editor to create presets to upload to the camera, giving far greater control over achieving a wide flat image than is possible using the built in menu’s. It relates to the Canon 5D and 7D, and has links to some ready-made presets that can be uploaded to the camera, although I’m as yet unsure whether a 5d preset would necessarily work with my 60D – or indeed whether this is possible with a 60D? Any experience with uploading presets?

Best,

Ken.

https://vimeo.com/7256322

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[Ken Pugh]

I’ve not used any custom profiles on the V1 – left as standard – but made sure contrast enhance was turned off. I’ll investigate the BBC whitepaper on the V1 – I’d like to get the two cameras as close as possible. Typically when recording interviews I use the Canon for the wide shot on a tripod, with a Sigma 28mm at f1.8 – to get a nice soft background, and then use the V1 zoomed in for the close up, also enabling a matching soft background where it peeps around the edge of the face. I either record sound on the H4n – or straight into the V1.

Thanks for the tip regarding entering negative numbers in the Canon profile – based on the pictures I’ve shot the Canon is adding too much contrast at this stage for my liking – and I’ll knock back sharpness too.

As a first for me, I’ve put the V1 into 25p mode to match the Canon – not sure if I like the progressive flicker frame effect yet on a CRT TV screen – but I will persevere. I’m editing into an interlaced timeline in FCP – so any speed up shots are interlaced and hence have smooth motion – and playing out via AJA.

Cheers,

Ken.

[Ken Pugh]

Mark didn’t make the first stage crystal clear (for me at least) – and it took me a little experimenting before I cracked it. The crucial thing is that the software has to make intermediate frames when you slow the footage down. Does FCP do this? I’m not sure it does. After Effects does it really well – and I assume Motion will do as well (but I’m not up to speed with this as I use AE for all my compositing requirements).

So, slow the footage to 50%. Then render and re-import the footage. Make sure interlace is turned off, you must keep it progressive. Then after re-import check as you step through the frames that each one is now different. You don’t want ‘frame doubling’ where the software just repeats each frame in the same position to slow it down, and you don’t want frame blending, where it does a mix to create the new frame, using the frame before and the frame after as a source. Instead you want a new progressive frame in a different position relative to the frame before and after. So if you are looking at a pan each frame must be slightly to the left (if you’re panning left) of the one before.

So now you have a 50% clip – then you need to tell the software that this is not a (in PAL land) a 50% speed clip running at 25 frames – but a 100% speed clip running at 50 frames. Then when you render this (with interlace now turned on), the software takes each frame and makes it part of the interlace – so 50p becomes 50i.

This last stage is the same as shooting 50p in the Canon, then after import rendering as 50i with interlace turned on.

I was amazed how good this technique was, but the crucial part is using software that can create the intermediate progressive frames – ask in the FCP forum I’m sure they’ll know of a few plugins that could do this. Or get some tips how to do this in Motion – if you do let me know as I’d like to try this too.

Best,

Ken.

[Ken Pugh]

I tried the re-interlace method using After Effects – works really well! Super smooth pans with no judder. However I did get quite a bit of jelly vision, where the vertical lines ‘bend’ in proportion to the speed of the pan…. but that’s another story – along with chroma crawl, moire, no fluid exposure changes, pulling focus changing the frame size, overheating after an hour of filming…. but never mind, just think of the lovely soft focus background and the low light capability and be happy!

All the best,

Ken.