[Kevin Murray]

Thanks to everyone for the responses. I’m not sure if my question has been completely answered and maybe my situation wasn’t clear.

My goal is to move 24p animation to the web (not TV) with as little alteration as possible, although the file delivered has to be video, not SWF. I unfortunately don’t have control over the end process but I can offer input. Right now, the person in charge wants to convert from my progressive ProRes files to DVCPro50 before encoding for the web (a different process is used for the broadcast version, which doesn’t concern me).

What bothers me is, as Aaron said, “DV50 is an interlaced codec”. Even when I tell After Effects to render my non-interlaced footage to a non-interlaced file, both AE and FCP see that file as interlaced. I assume that the compression software might see it that way, too, and want to de-interlace. This would be a bad thing, given that it doesn’t need to be interlaced in the first place. I’ve seen lines on previous tests and I think it’s because of using a DV master.

I think that either Animation or a best-quality h.264 would be the best option since I don’t have to worry about whether they introduce fields or not.

Kevin
Kevin

[Kevin Murray]

I’ve been trying to figure out this for myself on a show I’ve been working on.

I’ll render 24p footage out of AE to DV50 480p and when brought into FCP or even back into AE, the file is seen as interlaced.

My theory is that, like standard DV, the DVCPro50 codec is not flexible… in other words, cameras use hardware algorithms to “fake” progressive but that interlacing is hardwired into the codec. I haven’t found any workflow that leads to truly non-interlaced DV50.

Anyone out there to comment on this?

Kevin