Larry Asbell
Forum Replies Created
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Greg Huson writes:
I checked with AJA.
Yes, they work fine together – we have it set up that way. Latest drivers, etc.
There’s a little pulldown window in the upper left side of the control panel
that allows you to switch between devices. In FCP, you just use the easy setup
that’s correct for the device. In Avid, well, only the IO Express works.gh
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Greg Huson
Secret Headquarters, Inc
Post Production / Production
Culver City, CA
323 677 2092
323 677 2096 F
https://www.DigitalServiceStation.com
greg (at) SecretHQ.com
https://www.SecretHQ.com -
Greg Huson writes:
I checked with AJA.
Yes, they work fine together – we have it set up that way. Latest drivers, etc.
There’s a little pulldown window in the upper left side of the control panel
that allows you to switch between devices. In FCP, you just use the easy setup
that’s correct for the device. In Avid, well, only the IO Express works.gh
—————————————————-
Greg Huson
Secret Headquarters, Inc
Post Production / Production
Culver City, CA
323 677 2092
323 677 2096 F
https://www.DigitalServiceStation.com
greg (at) SecretHQ.com
https://www.SecretHQ.com -
Also for it to work, the user has to tell their DVD player what aspect ratio screen it is attached to. The menu will be called “Initial Set-up” or “Video Playback” or some such name, and the choices are 4:3 or 16:9.
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[Joseph Owens] “You can play back a 23.98 sequence through a Kona card, but it only generates 2997 2:3 field cadence on downconverts to SD, but not cross-convert to 1080i2997.”
Joseph –
What kind of 23.98 sequence are trying to cross-convert to 1080i? You must mean a 720p 23.98 sequence because you say “cross-convert.” You couldn’t mean 1080 23.98 because the Kona control panel won’t ever allow that combination to be set.
It works here. I just tested it this way:
Put some 720p 23.98 footage into a 720p 23.98 Prores sequence.
Set FCP to 720p 59.94 easy setup, the correct way to force Kona to do 3:2 pulldown.
Set the Kona to cross convert 720p 59.94 to 1080i 29.97
Play the sequence and record the output onto an HD VTR set to record 1080i.
I inspected the results frame by frame and confirmed that the 3:2 pattern is just as it should be (3 frames with matched fields then 2 frames with mixed fields)
– Larry Asbell
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Jeremy,
Thanks for the response. Good to know I wasn’t missing anything.
– Larry
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I started a new thread, “Using Compressor on clips in sequence” with a question about the workflow for doing so.
Jeremy or anyone else?
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To avoid ficker, it’s not the shutter speed that needs to be a multiple, it’s the frame rate. So PAL at 25 fps is good with florescent lights at 50 Hz. But with florescent lights at 60 Hz you need to shoot at 29.97 or 59.94.
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Max –
Cool. Obviously you didn’t need the rasterizing explanation. Actually your way is purer. I generally grab for PS before Illustrator out of habit.
So, is the lesson that making a graphic double size to scaling it down 50% in FC can look better that at 1:1?
Before we’re sure, let me ask, were you comparing both the before and after as final exports or just in the canvas?
If you compared exports, then I guess making it oversize helped.
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I’m real pleased my advice helped you get a good result. I think this shows the importance of looking at how graphics have been prepped as part of troubleshooting how they appear in FCP.
For everyone’s benefit let me clarify my specific point.
Look at the original .eps file. The pixel dimensions are 274 pixels x 127 pixels! That’s the story right there. That’s tiny! The saving grace is that as an eps file it’s still vector-based. That means it’s capable of having beautifully smooth edges at any scale. But you’ve got to change the scale before it’s rasterized, i.e. turned into a pixel-based image.
As we can see from your Photoshop file, 274 pixels x 127 pixels size is about half the size that you scaled it to. Because it looks jaggy we know that you scaled it up in Photoshop where it is pixels. You should always scale it while it’s still vector-based. If you don’t yet know the exact final size then do double or triple what you think you will need, so when you scale it, you’re scaling it down.
When you open an eps file into Photoshop you get a dialog box where you control the rasterizing dimensions. Change the units to read as pixels then enter 2000 into the width. That’s roughly half the width of your 1280×720 frame, multiplied by 3. (Constrain Proportions should be checked, and while your there change the Mode to RGB.)
When I first posted, I didn’t see how small the original size was so I suggested 200%. Actually it could have been 600% but evidently 200% helped enough to make the results acceptable.
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The PS file is the exact size of you sequence. It should be larger unless you are using it in the video exactly that size. If you are scaling it or moving it on the screen at all you should be working with a larger version of the logo.
View the Photoshop file at 200%, see the jaggies?
For better results, open the Illustrator file in PS and double or triple the size it’s rasterized to. Save it and bring it into FCP. It will automatically scale back to the correct size but look a whole lot better.