[Marc Brak]

Harm is right, the framesize/framerate don’t match. It’s either PAL or NTSC.

If you’re filling an NTSC canvas with PAL footage, it would have to scale down, because it has almost 100 lines more height (PAL: 576, NTSC: 480), which would leave you with black pillarboxes on the left and the right.

On the other hand if you’ve imported NTSC footage into a PAL project, you’d have to stretch the footage to fill the canvas, and you’d lose some of your image on the left and the right.

Simple experiment: the project you opened, is it PAL or NTSC? Try the other one and see if it fits.

[Marc Brak]

Hi Jenny, let me try to answer this without getting too technical.

Small note before we start: in Europe the TV standard is PAL, which has 25 frames per second. In the US the standard is NTSC, which has 29,97 frames per second. Let’s go with PAL for now -it’s what i’m used to working with- but the same principles apply to NTSC.

Well then. The difference between progressive and interlaced footage is that with progressive footage you record 25 full pictures (frames) per second, whereas with interlaced you record fifty – but they show only half of the picture.

What do i mean, only half the picture? Ever noticed how a regular TV screen is made up of horizontal lines? Well actually , each of these lines consists of a lower half and an upper half, called fields.

So, progressive footage looks like this:

upper field – on
lower field – on

(25 full frames a second)

And interlaced looks like this

upper field – off
lower field – on

upper field – on
lower field – off

(50 “half” frames playing in turns)

Now, on a regular (old-school, not talkin about plasma or lcd) TV you won’t see this because the tv screen’s resolution is too low. But your computer screen WILL show it.

Wether you want to deinterlace your footage (this is something you do in post, not while capturing) depends on the target platform. Because deinterlacing basically means merging the lower field and upper field of each two consecutive frames into one full frame, and smoothing stuff out a bit, you will always lose some quality when you deinterlace. So if you’re creating a standard definition DVD, to be shown on a regular tv: don’t deinterlace.

If on the other hand you’re creating video for the web, or say a large plasma disply, then deinterlacing would be wise, especially if there’s a lot of action in the movie.

Of course, the best option would be to simply shoot progressive, if your camera allows it. And more and more camera’s do.

Hope this clears it up, if not, don’t hesitate to ask!

[Marc Brak]

I’m about to go from Adobe to FCP for the same reason – industry standard. But i’m surprised to hear that Adobe is actually better?

Could you explain what makes Premiere better than FCP?

[Marc Brak]

Those jagged edges are probably just interlacing lines – extra visible during movement.

I’ve noticed that Windows media player deinterlaces your footage in playback, that’s why you don’t see the jagged edges. Try watching it with a player like media player classic: the edges will probably be there.

It’s normal with dv. You won’t see it on a regular tv. If you’re going to play it on a digital screen, deinterlace.

[Marc Brak]

hm, those drinks sound tempting… even if I’m the one who pays for them 🙂

If i’d start with a mac setup that’s high-end in the regular (mini-)DV market, and upgrade to HD-level in 1 or 2 years, it would seem foolish at this point to invest in an octo-core, no? Working regular dv a quad 3ghz mac would be more than enough… and by the time i start working HD, the octo will seem quaint.

It’s really awkward, this period, isn’t it? High Def knocking on our doors, but it’s too early and expensive to really jump on that bandwagon already. At least in my market of small-time corporate video. But any investment in regular dv in two years will be obsolete. Like, i’m also not buying that XL2 now…

Sorry for rambling on, but it’s a real dilemma. Go for a $10.000 Mac pro i’m not really ready for, or settle for a mac book pro that will allow me to familiarize with the mac and fcp, but is too light-weight for real heavy editing…

what do i do? Maybe i SHOULD get some drinks with Walt and Zander…

[Marc Brak]

Real obvious question, but i have to ask: are you using Adobe Media Encoder to export, or simply using export>movie?

Adobe media encoder always works fine for me.

Also, is this the first time you’ve tried to export as wmv, or has it worked before? And are you running Vista or XP?

[Marc Brak]

And with HD, no red bleeding problem?

[Marc Brak]

Right, and to capture uncompressed HD, i will need a special capture card?

Right now everything i do is still regular dv, but i’m expecting within 1 or 2 years that will have changed.

So that would mean for the time being i could postpone buying a RAID rack + capture card, and just go for that octo-core macpro with enough RAM.

[Marc Brak]

And what about other peripherals, like a capture card? In my pc (regular DV) all i needed was a firewire card.

Do you really need an AJA Kona or IO or such stuff??

[Marc Brak]

Perhaps you are simply trying to play too many videos simultaniously for your hard drive to handle? The data stream would then be too vast. Try disabling another video track, then see if you have smooth playback again.

What the [V] means, no idea, sorry.