[Mark Zemel]

Hey Mohamed,

Panasonic DVX 100B’s can shoot in 24 Progressive Advanced mode. Which allows for a simple 3:2 pulldown from 29.97 fps to 23.98 fps. I use it regularly for doc pieces and performance pieces. The footage is not interlaced because all the interlaced frames have been pulled down. I’m very fastidious about that. As far as I know the fields should be turned off, because I’m not relying on AE for any deinterlacing. I’ll mess around w/ it, but I don’t think it’s the answer.

And, I don’t know, but the pixelation in the lower screenshot seems pretty apparent to me. Look at the image around her eyes, and in her hair, you can see the aliasing.

Hey Dave,

I hear you on the Mini DV green screen problems. This was my first green screen shoot, and I can promise you I will never use Mini DV for this kind of thing again. However, the footage is 23.98 (actually 23.976 as you noted) in FCP, but it’s showing up as 24 in AE. I don’t know why there is a discrepancy there (I just assumed in that last post that AE rounds up). I also can’t explain why when I create a comp using the footage it makes it 16:9 instead of 4:3. But, that’s easily fixable. What I’m still struggling w/ is the pixelated jagged edged images. But, thanks for the link on color resolution. I’ll give it a listen when I get home.

Best,
Mark

[Mark Zemel]

Hey Mohamed,
Just checked the footage interpretation. The settings seemed correct to me. It’s using the native frame rate from the file (24 fps). Separate Fields is off, Remove Pulldown is off. The pixel aspect ratio is set to D1/DV NTSC (0.91). The color management is off. This is for the original capture scratch video file. Again, I already did the pull down using reverse telecine in Cinema Tools. Are those the correct settings?

I’ve also included some screen shots of the QT file vs. After Effects. The image is blown up to full screen in QT and 400% in After Effects. Even at 100% this pixelation is very noticeable.
-Mark

[Mark Zemel]

I originally exported the clips at the ‘Current Settings’ setting, as self contained movies. The sequence settings in FCP are correct. And, the resolution in AE was the first thing I checked… I don’t know. I just checked the original capture scratch (which looks perfect in QT). I imported it into AE and even that looks seriously pixelated. The other weird thing is that when I use the footage to create a comp the automatic comp settings are incorrect. The footage is showing up as 16:9 even though it’s 4:3. I feel like I must be forgetting something basic, or missing something obvious. Thanks for all the help so far!
-Mark

[Mark Zemel]

The footage looks significantly better in FCP, Quicktime and Cinema tools. There is a pretty severe resolution lossage in AE for some reason. I shot the footage on Mini DV at 4:3 aspect ratio, at 24pa frame rate, and then reverse telecined it in Cinema Tools. There were no dropped frames or any issues w/ the capture. And it’s especially problematic because I need to key out the green screen background, and the footage is so aliased that I’m getting tons of noise around the edges.

I know Mini DV uses rectangular pixels, so I’ve been messing around w/ the composition settings, trying different aspect ratios and pixel aspect ratios to correct this. I even exported it using the Apple Jpeg codec because that should convert the rectangular pixels to square ones, but the problem persists. Thanks,
-Mark