[Meredith Holch]

It just seems like there’s a lot more degradation than there ought to be. We followed the directions to a “T” over and over and over. Yes we nested. Yes we dragged source clip into well. Our settings are:

width 720 height 576
aspect ratio: CCIR601/DV PAL 5:4
source pixel size: 720×480 NTSC
nested: yes
both field orders: lower
convert: NTSC TO PAL
anamorphic to letterbox: no
high quality downscaling: yes
source is NTSC dv: yes
progress output: no
de-interlace options: normal
tolerance: 10
anti-alias amount: 0
motion blur: (we play with this, sometimes lowering this makes a big difference, sometimes not)

In the Nattress instructions it says “the clip will appear shrunk down in the timeline viewer when nested.” We don’t see this.

Another thing it says is, “make sure the plug-in goes onto the nest itself, not on the clip it contains”. It seems we’re doing this right, but how would we know if we weren’t?

[Meredith Holch]

Yes, I rendered.

[Meredith Holch]

Thanks Walter, well, but you are editing a TV show, right? and using the Nattress G-Converter? Of course my client isn’t sure
their show WILL be on BBC, but they do want a professional high quality product, I guess they’re thinking in terms of Al Gore’s documentary genre.. So, do you know of a good enough hardware converter? Or do you think Nattress delivers that same quality? Clearly my eyes are not a good judge, because even FCP’s conversion looks OK to me, (there is none of the stuttering you mentioned), but I know from what I’ve been reading, that it is NOT Ok. Or, what are the specific specs I should be looking for that determine a good converter from a problematic one?

[Meredith Holch]

Hi Walter, you answered some questions for me about pal to ntsc conversion (SD)a couple of weeks ago and suggested the Nattress software solution. Now I’m thinking I want to sort of start over and do a hardware conversion. I have an option of renting a Sony DSC 1024 digital scan converter for next to nothing which should do the trick, but do you have any idea if the quality is broadcast quality? Also, there are now quite a few inexpensive (under $400 new) standards converters on the market such as the ATLONA SB3690, or the CDM-830T (not sure who makes that one), and a couple others. I don’t trust the quality of any thing so inexpensive, but I don’t really have any idea! Since you said you thought about your own conversion issues for a week, did you learn anything about these options? Or do you have any other suggestions of something to rent or buy? Unfortunately, I have 40-50 tapes, so doing an Alchemy transfer at ($80- $100/tape) at a transfer house is out of the question. Then, I found a transfer house website that said they’d do it for $13/tape, but how do I know the quality is any good? I’d rather do it myself on a machine I can trust. Thanks!

[Meredith Holch]

It all comes clear now. Lucky you. Thanks for all your help in the last couple of days.

[Meredith Holch]

Never mind Uli, I think I get it now. It’s NOT a progressive sequence, but I think you are saying if I set De-interlace to “Normal” G-converter will do the work automatically, Is that correct?

[Meredith Holch]

Hi Walter, It occurs to me that all along I have been doing your suggestion of a rough edit before converting to Nattress, only I didn’t know I’d need to convert in Nattress. HOWEVER, the whole problem began with my rough edit in a PAL sequence. I was editing along fine for 7 weeks with no problem, just rendering a lot. But when the sequence got about 1 hour 10 minutes long, any insert editing, gap closing etc. began to take a minute or even longer, instead of instantly. I needed to show what I had to my client the next day (of course), so as a work-around, after trashing preferences, making new PAL sequences, dividing my project into smaller projects etc, the one thing that worked was when I copy and pasted the clips into an NTSC sequence (not nested), and then everything went smoothly again. However, now even the NTSC sequence is beginning to do the one minute per insert edit too. (overwrite edits are fine) Have you come across this in your work, since it sounds like you are working in the same way? Also in trouble shooting, I noticed it works OK if I only have one video track, but that is not the case, I have lots of subtitles, in v2, which I need to keep, but this may give you some clue. ( I did not reload FCP 4, because as a test, I connected my harddrives to my desktop which also has FCP4, and the same thing happened, so that did not seem to be the issue.) Any ideas?

[Meredith Holch]

Thanks Uli, I know very little about de-interlacing, so am i right to set the G converter as “progressive output” and “De-interlac” as normal? Any thing else I should know about the settings?

[Meredith Holch]

thanks Walter. One last question is if you know of a site where it gives more info about the G converter filter settings. Specifically, I’ve been advised by another post to de-interlace my footage, which I believe means I should check off the Progressive output box. Then there are choices on De-interlace, which I have set as “Normal”. But I don’t have a clue about what’s correct for the Tolerance, Anti-Alias and Motion Blur settings. If you have any advice, or know of a site where I can inform myself, please let me know.

[Meredith Holch]

Thanks for the quick reply. 2 questions: 1) I don’t understand your suggestion of making a rough cut w/out rendering, because how am I supposed to see how it’s working if I don’t render it? Is the G-converter filter an effect a real time video card would allow me to see? If so, what would you recommend? 2) How do you export the clips from Nattress as a self-contained movie? Do you mean convert the whole sequence at once? The Nattress literature suggests that’s not very stable/reliable.