[Michael Gissing]

Are you are going from the FCP timeline via SDI through the Teranex? If so then advance your sequence by four frames to compensate. VITC and LTC should match so let the deck generate both simultaneously and adjust your timeline.

If you are going tape to tape (say HDCam to Digi) then use machine control from the digi to the HDCam and do an assemble edit, again letting the digi generate code and advance the HDCam 4 frames to keep timing correct.

FCP doesn’t generate VITC so normally VITC is masked by your I/O card as it would be source timecode – not something you want on your digi master.

[Michael Gissing]

Peter, the main area of concern to me is the uprez DV material. The settings appear correct for all the other footage, right through to the DVD, except that the compressor line “Deinterlace Filter: Fast (Line Averaging)” shouldn’t be necessary.

Your quicktime should scale to 1920 x 1080 as this is correct for 16:9. Your 1440 shots should scale correctly and not look either fat or stretched. The distort settings you report are correct. The converted DV material may have the interlace error so it is worth trying the shift fields filter on these shots. If you can monitor these shots on an external interlace monitor, you should be able to see if the filter fixes it. Hopefully it can be corrected and the problem isn’t baked in.

Looking at the mpeg on a computer screen may show interlace issues because computer monitors are progressive. Deinterlacing for web based material makes sense because of this. The best test is on a DVD player onto an interlace monitor.

[Michael Gissing]

A cue sheet or head board should show the duration.

[Michael Gissing]

I just looked again at the easy setups on offer from that web link. None are for 50i material so I hope you didn’t use one of those to capture your footage.

[Michael Gissing]

Peter, the Guinness sounds very inviting. Pity I am in Tasmania, Australia.

HDV footage is usually interlaced. JVC cameras are the exception. Canon shoots interlaced and I assume you are 25 fps.Interesting link for the Easy setups. So you have converted all your Canon footage to ProRes 1440×1080. Viewing the files in your edit bin, it should show you your field dominance which should be upper.

Check that your footage in the timeline doesn’t have the shift fields filter and also check that your sequence is set to upper field in the sequence settings. If your edit sequence is ProRes 1920 x 1080 then the ProRes that you captured from the camera will have a value set in the distort tab. Double click a shot into your viewer and click on the motion tab. Under distort it should display 33.3. What this setting does is stretch the 1440 to 1920. If your sequence is 1440 then the distort will be zero on the camera footage and the other files that you made which were 1920 will show a distortion of -33.3 as they are scaled to the sequence. FCP usually does this automatically.

So the fact that you have 1440 and 1920 in the same timeline is usually not an issue because FCP corrects the aspect for you. So to trace the field issue, check the footage is upper, the sequence is upper and the resultant Qt file is upper (stay in the same codec as your sequence). In Compressor your mpeg encode should also be set to upper field. With all those set correctly, you shouldn’t have to deinterlace to fix your problem.

In the 25 frame world it is simple. All video except DV is upper.

[Michael Gissing]

I think Sean you are mistaking AE and Motion. You can send to Motion, alter/ render and the new file will be automatically in the FCP timeline. I am pretty sure you can’t do this with AE, only export a sequence via Automatic Duck, alter and reimport via Automatic Duck.

[Michael Gissing]

This is almost the most common FCP question and has been covered heaps of times. Try searching the forum on interlace errors, field dominance errors, aspect ratios in DVDSP.

[Michael Gissing]

Simple long term convention in video editing. The in point marks the start of the first frame. The out point marks the start of the last frame but the file includes all of the last frame, hence it seems to be a frame longer.

Whilst it may seem smarter to finish the file at the start of the last frame, convention has always been to extend to the end of the marked frame. This has been the case, long before digital and non linear. You see the same issue in EDLs.

[Michael Gissing]

Further to Victors good tip, you can also make bins for certain scenes or shots, select all the filters for that shot and drag the filters to their bin. Label the bin and even the filters if you wish, so you can easily identify them. Next time you need that combo, highlight and drag to shots or scenes as required.

[Michael Gissing]

Don’t forget the importance of a good lens. Pixel aspect isn’t an issue but sharp optics are. 1440 x 1080 is used by HDV and HDCam.

In my opinion, Canon lenses are sharper than the Sony Zeiss lenses, but I have seen excellent results from Z1s if you avoid the widest angle and use ND filters to keep the iris in the F8 range.