[Paul Campbell]

Hey, something just came to me here. If this whole thing here is simply a timebase issue, why am I able to drop 24 frame footage into a 30 frame timeline and have it look good once I set the sequence field dominance to “none”? Shouldn’t the 24 frame stuff look weird?

[Paul Campbell]

Gents, thanks so much for the info. I’m sorry for not making that framerate difference more obvious from the start. I thought I was providing enough, but I clearly left the most important thing out.

I’m in the process now of trying to get Compressor to convert my HD stuff up to 29.97. No luck yet, but I only started 5 minutes ago. I’m quite encouraged by this latest advice, so I’ll be plugging away at this for a while no doubt. I wish I’d checked for your replies this morning instead of now! (Of course, my garage would still be a mess if I did)

Perhaps I’ll ask my friend who’s shooting the footage if he’d consider shooting at 29.97 instead of 23.98. That’s certainly an option!

[Paul Campbell]

Ok, I’m going nuts here. I’m not able to bring my HD footage into my SD timeline and have the HD stuff still look good. I’ve looked for anything out there that might explain what I’m doing wrong. Man, this is driving me to drink. If anyone’s reading this, can I recap my scenario here? I’ve got:

-1080p footage from a Sony XDCAM camera
(the FCP format info on this footage tells me that the frame rate is 23.98, the Compressor is
XDCAM EX1080p24 @ 35 Mb/s VBR, field dominance is “none” and the pixel aspect ratio is
square. I’m not sure how necessary it was for me to list all of that, but I’m losing my mind)

-720×486 animated graphic clips
(the FCP format info on these clips is frame rate of 29.97, the Compressor is Animation,
field dominance is Lower, and pixel aspect ratio is NTSC-CCIR 601)

-720×486 pre-produced commercial
(info on the commercial is frame rate of 29.97, Compressor is ProRes 422, field dominance
is lower, and pixel aspect ratio is NTSC-CCIR 601)

-720×480 music videos
(info on the videos is frame rate of 29.97, Compressor is ProRes 422HQ, field dominance is
lower, and pixel aspect ratio is NTSC-CCIR 601)

I don’t have an external broadcast monitor, just the Canvas. I know how you guys feel about this monitor issue, but the problem I’m having here goes beyond not having an external monitor. My troubles here aren’t with color shifts or contrast, etc. My HD footage in my SD timeline just looks horrendous and blurry. If I had an external monitor, it would look horrendous and blurry on that. I’m being told that the HD stuff should look good in my SD timeline, but it just doesn’t. I’ve tried every combination of settings I can think of. If you’ve had the stomach to read this entire thread, you know the problems I’m having with nesting. It’s almost like I have two choices here: use a no-field sequence and have my HD stuff look good with everything else looking blurry, or use a lower-field sequence and go with bad HD/everthing else nice. I can’t get these guys to place nice in the same sequence. I feel like I’ve adopted two dogs from different SPCA’s and they won’t get along in my house.

Please accept my apologies for beating this to death. I’m trying really hard to figure this out, but even Shazaam needed to consult with the elders from time to time, right? (Too dated?)

[Paul Campbell]

Ah, good morning! Nice to be back. Hi, Tom. I do not have an I/O device w/ a monitor. I know how vitally important it is to use this, and I’m working on getting my rig setup to have this as soon as I can afford it. I do some side work for a friend who does have a nice broadcast monitor, and the problems I’m describing here do indeed show up on the monitor.

Regarding why I worked with the 23.98 frame rate, my plan was to nest my downconverted HD footage into my SD timeline. However, when I tried this the first time FCP gave me an error about not being able to nest different frame rates. So (and I know I’m screwing this up totally, but I feel like I’m getting close) I started up a new sequence, dropped my 23.98 HD in it (and answered yes to the question about setting the sequence to the clip), did a quick edit with about 10 seconds worth of stuff, and then nested this as an NTSC clip. I then brought that nested clip into my other sequence with all my SD graphics.

As I mentioned, I thought I nailed it. Both the SD and HD stuff looked killer, that is until I tried putting a cross dissolve on the nested HD clip. The point where the cross dissolve started is where the HD clip got blurry again. I just can’t seem to get there from here. (Maybe I was just getting tired last night 🙂

[Paul Campbell]

Rafa, I just played around with nesting, and I was SO close to having this thing figured out. I nested one of my HD clips as an NTSC clip (the sequence for this part was set to no field dominance). I then imported that nested clip into my other lower field dominant sequence and BOOM…they both looked great! Until…

…I dropped a small transparent animation on top of the nested clip. My nested clip suddenly became blurry again. I won’t be able to do crossfades or put animated bugs in with this happening.

Man, I’m so close I can’t stand it. I’m also wiped out, so I’m outta here. Thanks so much for hanging with me. I really appreciate your feedback. It’s been a real learning experience thus far. I’m going to get back to this when I wake up, so I hope to hear from you again! Buenos noches.

[Paul Campbell]

I’m trying to follow your instructions, so here’s what I did:

Set my sequence to:
720×486 frame size
NTSC aspect ratio
Lower field dominance
Frame rate of 29.97
Quicktime video setting: ProRes 422 HQ
Under “Advanced” I unchecked Interlace

When I drop my HD footage into this timeline, it looks horrible in my Canvas. Only when
I change my sequence to “None” field dominance does it look correct, but doing this screws up
all of my SD graphics.

Cheers.

[Paul Campbell]

Good to hear back from you. I’ve tried every combination of ways to make all of my clips look good, but can’t seem to make them all happy. Here’s what I’ve got:

1080p24 footage shot from a Sony XDCAM (no field dominance…perhaps that’s redundant since it’s p?)
Music videos (lower field dominant at NTSC)
Animated graphics (also lower, NTSC)

Since this is for cable, I set my timeline up for NTSC, 23.98fps. The graphics look great, with nice detail. The HD footage looks horrible. I’ve been looking high and low for a way to properly convert the HD stuff to SD.

I found one site that mentioned something about “nesting” my HD stuff within my SD sequence, but haven’t found how to do this yet. Would this help?

[Paul Campbell]

Ok, I’m afraid I just annoyed you with my “Rafa” thing…sorry. Won’t happen again. If you’re not too irritated with me (I get really concerned about offending people online), I would like to ask you something else about my workflow. I’ve been reading up on how to de-interlace my stock graphics, but then came across one Cow tutorial that said that if my final product is bound for TV, I should stick with field-interlaced video. My stuff is indeed bound for cable TV, so I should set my sequence settings to lower field dominant, right? And if that’s true, I guess I need to figure out how to make my HD footage look better in my lower field timeline. Does this seem correct?

[Paul Campbell]

Hi, Rafa. (Hope you don’t mind…I’m a tennis nut) Thanks for the quick reply. I think I understand what you’re saying, but how do I go about de-interlacing all my lower field stuff without FCP? Is there another way of accomplishing this?

I’ve been messing around with setting the sequence to lower field first, but I can’t seem to make my HD stuff look clean. I’m getting lots of blurry edges, etc. (The good news is that all my lower-field stuff looks awesome!)

[Paul Campbell]

Thanks, Andy. It’s a bit of a paradox, really. I could buy the cheaper card, but then I’d need the more expensive broadcast monitor that supports HDMI. If I want to use just a TV as my monitor, I need to buy the more expensive card. Funny stuff.