[Peter Hall]

Thank you David, yours was the only post that mentioned “not to render” in order to preserve alpha channel, the only post here that worked for me to enable me to use some Motion 3D text barrells around from front to behind some small images. Looks like I will have to finish that project in Motion. Thanks again for valuable tips.

Peter Hall

[Peter Hall]

Thank you Rafael, I’ve also been shooting progressive but some of that old DV footage desperately needs re-editing, and working with what are now relatively such low res images, I want to give it the best chance. Thank you.

Peter Hall

[Peter Hall]

Thanks for the clarity Rafael, I have a much better idea of what and why now. I will need to get a decent de-interlacer as the default FCP de-interlacer really softens the image. So you recomend de-interlacing all NTSC DV footage that’s to be viewed on computers?
Again, thanks for sharing your knowledge.

Peter Hall

[Peter Hall]

Thanks Rafael – I made some test QT movies without using the “switch field” effect and played them outside of FCP and they looked fine. (although yet to test on a CRT monitor) I suppose this may change when played back in another format or on the web?

I will try using one of the De-Interlacers that you suggested on another thread on certain clips that have stepped edges. (Revision FieldsKit, Nattress De-Interlacers, Jes.) I assume its ok to DE-interlace only the clips where the stepping is chronic. It would be nice if one could apply de-interlacing only on the portion of the frame that needs it. (Like a MB Power Mask function). Someone recomended De Interlacing all DV footage if the finished video is for computer monitors or the web?

Peter Hall

[Peter Hall]

Hi Rafael, in the “Shift-fields filter” does it default or do I need to set it to +1 or-1 ?

Peter Hall

[Peter Hall]

Hi Steve, I did that and these are the screens:

And this below when applying the easy preset to the new sequence, not sure if the field domiance is correct for NTSC DV or the pixel aspect ratio? Just leave it this way?

Thanks in advance to help set this up correctly.

Peter Hall

[Peter Hall]

Hi Rafael, thanks for your reply: Yes, I want to keep the DV the same, but the pixel aspect settings in the sequence settings, as my screengrabs show, give different results. I want to know which is the correct pixel aspect setting. Thank you.

Peter Hall

[Peter Hall]

Hi Bret, thanks again for your valuable advice. I realised that I could only change to the proper timebase by making a new sequence from preset that I had built in the Audio and Video settings. I have ditched the original sequence I sent you a shot of.

I have attached two new screen shots with the new settings. The image is DV at 100% in the motion tab. The first screengrab is with the pixels set to Square. The circle mask frame is generated in the viewer tab.

The second one is with pixels set to DV NTSC, which makes the DV frame even more square.
Which setting do you recomend to maintain the original DV aspect ratio and generally prevent problems down the road?

Thanks again, hoping to get this right eventually.

Peter Hall

[Peter Hall]

Hi Bret, thank you very much for the detailed response. Very useful. I think I have resolved my scaling issue by changing the sequence to 1920 from 1440 as per your suggestion. I also switched the auto scaling off. Below is the screenshot of the canvas, the highlighted clip is DV scaled to 150%, the others are normal size DV, reduced in size a little by the masks. Still not sure why the editing timebase says 25? (should be 29.97 for NTSC?)

Again, thank you for your time. Very much appreciated.

Peter Hall

[Peter Hall]

Hi Bret, I’m not sure where to make certain adjustments to the settings you suggest. I don’t see where to adjust the Digital Cinema preview other than in the MBP hardware/preferences where it is set to 1280×800.

I have changed the sequence and the Audio/Video settings to:

“So in your canvas, you should see a 4:3 image, either with black bars on the right or left, if you took my suggestion and turned off the autoscaling, you’ll see black around the entire 4:3 image and it should fill less than half the height of the screen.”

I dont see the black bars in the canvas. The DV image (100%) is about 1/6th of the canvas size. Where can I switch off the autoscaling? With the above settings, the image in the canvas and Digital Cinema preview is still stretched. (correct for aspect ratio is on)

This is my sequence setting:

If someone can help with setting this up so I can have non-stretched DV images in a HD timeline it would be greatly appreciated.

Peter Hall