Rafael Amador
Forum Replies Created
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Hi Colin,
The first I have to tell you is that I know almost nothing about cartoons.
I see two issues with the picture:
– First the blacks and whites. That’s easy to appreciate as soon as you have a look to the scope. Blacks are too high (3%)and Whites are too low (90%). I don’t know if this is intentioned, but I don’t think so.
This can be due to the conversion RGB to YUV. If’ve saw different applications behaving in many different ways depending of the codecs they were dealing with.– Second is that there is something wrong with most of the black line that conform the profile (outline) of the characters. The thin almost black line that separate them from the background, and most of all in the areas where the line is almost vertical, there are some pixels where the BLUE channel is screwed. There is no Blue information at all. Even rising the Saturation with the 3W-CC, the Blue channel value keeps = 0. and I’m almost sure that’s the origin of the noise we see as underblacks.
Is not difficult to detect it: Open the picture in the canvas at 100%, and with the Digital Color Meter (Utilities) set with “1 pixel aperture”, pass it very slowly by those borders. You will notice that before the picker reaching the inner Black area (R=G=B= 3.1), many times the Blue value is = 0.
And if you upscale the picture and you look at the FCs Parade you can easily tell that most illegal Blue values (underblues) are concentrated on those “borders” lines.
No idea about the reason of those pixels.How to fix it?
If you just want to get rid of the under-blacks, running the movie through compressor with the “Broadcast Safe” ON, will do it. also, just running the clip through AE, should get rid of any illegal RGB value.
If you want to fix the movie, you have to fix two things:
– Levels: Rise the whites and crunch the Blacks.
– Fix the noise; There is noise on the Chroma channels on the lows. You will get rid of a lot of that by crunching the Blacks, and will help you also the “Desaturate Lows” filter (Set it; “Apply Below 5 or even below 10. Those color shouldn’t really have chroma. Softness: 5 to 10). This will clean all that spill on the underblacks.
I’ve also tried with the best denoiser available for FC (Neat-video) which is able to clean the noise on the Chroma channels, and also makes disappear all the spill on the underblacks.I can see some times a single point on the under-blues. This shows up whenever I tweak some filters, but always disappear when I open a new Scope window. At this point, I’m not sure if that can be just a problem with the very scope.
I’ve done all the tests on a ProresHQ sequence and as you know, with just a single frame.
My opinion is that the reason of those issues may be the inconsistent conversion of the footage (color spaces, codecs, platform (?)), with no color managing.
rafael -
[Niklas Wikman] “Is there any way I can copy those attributes and apply them to a number of clips, not having to manually enter all the values for each clip’s Motion tab?”
– Click and “Cmd-C” (copy), the clip you want the attributes.
– Select the clips to which you can paste the attribute.
– Left click any of the selected clips and “Paste Attributes”.
– Select on the emerging window the attributes you want to paste.
rafael -
Most moder cameras can record both NTSC and PAL time bases, so start by asking them if they can shoot 25fps. Converting time bases is always a pain in the ass, so avoiding timebase conversion will save you time and will ensure better picture quality.
About converting the footage to anything that can be directly edited in FC, the only serious option is Prores. But this will increase the files size. So, if files size is not a problem, ask them Prores. If you care about files size, ask them the original files.[Eve Myhill] “would I ask for H.264 uncompressed 1920 x 1080 at 25 fps?”
No. H264 is OK for acquisition or distribution, no for production.
Is not supported by FC, so you would need to convert it again to Prores for editing.Personally, I would ask them to shoot 25fps and send the raw files.
rafael -
[jordi robert] “In the past when editing 7D footage I notice that sometimes FCP thinks that the best setting for the sequence is upper (odd) and sometimes is None (randomly, for no apparent reason). Either way I have been able to edit without problems and the final delivery is usually for web.”
Jordi,
The footage per se is not a problem. If the footage is progressive (as long as all the line has been captured in the same moment, and there is not movement difference from field to field) you can treat it as progressive or Interlaced and you can edit on a progressive or interlaced sequence. Will always look Progressive.
But can arise two issues:
– That the footage needs to be rendered because the footage is interpreted with a certain field order and is edited on a sequence with a different field order. Sequence settings won’t match footage. So If you check the footage as Interlaced, edit it on an Interlaced sequence; if you check it as Progressive, edit on a Progressive sequence.
– The second problem is what I mentioned in my post before. Stuff that has been rendered as Interlaced will show combing on computers whenever the picture has a difference of movement between fields.Everything that is animated (transitions, graphics) will look horrible on computers screens.So when dealing with stuff that you know is progressive, and to avoid any kind of problems, the best policy is to check it as progressive and edit it as Progressive.
rafael -
[Tj Foley] “Everytime I export the sequence as a Quicktime Movie or for Quicktime Conversion, the video plays in a squeezed 4:3 frame, even though my settings are for 16:9 (I set it to NTSC 720×480, checked the box to prserve ratio and letterbox, still the problem persists). “
You are doing nothing wrong.
QT don’t know that your 720×480 pixels are NTSC. Hi thinks they are squared, distort the picture.
Make the MPEG-2 in Compressor, and when you bring it to DVDSTPro, check the 16×9 option.
rafael -
[Brad Elliott] “Camera model & settings can effect this but we have ingested many TBs of 5D & 7D and we have never had the need to changed the field dominance. “
The standard for 1080 HDTV, is Interlaced. That means that even when progressive, is streamed as Interlaced (PSF: Progressive Segmented Frame).
If you are delivering for Broadcast, DVD or Bluray, or whatever thing to be watched on a TV (Interlaced) there is no problem to treat it as plain Interlaced.
But if you are going to make something to be displayed on a progressive screen (Web video), unless you treat it as Progressive (NONE), you will end up making a big shit.
The video won’t cause problems, but whatever animated title or graphic will show horrible interlacing artifacts on any computer screen.
rafael -
[jordi robert] “How do I check the clips as NONE in the FC. Browser?”
Select all the clips, and in the Field Order (field dominance) column, left-click > NONE.
rafael -
IMO those are typical analog drop outs.
I don’t think a TBC will help much.
The TBC will do something similar to what you are getting in those picture: When it found a drop, it repeats the last line that has stored in the memory.
rafael -
[jordi robert] “when I started editing this project I added a clip to the timeline and when it asked me if I wanted to change the settings to fit the clips settings I said yes and it comes up with Upper (odd) I dont understand why. So just to check I changed to NONE (progresive) but still doing the same.”
That;s because FC expect the 1080 footage to be Interlaced. Your footage is PSF.
You need to check the clips in FCs Browser as NONE. Then edit on a NONE sequence.
rafael -
Hi Miguel,
That could be some faulty media.
Have you tried to play the clips with SONY Clip Browser?
rafael