[Richard Mamary]

Thanks for the help!

[Richard Mamary]

Thanks for the reply.

The answer is both, yes, and no!

The Sony deck does allow me to use an 8mm cartridge to clean the head, but when I try to use it in the camera, (Sony TRV-129), upon insertion it instantly gives a C:31 error and therefore will not allow me to run it.

Also, there is no benefit yielded on the video image, when I play the tape on the deck after head cleaning.

There is a chance the head cleaning is malfunctioning in some way, even though it is new, but it does beg the question,…
If it was a head clog issue, wouldn’t the static lines always be in the same location of the frame?

I am a bit of a newbie, (even after all these years, I’m afraid…), and therefore don’t know whether Time Base Correction, (or in this case the built in TBC on the ADVC 300), would improve the playback.

As I already have an ADVC 110, I really can’t afford to shell out another $400, unless there is a, “YES!,” consensus, that TBC will definitely improve the results!

Thanks again for your help.

[Richard Mamary]

Thanks again for your help!

[Richard Mamary]

Thank you Rafael. Compressor is out.

Does an FCP export of the “trimmed clip,” (not from the timeline), also add a generation? Or is it too treated as a, “Save As?”

Thanks in advance.

[Richard Mamary]

Thanks again!

[Richard Mamary]

Thanks for the response. And thanks in advance for any further info.
And sorry in advance for the oncoming “machine gun,” of questions I have forthcoming!

It may be late in the game, but you’d stand a better chance at preserving image quality with the DVCPro 50.

Wow. Could please expand a little bit more on this. This is potentially paradigm shifting for me, because, up until now my understanding has been that quality of SD footage coming off tape is DV-NTSC, to begin with, (which, based on this idea, is how, for years now I’ve captured SD, (whether 8mm, mini-dv, or even DVCam.)
In my earlier days, I also would have never considered doing it any other way because drive space back then was at such a premium.
Have I been wrong about this all these years?!

And if so, how wrong? (As in, how much of the original quality of the footage have I been losing?) Is it readily perceivable to the naked eye?
Do you think it’s worth me doing a test, capturing both ways and have a look?
Or does capturing it this way just preserve image quality for the next generation, (export, dvd encode, etc?)

In this projects case, were talking about 15-20 year old video, that looks somewhat degraded to begin with.
Would the perceived improvement in quality therefore be negligible?
Is capturing SD footage as DVCPro50, only important if the original video is pristine?

You can do a rough cut of the gray footage and re-saving in QT Pro… if you wanted to go through the hassle.

Yes, but this takes a really long time with QT Pro. Compressor seems to be a better option.
I have been trying to find a less time consuming way to reclaim the wasted file size space, (which is why I originally posted), though I seem to be getting a different education than I expected! (Better late than never.)

[Richard Mamary]

Thanks again Darby,

“Btw, I was initially not happy with the first DVD’s I created. The down conversion from 720p to DVD, certainly didn’t help” – my quote.

“If you have time to run some tests, try resizing one of the problematic sequences in AE and running that through Compressor without making any changes to frame size.” -your quote

Btw, I just wanted to be clear, I have been exporting 1280×720 progressive, and importing that into Compressor.

(But, I always did like AE for renders better than fcp. )

That is, if your suggesting, importing my FCP timeline into AE, and exporting it from there.
I think Boris has a plugin which allows one to do that.
Because I don’t think you mean exporting 720p from fcp, and then re-rendering it through AE?

I tell you what I did do, I ran tests with Compressors anti-aliasing slider @ “0,” “20,” “40,” “60,” “80” and yes, “100!” encoded them separately, and muxed them together in DVDSP to loop continuously, (with title cards for each.) And, I didn’t see any, let me be clearer. ANY, reduction in the moire pattern. That anti-aliasing takes forever for Compressor to encode, even with a short test.

I guess it is just the nature of such a pattern. When you reduce it, the compressor, just doesn’t know how to deal with all those horizontal lines crushing into eachother!

[Richard Mamary]

“I still think you weren’t working with real progressive-scan footage. I think it was shot interlaced. If this stuff started life at 1080, the chances are overwhelming it was interlaced, even if it was shot progressive scan.”

The digital photos were downloaded to my computer, tweaked in PS, than imported into AE, motion added, rendered as Apple Pro Res 1280×720 sq pixels, 29.97, supposedly the same settings as my FCP sequence. Once rendered in AE the slideshow was imported into a 1280×720 29.97 sq pixel project in FCP.

“If if you’re convinced everything is progressive, then you need to start scrutinizing FCP, which is just as big a screwup as anything else in Software-Land. Check the footage in the Browser and then check the timeline> If you don’t have the field order — which FCP incorrectly calls field dominance — se to none, you could have aliasing problems.”

I am not convinced of anything unfortunately.

My understanding was even though I had AVCHD “lite”, 1280×720 30p footage, I was instructed the proper way to import it into FCP was as Apple Pro Res, with a timeline of 29.97?!

So I have been confused about this from the beginning.

I was told that 29.97 was still progressive, (which strained my brain a bit i will admit.)

Here are my FCP sequence settings, followed by the composition settings from AE.

So when I made my AE Composition, I chose the same settings. You can’t see, but I chose “square pixels,” too.

And here is the Composition Sequence Highlighted in AE’s Browser.

And, finally the info on the AE exported slideshow, as seen from FCP’s browser.

The one thing here that strains my brian more than anything is understanding how 29.97 can be 30p.
That one kills me.

[Richard Mamary]

Thanks Darby for weighing in.

“So you’re going from an HD source to an SD output?”

Yes. Its an HDV 1280×720 29.97 “progressive” timeline, exported out same settings as Sequence, Apple Pro Res 422. The footage is still progressive, as I understand it…
Here is info on the output file.

“If that’s the case then it’s most likely an interlacing problem. Make sure that your field order is correct.”

In Compressor when I export using, “Automatic Mode,” in the Quality Tab it has also selected, “Progressive,” (grayed Out.)

“Confirming the m2v is progressive, here is media info on the m2v that Compressor encoded.

So where is it becoming interlaced? In the DVDSP mux?

Any thoughts?

[Richard Mamary]

“Time Remapping. Lots of useful info at that link.
Also, here’s a basic tutorial on Time Remapping.”

Thanks very much for the input Michael. Regardless, that I have seen both of those before.
I’ll have to give that AE manual another shot. I just don’t remember really getting it.
I am self taught, mind you, (and thats the opposite of a brag, believe me.)

That second tutorial was great, thank you.

“Smooth speed transitions are accomplished either with the use of an adjustable-speed playback deck or a high-end effects system. ”
“I would LOVE to be proven wrong about this, so anyone who can pull off smooth ramped speed transitions, chime in!”

Clearly, I am looking for the poor mans version to be sure…, and Steve seems to be on to something…

“Call me crazy (thank you), but this Time Remapping fan just tried Timewarp, and it wasn’t bad. It works as you’d expect: 1st key at 50%, second key at 100%.”

Nice one Steve! Thats a rally find. And it was sitting right there under my nose…
That looks pretty smooth, (in ram preview albeit), and even with frame blending off.
This appears at first glance to be what I am looking for. Easy looking enough to get started messing around with all those settings.

First thing I have to figure out how to get it to play out the whole clip, and not shorten it after setting the keyframes. The defauolt seems to be to keep the clip the same length. I am sure there is a setting here somewhere… I don’t have time to mess around with it this morning, (2am), but am looking forward to seeing whether an output looks as good.

Hopefully I can find a good tutorial on this too. Or if not, maybe make sense out of the AE manual.