[Ryan Hinkle]

Hey Andy, well no I haven’t figured it out entirely, but I’m getting closer. In my situation, I discovered a few potential problem sources.

1. I used studio tungsten lights mixed with ambient light from the window. Perhaps the two light sources made the camera’s sensors record askew. I also had the camera’s exposure on +6dB, which did introduce some unwanted noise. (I doubt that either of these are the case because my WB was manually set to a white board prior to every shot, and the strange flickering didn’t appear until AFTER compression to MPEG-2)

2. I recorded with my Canon GL2 in “Frame Mode” and captured as 30P. I’ve since discovered that you should still capture as 29.97. My field dominance was set to None when captured, yet the Item Properties in FCP insist they are “Even (Upper)” My sequence settings were also at Timecode 30, Field Dominance “none”, yet it won’t playback to my external TV monitor without having the Timecode set to 29.97. I believe this is because of the conflict with the file properties.

I just notice that MPEG2 in essence tries too hard to compress every pixel. Comparing Sorensen or H.264 at 320×240, I notice that if a part of the image is unmoving, the pixels are NOT refreshing. They are stagnant, as well they should be. The movement looks great, and the perceived quality is far better (even though it’s throwing away more information.) I just wish MPEG2 would do this. I’m not letting it stop me though. Starting this morning, our production team shot without the “Frame Mode” and leaving simply as 29.97 interlaced, and imported/edited the same. Also we made sure the exposure was +0dB. Though we haven’t yet finalized to MPEG2 (keeping our fingers crossed) I hope we’ll see better results.

If you find a solution that works for you, let me know. Till then, good luck.

[Ryan Hinkle]

A big “me too” also. My web H.264 stuff is amazing. My MPEG-2 conversions through Compressor to DVDSP are terrible. I get horrendous artifacts/pixelation/and worst of all a strange subtle flashing from lighter to darker, at about 2 times per/sec in areas of no movement. I’ve tried messing with all the GOP, bit rate, and VBR settings. No luck. I sure wish DVD’s could take my H.264’s!

Any help?

[Ryan Hinkle]

Thanks Jeff, after some trial and error I found that the timecode break only happened when trying to use H.264 as the video compressor for importing “Log and Capture” from the GL2. Still don’t know why, but DV/DVCPRO NTSC works fine. I also noticed that my pixel aspect ratio look a heck of a lot better when placed to NTSC 3:2 instead of the CCIR 601 NTSC (40:27).

The Canon GL2 in “Frame Mode” is essentially 30 fps Progressive. In my sequence settings I did:
Pixel Aspect Ratio – NTSC-CCIR 601/DV (720×480)
Field Dominance – None
Editing Timebase – 30
Timecode Rate – 30 Non-Drop Frame

Everything seems to be working great now. For my Motion 2 projects, I think I should export them with the “Animation” codec? FCP5 will render them in the Timeline with DV/DVCPRO NTSC (makes the animation look horrible) but when exporting the final project with H.264, it all looks great. (At least, I hope so) H.264 can import into DVD Studio Pro right? I’ll need the final video to burn on DVD. Then also to make a 320×240 web version. It’s a pain because I must resize the animations to account for TV Safe zones on the DVD version.