Scott Thomas
4
COW Coins
Forum Replies Created
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So let me see if I have this straight; you have a cat named FireWire, and you tried to plug him into the computer?
Oh wait, your not Ben, nevermind. 🙂
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Firewire drive? What happened?
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There are a few things to keep in mind. SD video has a different pixel aspect than what a printer is going to need. When I have to take video captures and print them, I have a fairly long process that has to be done in a set order.
1. Take your video capture into Photoshop.
2. Determine if the image NEEDS to be de interlaced, (i.e. Is there motion in the frame?)
If the image has no interlace fringing from motion, there is no need to deinterlace
3. If deinterlacing must be done, it must be done before anything else is done.
Make a copy of the image layer so that you have two identical layers. On the top layer, choose Filter-Deinterlace-Upper Field. On the bottom layer, use the same filter but choose Lower Field. Take the top layers opacity to 50%. As long as there wasn’t too much motion you should have a much cleaner looking frame.
4. If random noise from the camera must be overcome, and there wasn’t too much motion. You can pick extra frame captures adjacent to the first, run the same deinterlace process as above and mix them into the original document. (I’ve done five or six frames together to reduce microwave feed noise with reasonable results.)
5. Now we need to correct pixel aspect. A 720×486 frame is simply scaled to 720×540. With DV footage, I add 6 pixels to the hight of the image with the canvas tool and then do the scale to 540.
6. I usually scale up the image to it’s final print size x 300 or 400 dpi and attempt some more processing.
7. The Median filter is helpful for reducing noise sometimes. Not too much.
8. Unshape Mask can sometimes get back some lost detail.
9. Working in LAB color space sometimes is useful for softening the chroma without affecting the detail.The main thing is, don’t do it unless you have to. If it’s a video shoot that is staged, you should consider having a still camera on hand for such future needs. If you must use a video capture, scale up the image as little as you have to.
I had to get a ton of video captures preped for our annual Hurricane Guide. I had somewhere over 50 video captures that went into the magazine. I built a Photoshop action that did most of the steps above and also cropped enough of the image to get rid of the blanking. Thankfully, none of the images were printed too large. Some looked pretty good, some looked like video.
Scott Thomas
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How about plugging the output of the Decklink card into a “DV Media Converter”? I guess you would need a DV Converter that had an SDI input. Looks like it would save a lot of time rendering inside of FCP and you wouldn’t have to change your workflow.
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How about loading the PowerPoint into Apple’s Keynote, and outputting a Quicktime from there?
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I found a tape the other day with a demo of the Dubner Painter. I need to make a Quicktime of it to share on the net. I wish there was a place to go to where one could play with all the old paint systems. One station I worked at, we had a ColorGraphics ArtStar 3D Plus, GVG 200 and an Abekas A53D. Ah those were the days.
Scott Thomas
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I’m not sure if Avid has a solution, but I have my own workflow in this situation. I bring the DV footage into a 720×486 After Effects comp, and do three things… I make sure that AE does no deinterlacing on its own. I make sure that AE doesn’t scale the footage. I then move the DV footage up one scan-line (or, one pixel in the Y-axis).
By not allowing After Effects to deinterlace the footage, the footage will remain sharp. A 480 tall piece of footage is six scan-lines less than a 486 comp, so the 480 footage’s field order is out of phase. (The 480 footage is placed in the middle of the 486 comp. That leaves 3 scan-lines at the top and bottom. Three is an odd number) When you move the footage up one pixel or scan-line, you then bring the field order back in line.
If I need to, I can probably provide a better explanation. Let me know.
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[Joseph W. Bourke] “On the Inscriber front…run the other way! I’ve used Inscriber in our Discreet Logic Edit box”
Interesting. 🙂
I was talking to a friend at Chyron and he was telling me about how Chyron is now using DPS cards in the newer Duets for output. I asked the question about Leitch owning Inscriber and DPS. He found the paradox interesting as well. Chyron is as such, a shell of its former self. I wonder how long before Harris buys them out? Sounds like a better fit than Inscriber. -
If you don’t need a CG to edit these lower-thirds, as in, they are completely built inside After Effects, you may want to consider a DDR (or Digital Disk Recorder) instead of a CG. Yes, some CGs will allow playback of animation inside of the box, but do you really need the CG? It sounds like overkill in this case; unless there’s something I’m not seeing here.
How about the NewTek VT3? It can playback uncompressed digital video with it’s software.
Or, perhaps a DeckLink or AJA Kona card in a Macintosh with direct playback from After Effects or some software like Virtual VTR and just make the Mac into a DDR with control from an editor.
Chyron sells a DDR called Aprisa. I’ve not heard any positive comments about it. It’s developed by a 3rd party in Atlanta… Video Technics.
Where I work, we have a Thunder XL. I’m not a big fan of it. Too many weird database problems. Clunky software. No updates in years to the software. I’m waiting to see how long Avid keeps it around.
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There is Avid (Pinnacle) Deko and Chyron Duet. But there is also Inscriber Inca, PixelPower Clarity, Vertigo X Media and VizRT…
It’s more of a question of just what exactly you are trying to do. So, what are you trying to do?