Sean Oneil
Forum Replies Created
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[Shane Ross] ” If you are on the verge, what is stopping you?”
What is stopping me? I’m on the verge. What that means is I’m not there yet but close. It doesn’t mean something is stopping me. I believe FCP will solve its problems in 2007. If it doesn’t, then I will be past the verge at which point I will look for another tool for our day to day work here.
[Shane Ross] “Mixing formats on a timeline…easily solvable with a capture card. That is what Avid and Media 100 used to do. To me, that is low on the priority list. Downconverting? Again, capture card. Upscaling? Some capture cards. Does Avid upconvert or downconvert well? I’d be surprised if it did.”
No, it’s not always easily solvable. What if someone sends you media on a hard drive? What about not even 4 months ago when the only way to ingest HDV footage was with firewire? Even now, you need an HDV or HDMI to SDI converter which many producers don’t want to have to buy or rent or worry about.
To say that always going through a capture card and converting everything to one format is somehow all you’ll ever need – that’s crazy. I think almost everyone could agree they’d rather capture everything natively and mix formats with transparency and ease. Or at least have the option to do so. If you have hundreds of hours of footage, would you enjoy telling a producer that everything needs to be converted first before you can start cutting?
And what those two NLEs used to do has no significance in this discussion. I’m talking about what they can do now. Not only Avid and M100, but almost every other NLE can mix formats now. Even Adobe Premiere can. They don’t all do it perfectly (Avid can’t mix framerates I believe) but they’re all more apt than FCP at this moment. FCP is essentially the last NLE in which every piece of video in a timeline must be the same codec, size, and framerate in order to avoid rendering. And even if you do render, it doesn’t always work right. Using three sentences to explain that they are all tools doesn’t change that. As a FCP customer, I’m eager for Apple to provide essential features that are present if almost every one of their competitor’s products.
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The cause of your problem is simple. That is not a 720p camera. It is 1080. Use the correct HDV 1080 Easy Setup.
All Sony HDV products are 1080. JVC and Canon use 720.
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Lol, I was looking at the monitors in the picture. I didn’t realize the picture itself was what you were talking about. Yes I totally see it. Looks awful.
That’s definitely FCP’s scaler screwing something up. Incredible. I’m going to try this myself on Monday.
Not to bore anyone, but I think I know what’s going on. It seems FCP is not designed to properly downconvert 720p footage. You see, when it downconverts 1080i, all it does is throw away every other line making it 540 (which translates to 480 non-square pixels). It appears it applies the same scaling technique when the source is 720p – which is totally ridiculous. I believe it interlaces it first, then scales it. It should be the other way around. Just a theory though.
I’m just so baffled how FCP seems to be increasingly disappointing as time goes on. It’s still a total joke when it comes to working with multiple formats or even just converting one format to another. Its 2007 and they haven’t addressed this yet. What you have just shown me should NEVER happen. Unbelievable.
I’m certain the Kona 3 will solve your problem. But I myself wouldn’t want to have to output to tape just to convert one format to another – let alone be unable to mix formats. Apple better come up with something by the next version, and the next version better be around by NAB this year. I’m on the verge of considering Avid or even going back to Media 100.
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[CaptainMench] “WHY on earth would you EVER want to film with 24 ANYTHING if you are 99% sure you won’t go to film or DVD??!!! That’s just silly. 24p is a film LOOK that serves NO purpose at all to what you can accomplish with 30 frames per second.”
??? Are you serious? Footage shot at 24 has a completely different look than footage shot at 30. Doesn’t matter if it’s converted to 60i via pulldown and brodcast on TV. It still has a completely distinct cinematic look, whereas stuff shot at 30fps looks more like sitcom/soap opera.
[CaptainMench] “Shoot 30p only because we edit for the 100 people who have the most expensive sets and who won’t want to see any interlacing on their TVs or they’ll call their cable provider and then that cable exec will call me and it’s all down hill.””
That’s why its always better to capture and edit 24p footage at 24p (23.98). You’re probably getting calls like that because of your previous statement. People have been editing pulldown footage w/o regard to cadence since the advent of digital video editing. Myself included. But as of the past couple years, progressive displays are the norm for consumers. So you will get calls like that and that’s why I think its important for people to change their workflow standards when working with 24fps material. Capturing and editing 23.98 footage at 23.98 is the simplest solution.
Sean
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Ummmm, the CRT monitor is turned off, right? :). I see the corner of the computer monitor, and I see what you are talking about.
What does it look like on the broadcast monitor thought? When you output it through your AJA. This is after rendering, right?
When you see interlacing artifacts, is it every frame, or every 2 out of 5 frames? Is it during playback, or only when parking it on frames?
Is this the latest FCP (5.1.2)? Is scaling quality in sequence settings set for “best”?
Turning field dominance to “none” means your sequence is set for 480p30. So there won’t be any interlacing at all. But SD video is supposed to be interlaced and it will need to be that way at some point when you output to BetaSP. If your IO still works with a 480p timeline (I’m not too sure it will) then there’s your workaround I guess.
Sorry its the weekend so I can’t test this myself. As far as the DVD, definately just use a DVCProHD timeline and export using Compressor like everyone mentioned.
It might be worth giving AJA a call about this. Essentially, its their product you’re having trouble with. There no reason you shouldn’t be able to send DVCProHD footage to a BetaSP deck with the IO.
Sean
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[CaptainMench] “Been done that way for years, ever since the advent of Digital editing and telecine’d-film filmed TV shows.”
Yeah but now people are viewing progressive scan displays at home. Web clips, LCD/DLP/Plasma etc. Unlike CRT displays, digital displays do not draw one line at a time, one field at a time. All interlaced footage is converted to progressive. And bad cadence can defeat consumer equipment’s ability to properly deinterlace. So this is a much bigger concern to worry about nowadays.
Sean
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Don’t do it. You need to pick one. Otherwise you will have a very difficult time in post. You’ll have to convert one framerate to another. And because of this, you’ll lose the ability to edit native HDV. HDV is far too lossy to convert back to. So you’ll have to convert everything to DVCProHD, JPEG, or ideally Uncompressed.
Or just don’t use FCP. It blows when it comes to mixing formats – especially mixed framerates. Basically, it can’t do it. Even if you’re content to render half the footage in the timeline, it doesn’t turn out well. For example, it won’t even add 3:2 pulldown if you render 23.98 footage on a 29.97 timeline. It is the one and only terrible, terrible shortcoming of FCP. Other NLEs can mix formats. The new Media 100 even looks like a viable option.
Sean
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[santellavision] “Shot 720P30. I was also trying to lay to BetaSp using AJA Io (No Kona yet) So, I can’t do down convert thru Kona at this time. What’s the procedure to drop the 720P timeline into a Uncomp8”
You should just be able to drop it in. FCP 5 adjusts the Motion tab settings accordingly. There shouldn’t be any problems, especially with the source being progressive. I curious what’s going on exactly. What are you monitoring this on?
II agree with everyone else here though. Get a Kona 3 if you are gonna do this regularly.
Sean
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Its true more now than ever. Anyone can afford a top notch camera and NLE.
But there are two reasons why the Cow and trade shows are so heavy on technical discussion. One is that technology is evolving so rapidly. It’s exciting and the status quo is always changing in that regard. Two is that it makes good discussion. Creative thinking is something I myself am very introverted about. In fact, I don’t even like to over-analyze things I’ve done. Kinnda kills it in a way. I just sit down and edit, and good things seem to come out of nowhere. I guess its the “feelings” side of my brain vs my logical thought side. I love to show other editors things, and I love to see what others have done. But talking about it in lengthy discussion? Not so much.
Sean