[Stephen De vere]

Andrius,

Do you know if CCE MP can really deal effectively with a wide range of difficult sections ?

It seems not to have the segment re-encoding option (ie. a form of manual control) of a high end software (CCE SP, CineVision etc) so you would be relying entirely on it’s adaptive mode to spot and fix the tricky bits without compromising the easy stuff.

I can’t think of any piece of software that ever gets let loose on an entire film without a lot of hand guidance – for such a major and complex operation as removing most of the data !

[Stephen De vere]

“…… Using a higher end encoder with multiple passes and an experienced compressionist can give a much nicer picture using half the bit rate of a CBR encoder that came with your computer.”

Thanks everyone – I suspect this is most likely the answer.

[Stephen De vere]

No, I don’t want to de-interlace particularly, just trying to indentify exactly what the problem is in the workflow.

HD is a big part of the problem of course, but I don’t want it to beat me here – it’s caused me enough trouble in my life as it is.

[Stephen De vere]

Thanks Andrius,

Yes, I have been getting the encoding and authoring done by a pro (doing everything up to that point in FCP myself) rather than take any chances, but the place I chose, recommended by the replication house, was pretty rubbish and I’m trying to find another now, at the same time wondering if it would be less trouble in the long run to do it myself, especially now I’ve spent so much time reading up about it.

I looked at CCE MP but it would mean a major upgrade of OS and machine which I’m not keen to do right now.

I am looking for a place in England that can do more than just a one or two pass job – my job needs a few sections to get extra treatment. Not easy finding people with the skills these days – too many firms around that have expensive kit but not the operator who knows to use it effectively. I ring a firm and quickly discover I know more than them about it – or else they admit they would only be using Compressor or similar anyway.

[Stephen De vere]

Temp change related condensation is the main issue with gear in low temps. Fine up to a point if the gear is waterproof but as you often need to take off lenses, filters etc for cleaning you can get into big trouble if you don’t let the kit equalise before exposing it to a warm room, as moisture will get inside.

You may not notice the moisture build up slowly each time but over a period of days or weeks working in such conditions you can easily get to the point where there is enough moisture inside the gear to freeze and cause parts to lock when you take it outside.

I keep everything outside overnight as much as possible, bagged or Peli-cased of course, but I mostly work in very remote places where there’s no chance of theft. Watch out for animals chewing stuff up though – in Antarctica that’s not a problem though (no land mammals).

[Stephen De vere]

I don’t know about elswhere in the world but the majority of LCD/Plasma TVs here in UK are not true HD but termed ‘HD Ready’ and it’s precisely because they show a progressive picture (albeit using an interlace scan signal) that I wonder what the sense of feeding them i/laced is, if you can avoid it (and I thought we all want to see the end of interlacing asap).

I guess it only makes sense if the set has a progressive input for progressive DVD players, thus by-passing the de-interlacer.

[Stephen De vere]

“Totally wrong, the question is how is your footage shoot, LCDs still display interlaced footage……”

Michael,

But since LCD/Plasmas are progressive displays is it not better to feed it your ‘best’ shot at a progressive signal rather than leaving IT to do the job ? Or are they in effect disabled from handling progressive images by the inclusion of the de-interlacer in their hardware ?

[Stephen De vere]

I’ve only ever known it recommended as a pre-process step before scaling.
https://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/preprocessing_hodgetts.html

[Stephen De vere]

Micahel,

Not quite sure if you are suggesting trying de-interlacing before encoding ? I know that is important step when scaling down eg. for web encodes but I was assuming no advantage otherwise for full DI DVD. Or is this wrong ?

[Stephen De vere]

Michael,

The other thing that troubles me about the result I am getting with the mpeg2 encode is that footage shot DV25 (DSR450s at best) for news and other low budget programming looks better on the same 40″ LCD set coming over BBC Freeview SD channel than my DV50 footage coming off a DVD.

Isn’t the data rate for the Freeview channels even lower than the DVD spec ? The transmission encoders have had an awful lot of R&D spent on them, I believe, but it is annoying to see a better picture than I can get with a DVD.