[Tim Green]

Yes, it was shot interlaced. SD DV with an XH-A1 in 60i mode.

I finished the project today and here’s what I did:

– Animation graphics were made in Photoshop and Illustrator. I put them on a ProRes 422 progressive timeline (Field Dominance set to “None”)

– Ran the DV footage through Compressor, 422, deinterlace.

– Brought that footage and the animation Sequence into a 422 progressive timeline and exported.

– Ran the whole thing through Squeeze (no deinterlace), and uploaded to 360 as an mp4 (H.264). It looks fine.

Are you saying that I should edit on a ProRes 422 timeline with Bottom Field dominance, export from FCP, then Deinterlace with Squeeze? Wouldn’t that interlace the graphics needlessly, only to deinterlace them at the end?

Or are you saying that I should put the graphics on a DV25 timeline? Wouldn’t that make them look bad?

I’ve just been reading about folks transcoding (and deinterlacing) first, and then editing on a ProRes 422 progressive timeline. Seems to make sense when the output will be for web.

Am I thinking wrong about this? Just trying to figure out the best workflow.

Thanks!

Tim

P.S. Just to avoid confusion… the reason I started this thread was cuz Compressor was making ProRes 422 files that were much darker than the source DV files. I guess it was changing the Gamma, which I’ve seen mentioned a lot. I couldn’t figure out how to get it to stop, but then after I started the thread, I figured it out. In Compressor, under the Filters button, Color tab: I set Output Color Space to “Preserve Source,” and that looks fine.

But then after seeing the responses about DV50, I started to think my workflow was wrong. Still trying to figure it out, lol.

[Tim Green]

I just tried that (Chris’s suggestion), and it worked fine, but my graphics show interlacing. My animation has a round logo flying and rotating in large and getting smaller as it settles into place. You can easily see the fields.

In my ProRes 422 version, I ran the video through Compressor and deinterlaced it. Then I changed the timeline to ProRes with Field Dominance set to “None.” This gave me smooth video and animation, although as I noted above, the video doesn’t look quite as smooth as it did when it was DV. Barely perceptible difference though, and perfectly acceptable.

In Chris’s suggestion above, I can’t change the Field Dominance to “None” cuz then the video looks bad. So I’m stuck with visible fields on the animation. BTW, the animation was made from a Photoshop file and assembled in a separate ProRes 422 timeline.

Am I missing something? I’m about to finish this project using my ProRes/Deinterlacing method, and it looks fine, but I’m just wondering if there’s another way to do this.

Thanks to all of you for your time.

Tim

[Tim Green]

Interesting… I’ll try that. I guess I just always assumed that you had to work in the codec that you captured in, except for 422. Which as I understand it, Apple created to replace AIC as an editing and capture codec.

And yes, by 422 I mean ProRes 422 (NTSC). Sorry for the confusion.

I was reading about DV50 on other threads here since you posted that. It does seem like a good way to go.

I’ve always shot and edited in DV or HDV, for output to DVDs. But in this new job my output is almost always for web or local playback, so I’m learning more about shooting progressive (30p), deinterlacing, ProRes, using Squeeze for output and posting… stuff like that. It’s a whole new world for me, and sometimes confusing.

Thanks for your time.

Tim

[Tim Green]

Final output in this case is web, flv files from Squeeze. Sometimes I output to web, mp4 (H.264) files via Squeeze and post with Sorenson 360. Other times the output is local playback from a PC, mov (H.264) files via Squeeze.

Isn’t DV50 a codec used by high-end cameras? I use an XH-A1 and I usually shoot in DV. Most of my work is talking heads for federal government intranet and web sites, so I haven’t shot HDV too much.

Anyway, I do a lot of text animations, lower thirds, etc., and they always look better when I edit and export from a 422 sequence, and then go through Squeeze for final output. That works fine for me, but I thought I would transcode ahead of time for this project to save some rendering time.

Thanks.

Tim

[Tim Green]

I may have figured it out myself. In Compressor, under the Filters button, Color tab: I set Output Color Space to “Preserve Source.”

That seems to have fixed the Gamma problem, but the deinterlacing doesn’t look as good as in the raw DV file, at least when played back in QuickTime Player (7 or X). I’m using “Better (Motion Adaptive)” in the deinterlacing option, because “Best” takes so long to render, and even then it doesn’t look as smooth as the DV footage.

I guess I expect the 422 to look as good as (but not better) than the source DV footage. Is that unreasonable?

Any comments about the best workflow for this would be appreciated.

Tim

[Tim Green]

Thanks, Trevor. That’s very useful. I’m actually ashamed at how long I’ve been using FCP and didn’t know these two basic commands! :-\

I learned a lot today, and it’s already helping.

Tim

[Tim Green]

Thanks so much, Matt. It works perfectly, and yes, it’s right there in the Keyboard Layout. Duh.

Tim