Oh how the mighty fall

I posted this at Apple, but I have to share it here too, since many of you don't go there. Just a big GOTCHA that hits all of us...

OK...I am posting this to illustrate that yes, us elitist professionals that use FCP can make bonehead mistakes and assumptions.

I have a still...a rather LARGE still (4400x3245) that I planned to do a move on...a zoom out and pan. Well, the issue was that this still was a black and white line art drawing. Tons of horizontal and verticle lines. So I do my move and get the light green render bar...it looks good. So I render and WHOA! HUGE ALIASING. Lines go all psychadelic and dance and moire...gah!

OK...so this isn't good in FCP. I try Motion, but Motion has a 2k limit, so the picture is scaled. No good...I need to go in far. So I use After Effects and do the move and it looks great. I render it, the quicktime export looks good, so I drop it in the timeline and render and WHOA! Those friggin moire lines are dancing again. What the...?

So I iChat with Patrick Sheffield and try to figure out what is going on.

ME: the QT looks great...but FCP...like poo (harsher word used)
PAT: In the Canvas?
ME: Yes.
PAT: Dude...
ME: Viewer too.
PAT: Dude.
ME: QT looks fine...what?
PAT: Judging by the Canvas?
ME: Even if I did this in Motion...oh crud (harsher words used)
ME: Sheesh
PAT: What's that $3500 monitor show
ME: Darn it...throw THAT in my face. Oh lordy...looks fine.
PAT: It's been a long day...

Yes. Never...ever...EVER judge the quality of an image by the canvas. I say this how many times a day? And do I take my own advice. HA!


www.shanerosseditor.com

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wow shane, thats the best story ive heard all day!

I believe they call that a "Brain Freeze" or a "Brain Fart" or something. What I want to know is, What is the image on the Cinema Desktop Preview when viewing 720p on a 20" Apple? I know all the pixels are there but I've heard the CDP described as a proxie. Still looks good though. But I cant really CC cause I can't get a preview out to an SD or HD monitor.

You really cannot color correct to an image on a computer monitor. Take that and put it on a TV and it will look completely different.

If you are working with HD you need an HD monitor.

Pardon me while I go thaw my brain.

Shane,

Over the past few days I've been working with an new, enthusiastic editor creating some grfx with After Effects. Unfortunately, he didn't have an NTSC monitor on the station where he was working. After many days of creative compositing, we finally looked at it on our NTSC monitor.

WHOOPS! Major horizontal "moire" patterns.

Lesson learned.... always use an NTSC monitor. That's what your audience will be watching.

Mark

Whoosies all around...

Hi.

Shane, here we have a saying:
"That's something that doesn't happens to those who don't work."

Same thing sort of happened to me recently, too.

I was editing on a client's FCP system. Their room is wired oodly, and it sort of required flaming hoops to jump through to get the critical CRT monitor next to the computer monitor to work. (They have a giant LCD directly behind the editor's back that everything is normalled to. Why it's not normalled for the benfit of the editor is beyond me...) Some days I came in and did everything they told me to do to get signal to the critical monitor, and it was fine. One day, it didn't work. The technician was not in the office that day, so I figured I'd skip it. I was really just making DVDs by that time anyway.

Well, I had a transition that wasn't working, so I pulled a a quick freeze in FCP. Even if I can't see it, I still KNOW to deinterlace, but I didn't. Brain freeze? Sure.

Made the DVDs. Went home. Got a panicked call the next day asking me why is the guy "dancing a jig"?

Luckily, I wasn't working with another client yet, so I ran down and fixed it.

I didn't charge them for that. Even though their kooky set-up is partly to blame. I still knew better.

ROTFLMAO

Dude...

Gotta give you credit for posting that. Also try setting the canvas to 100% (may clear up the aliasing). NTSC...yes...LOL. Good stuff.

- Joey

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

I'minterested in the 4400 pixel thng-- that's definitly over the old QuickTiem Graphic Import "G world" limit of days gone by-- and long overde, now that HD is accessible and popular. But what is the new FCP/QuickTime import limit? Moton only a 2K world??? Wow.

At what point must we go to StageTools' MovingPicture, or Boris RED or After effects to do MoCo?

Paul from Apple?

- Loren
Today's FCP 5 keytip:
Preview effects sections with Option-P or Option-Backslash!

The FCP 5 KeyGuide?: a professional placemat.
Now available at KeyGuide Central:
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FCP has no problem with importing the image and doing the move on it. It just moired when viewed at 67%. When I looked at it on the external monitor, and at 100% on my canvas it looked perfectly fine.

But the 2k limit in Motion was surprising. AE had no problem with that size...