Issues with transfering Film into FCP

Hopefully someone who understands film can help me a bit here.

I have a finished mixed student movie I mad a number of years ago. It lives on Digibeta (yes, it's NTSC).

I want to re-edit it in FCP and put it on a DVD. Therefore, I want to import it into FCP at the best uncompressed resolution possible (which I assume I would have to do using a Kona card or something) into a 29.97 sequence.

As a test, I made a DV clone of the digibeta and imported that into FCP.

However, I noticed that the edits frequently seem to have two merged fields. Seeing as digibeta is an NTSC format, I assume this is the two separate fields that make up the image. However, I never noticed it when I watched the video tape (even frame by frame)...

How do I get rid of these? I don't want to de-interlace the movie, cause that will throw away half the picture information in each frame.

Or, is this a pulldown issue? (remember the original was film and I had the final print telecined to Digibeta.) If it is a pulldown issue, how can I remove (or add) the extra frames without affecting sync?

Someone told me that the only reason I am seeing the merged field is cause the mac is progressive and the NTSC tape is interlaced. He said I should just edit the movie and when I spit it back out to DVD those merges will vanish. However, that also doesnt seem right. When I watch a real Hollywood movie on DVD on my Apple, I don't see those merged fields. Why would I only be seeing them when I watch my movie?

And, if they are left alone with the assumption they will vanish when I output back to DVD, do I have to worry about changing the cadence of the fields when I re-edit the movie? In other words, if they occur every five frames, and I remove two frames will that screw up the rest of the movie?

If anyone can help, I would appreciate some advice (or, if anyone knows an expert I can call it would help me).

Thanks much!

David



-filmcutter@gmail.com

This is interesting...I would like to hear what Graeme Nattress thinks of this...ie: the whole de-interlacing issue...Phil XX

To me, you made a mistake by transferring to DV, for 2 reasons: 1. You losing lots of quality going from a digital 4:2:2 10 bit Video to an 8-bit 4:1:1 compressed one, as you get with DV. 2. And here's the reason for the 'doubling' of fields, DV is lower field dominant, while DIGI is Upper field, and the two don't mix too well. Why don't you keep the DIGI BETA quality by capturing of DIGI and using the DVCPRO50 codec, which is 4:2:2, 50Mbps? That way you'll keep quality and not have field dominance issues...



Marcus T
iCreate! digital|post
12 Core Mac Pro, Snow Leopard, FCP 7.0.3, 8Gb Memory.

What you're seeing is the effects of 3:2 pulldown. You can remove this with Cinema Tools. It can be tedious, but it does work.

Once the pulldown is gone, you must edit the video on a 23.98fps sequence, and make a 23.98fps DVD. This is how hollywood DVDs are made, and because the player itself adds the pulldown back in when needed, you don't see it on a computer screen which doesn't need pulldown.

As for dubbing DB to DV - yes, there will be a subtle quality loss. This may or may not be a visual issue. Yes, there's a field ordering issue, but, any correctly set deck should dub from one to the other adjusting for field order, so you should not see it as a problem. And as for capturing DB, you really need to do that uncompressed 10bit to preserve all the DB quality.

An no, don't deinterlace. It's not an interlacing issue per se, just a pulldown issue that is solved by removing pulldown.

Graeme



[www.nattress.com] - Plugins for FCP-X

<the effects of 3:2 pulldown>

Is there a less tedious way to remove this? Does your plugin do it? And if does, what are the steps to do it?

<<<player itself adds the pulldown back in when needed>>>

That's not how I understand it. The show on DVD is 3:2 with a flag so progressive DVD players can take the 3:2 out if they want. Adding 3:2 would cause DVD players to be too expensive.

[www.kozco.com]

This is a fascinating video we produced on one of the Flames. It has the television fields identified--each one--exactly correctly.

You would be shocked at the computer--and sometimes analog video systems that throw away one of the two fields. NTSC systems on a glass monitor will show you a vibrating 1 and 2 overlayed. Most computer systems show a non-vibrating 1 and 2 and some only 1 or only 2 (missing the other field).

Burn this to a DVD and still-frame on a DVD player. Some still on field 2 and some on field 1.

Beta tape machines will show you still frame and slow-mo with all the fields one after the other. The timecode readout will give you a * symbol on field 2. Both BetaSP and DiGiBeta do this. These machines will never "hide" one of the two fields from you.

Field 1 is the lower.

We keep after Nattress to design a tool to show us all the fields one after the other on the Mac--this would help interlace and field-dominance problems--but it appears his normally unlimited talents aren't quite up to this.

Koz

G Map Frames does what you want Koz!

As for the tedium - no easier way than CT.

Graeme



[www.nattress.com] - Plugins for FCP-X

Why not just give your digibeta to a post house and have them burn a DVD straight from the Digibeta? Then you can copy it as many times as you want. If you want to do it yourself with cool menus, etc... Then have it captured as 10 bit uncompressed SD. Then encode it and burn your DVD.