field dominance problem

Help! I have a rejected master from a TV distributor who says my master has interlace errors "all over it".

I cannot see anything wrong on my 3 monitors but the TV distributor's tech department and also a friends studio reports that the movie plays back in a "stuttery" way on their monitors. I am using the BlackMagic Decklink HD Extreme video card on a TV-Logic broadcast monitor via HD-SDI, a JVC Analog Component SD monitor via Component, and a Sony HDTV via HDMI. None of these show the error. But if I play back the master file using the spacebar command in Finder (Snow Leopard) there are bad jagged/combing edges on all motion in the pictures. If I compress it for Quicktime, DVD and BluRay I get a "stuttery" playout on my HDTV, and jagged/combing edges on the computer monitors.

My master film has been pieced together in FCP with clips exported out of Avid, DaVinci Resolve, and ProRes converted material originally shot on XDCAM EX and DSLR's. Some of these clips must have had the fields swapped to the wrong order as my ProRes 422 HQ master file is in the correct Upper field dominance format.

I have used the following sequence settings for the timeline:
SEQUENCE SETTINGS:
Frame Size: 1920x1080, HDTV 1080i (16:9)
Pixel Aspect Ratio: Square, NOT CHECKED, Anamorphic 16:9
Field Dominance Upper (Odd)
Editing Timebase: 25
Compressor: Apple ProRes 422 (HQ)
Quality: 100%
ADVANCED COMPRESSION SETTINGS:
Compression Type: Apple ProRes 422 (HQ)
Frames per second: 25
Camma Correction: Automatic
CHECKED, Interlaced, Top field first
NOT CHECKED, Enable chroma filtering for 4:4:4 sources

I have analyzed the clips in the timeline for field dominance using the Item Properties command and 75-85% turns out to have field dominance set to None, while the rest has it set to Upper.
Is this a problem for FCP?
How can I force the clips on the timeline to have field dominance set to Upper so that they all match up to the master timeline's settings for field dominance?
Let's say f.ex that the clips from DaVinci Resolve has the wrong field order within them, how can I force just these clips to swap around before adding them to my timeline?

If I changed the sequence settings in the timeline to LOWER, then exported the film. Then used compressor to re-compress it using a field dominance of UPPER would that just bring me back to scratch?
What if I took the (many) clips in the timeline that have a field dominance of NONE and ran them through compressor using a setting with the field dominance set to UPPER, then re-linked to these clips in my UPPER timeline. Would that be a fix?


specs:
Mac Pro 2 x 2.4 GHz Quad-core Intel Xeon
6 GB RAM,
OSX 10.6.8
FCP 7.0.3
Avid MC 5.5.3
DaVinci Resolve 8.1.1
ATI Radeon HD 5770
SeriTek2ME4 e-SATA controller
4x CalDigit VR
BlackMagic Decklink HD Extreme

This is a tough one to troubleshoot over the Internet, as field order is not something we can see without actually being there. So great if you can hire a professional to fix and make the corrections.

What format did your film originate from?



www.strypesinpost.com

You could try adding a shift fields filter to the clips that are wrong, but this is a band aid approach, if it even works.

Thanks for helping. And maybe I am chasing a ghost here..?
I have been to an online studio today and followed the copying of SD Digibeta tapes from my HD masterfilms, and as far as I could see there was nothing wrong with them! Tomorrow I am going to the other studio who told me that there is a problem with the HD master file. I want to see it for myself. I want to know what they can see on their monitors that I can't here...
I will let you know the verdict! For now we will assume that there are no error, but I did experience this weird error on my studio monitors showing wavy jagged lines when I scaled one of the clips in the timeline to 104%. Which is why I am worried there is some kind of interlacing error "baked into" some of the clips!!

> I have been to an online studio today and followed the copying of SD Digibeta tapes from my HD masterfilms, and
> as far as I could see there was nothing wrong with them!

That's not a "copy". That's an output to tape. If you're going from an HD movie file out to tape, the post house may have put the film through hardware conversion to correct what might have been wrong with the HD movie file.

> I did experience this weird error on my studio monitors showing wavy jagged lines when I scaled one of the clips
> in the timeline to 104%.

Did you render? Can't judge anything until it's rendered.


www.derekmok.com

Thing is that jagged lines can mean interlace lines. Nothing wrong with that if the field order is played back correctly.

However, if the interlace is not treated properly during the scale up, you get very funky results. Also, some monitors have a progressive/de-interlace output option. That means it won't display interlacing properly if the monitoring system was not set up properly.



www.strypesinpost.com

Yes, I did an output to tape. The studio was using a similar type of BlackMagic Decklink card like the one I have in my studio. Mine is a BlackMagic Decklink HD Extreme. What kind of field correction could this card be doing? Fill me in, please?

And yes, the weird error was there both BEFORE and AFTER rendering. It was also visible on my grading monitors, plus on the computer monitors. If I EVER find an explanation, I will post it!

I am using a BlackMagic Decklink HD Extreme video card. I've NOT checked "Remove field jitter when video is paused". I am viewing on 3 different monitors. The TV Logic grading screen doesn't show interlacing as "jittery" but rather as a blended freezeframe, "a shadow" of the other field. But it shows that there are fields. The JVC Analog monitor which is showing a SD downscaled signal via Component is showing it "the good old jittering" way. The Sony HDTV via HDMI shows the interlacing as a "blur" of fine thin lines. If I freezeframe a moving picture i see the fine lines. In motion I just see it as blur.

I have tried adding the Shift Field filter to the clips in the timeline, but THEN it starts stuttering horribly when I view it on my monitors.

What I am looking for is a 100% method to tell if the fields are actually all in the right order? And a fix for it if they aren't? I would like a STONE SURE WAY of knowing that a field error has NOT been "baked into" a progressive timeline along the way and exported along with this error within it?

Nothing wrong with Blackmagic Cards. Make sure the de-interlacing/progressive option is off on the monitors.

You need to make sure your source material is interpreted correctly, and better, convert that stuff into your editing format before you start editing. FCP usually adds a shift fields filter if it detects cases where there is a field dominance mismatch. I suspect you are working with a variety of formats and you may have a bunch of clips with the wrong field dominance. Beyond that, there are a whole lot of areas where the fields may not be correctly treated. Get a pro in to fix it.



www.strypesinpost.com

>I have tried adding the Shift Field filter to the clips in the timeline, but THEN it starts stuttering horribly when I view it
>on my monitors.

Hmm... That could mean that the fields are fine. It's hard to check field issues without looking at the video, as fields is a temporal problem, not a spatial one, so screen grabs will not let anyone spot the problem. You are looking at a still image, which tells you almost nothing about how the fields will be played out.

>I would like a STONE SURE WAY of knowing that a field error has NOT been "baked into" a progressive timeline along
>the way

1. What you call "a field error", can be caused by a lot of things, from bad conversions to working with mixed media in final cut.

2. Avid lets you step through fields.



www.strypesinpost.com