DVD jitters

footage shot HDV 1060i. working in FCP 7.0.3. codec AIC. lots of still jpegs mixed with HDV footage & music. footage is letterboxed but that's okay, project is for a youth organization that's not real demanding. otherwise everything looks fine in the timeline. shared timeline to Compressor and made MPEG-2, 720X480, FPS 29.97 that plays fine in QuickTime player.

But when I burned it in DVD Studio Pro the stills (which have a lot of pushes and moves) look fine while the footage jitters like crazy whenever there is movement. What am I doing wrong?

Why did you cut in AIC? ProRes is a much better codec. Two things - 1. It sounds to me like you have your field order wrong. Double click one of the clips and go to the 'Filters' tab and see if there is a shift fields filter on. If so, remove it. Do this for every clip and 2. You shouldn't have letter-boxing if your sequence settings are correct.

Tom Wolsky told me to use AIC. Re-cut one on the offending sequences in ProRes and it looks okay. Looks like that's the way to go.

What Jude said. I re-read that thread-- I didn't see Tom recommending AIC-- that's an old codec for older machines and systems. He said that normally when you capture HDV it goes to an Apple HDV codec.

Another idea is to capture your HDV to ProRes, which many are recommending. That can be done live on fast Intel machines. I've done it myself with excellent results. It's just that you have no control over Log and Capture-- it's always Capture Now and Escape to quit. But it works.

I would avoid cutting in HDV or AIC-- HDV is way too processor-intensive to act as an editing codec-- half the frames are not there! They're concocted by the codec on the fly. You can't edit air-- although I've done it myself, with excellent results... ;-)

- Loren

Today's FCP 7 keytip:
Summon your Video Scopes with Option - 9 !

Your Final Cut Studio KeyGuide? Power Pack
with FCP7 KeyGuide --
now available at KeyGuide Central.
www.neotrondesign.com

Apple Intermediate Codec would be an option if you were trying to edit HD in FCP5. ProRes had made that codec obsolete very quickly.


www.derekmok.com

Funny how just months ago we'd recommend an upgrade...



www.strypesinpost.com

Showed the project last night and it was received well. All the kid's mom's ordered a DVD. It wasn't very long and easy to re-cut, so all's well that end's well. I said Tom recommends AIC because that's what his "Basic Training for Final Cut Studio" says. I bought FCS with FCP 7 last March from B&H in New York and they included his DVD. Guess he needs to release an update.

Just so I'm clear, what is ProRes considered... HD or HDV? The above recommendation says to get out of HDV. Does that mean ProRes 422 or is there another codec we haven't covered?

And thanks again for all the input.

ProRes is resolution independent (both hd and sd). General advice especially when working in FCP classic is to transcode to ProRes if your source is hdv, XDCAM or h.264.



www.strypesinpost.com

It sounds like either a field reversal issue or a video resizing issue. Always, export to a stand alone Quicktime Movie out of Final Cut at 720x480 anamorphic before importing into DVD SP. DVD SP doesn't know how to resize HD video, so don't give it any.

I recommend proofing all of your video before you burn it to a DVD. You'll need an external monitor attached to your Mac to do this through a 1394 firewire device or video capture card. In DVD studio Pro, use the format option in DVD SP to create a VIDEO_TS folder. Then rip the VIDEO_TS folder of that DVD SP created back into Final Cut Pro. Play the ripped video back in Final Cut Pro and check for field reversal issues and video scaling issues. I wrote DVDxDV, so I recommend using that as a DVD ripper, because it properly handles many types of DVDs and interlaced video.