Huge Problem Deadline

I'm importing crystal clear sony footage that shows well on the big monitor but on line in fcp 7, it's grainy like too much gain. It's not grain. the playback setting are all the highest they can be and yes, I've rendered it all out and it's still gainy. before the problem was the playback settings. Now i don't kknow what to do. As i said; captured footage is clear but timelne is bad. Any ideas. Deadline Tuesday.

I've had someone contact me before about this with MXF files I think out of a Canon camera. In the end we couldn't really resolve it outside of using a denoiser plug-in like Neat video. Possibly not the correct solution, but somewhere to go if you're really up the creek.

Hey Jonathan

You should trust your reference monitor over what you see in FCP (or any NLE for that matter).

Try an Export from your timeline and test it in Quicktime Player and see if the problem persists.

Could you post a full resolution screenshot of the footage that's "grainy" and a comparison shot of the reference monitor?



For instant answers to more than one hundred common FCP questions, check out the LAFCPUG FAQ Wiki here : [www.lafcpug.org]

In case you don't know how to do a screenshot it's Command-Shift-3
Or if you want to do a portion of the screen then it's Command-Shift-4 and do a "rubber-band" lasso around the area you want to capture.



For instant answers to more than one hundred common FCP questions, check out the LAFCPUG FAQ Wiki here : [www.lafcpug.org]

Let me do just that tomorrow. Finished shooting today and starting editing tomorrow. And thank you so much for your help.

Certainly test it on another FCP system if you get chance to see if the problem is definitely footage.

If you don't have access to another system but if you have time to send a clip (a clip that is small enough and not contentious or would break client confidentiality) then send via wetransfer or other FTP service then that would be great and I wouldn't mind taking a look at the clip to see if I have the same issue.



For instant answers to more than one hundred common FCP questions, check out the LAFCPUG FAQ Wiki here : [www.lafcpug.org]

Do you mean it looks fine when you play it out of your camera into a HD TV or when you play it through FCP to a broadcast monitor?

No, I mean it loks horrible on the computer monitor which is a 27" Mac, not my BT-2600 Panasonic I use on set for camera focus. I know, don't go by the computer monitor but good foorage usually looks great on my Apple monitor so it has me worried. I'll do a playback through the Panasonic tomorrow now that we're finished shooting principle. This is the first project I've done completely on my own since retirement. I've spent years just shooting a script using LUTs and set monitors and the handing it off to editing so I'm looking at things through a whole new eye. Thank you so much for your attention to my post and I'll certainly let you know what it looks like tomorrow.

You know, just as an aside, I'm a long-time member of the first groups to hit the internet trying to help people just geting into filmmaking like dvx usergroup for a dozen years and others since 1996 and I just retired from the industry at Universal after 30+ years. Granted, I've been away from forums for a few years and just returned with this problem after retiring but I have to tell you, this group is what I think all of us had in mind when we were trying to get things started in those other groups. Your moderators and epecially you members should be rightly proud of what you have done here. I look forward to visiting here much more often and giving whatever help I can give although with technology advancing as quickly as it is, admittedly I don't know how much that will be... I'm still on FCP7 refusing to use FCPX not really wanting to pay $50 a month to keep current. I'll definitely be hanging out here alot more now that I see the good people here. Thank you and I just noticed I've been a member here for 8 years. Where does the time go?

Thanks jlames - we all love this forum and try hard to keep it useful, civil and spam free. FCP7 is on the way out for sure, but hopefully as we all migrate to other NLEs our other forums here at LACPUG will pick up the slack.

Interesting that you say it looks fine on a broadcast monitor. The person I was troubleshooting for didn't have one and I just assumed it would be as bad there as on the computer monitor. The one I saw looked like the gain has been pumped up, even though it was perfectly exposed in good light. Is that what yours is like?

I have always had a habit of setting the gain settings in camera to -3, 0 and +3 rather than the factory 0, 3 and 9 and adjusting the aperature accordingly to the for the lighting. My lighting ability has always been "challenged" and you can see that here; not my forte. But the monitor shot is relatively clean for a 4:2:0 that's compressed on ingest through XDCAM Clip Transfer and the "monitor" shot is grainy and pixellated. Now granted, the blacks are suitably crushed due more to bad lighting than color space in the monitor shot but I've never seen this much noise on the canvas of FCP7. While not as good as the monitor, something has to be amiss with the settings. I have High or dynamic and unlimited set on everything under RT so there's no reduction in playback and still the horrible quality.

I'm sorry. I can't quite figure out how to attach the images here.

I understand from the moderator my post was somewhat lacking in information The footage was shot XDCAM 4:2:0 at 1080 30p. It was brought in via XDCAM clip transfer with a .mov file wrapper. After import, it was brought into FCP7 Is its codec being transformed? Camera out to Panasonic 2600 HD, it looks clear. It looks clear after ingest into the computer and playback on an apple 27" monitor via Quicktime so I don't believe the issue is compression. So my thoughs are if viewing it on $2000 monitor pair fresh from import outside of FCP7, and a $5000 Panasonic while shooting straight to SS memory shows good quality but viewing it after import to FCP7 and in the Canvas while editing shows poor quality, I would think it has to be settings in FCP7. The FCP7 timeline setting match the acquisition settings as do the export from FCP7 settings. I'm not sure if there's anything other information anyone would need to help but if there is, please let me know.