Did post house capture footage incorrectly?

I have a section of my film that has visual effects. The film was shot on standard definition mini-DV. I want best quality possible, so I paid a post house to capture my NTSC mini-DV footage uncompressed 10 bit.

I just tried to export clip from this uncompressed 10 bit footage in FCP 7. It came up as 640 x 372 (setting: Apple Intermediate Codec 1080i50) which is smaller than standard DV - 720 x 486.

Seems to me something's amiss. Did the post house screw up and use the wrong codec/settings?


Any advice and perspective would be much appreciated! Any suggestions?

>I want best quality possible, so I paid a post house to capture my NTSC mini-DV footage
>uncompressed 10 bit.

Capture as DV NTSC. Your footage was already compressed in cam, so you gain nothing by capturing as Uncompressed.

>I just tried to export clip from this uncompressed 10 bit footage in FCP 7.

Huh? Open the clip in Quicktime 7 and hit apple i. What is the codec and frame size?



www.strypesinpost.com

> I just tried to export clip from this uncompressed 10 bit footage in FCP 7. It came up as 640 x 372
> (setting: Apple Intermediate Codec 1080i50) which is smaller than standard DV - 720 x 486.

Seems like everything's all over the place.

First of all, strypes is right -- capturing from DV as Uncompressed 10-bit SD only increased the size of your files five times. You gain no quality. If you wanted to edit in an Uncompressed 10-bit SD timeline, then you gain better quality in graphics and effects you add on top. But you can just as easily throw the DV clips on there.

Second, why are you editing 720x480, DV NTSC clips in an HD AIC 1080i50 timeline? That means you're blowing up the clips over 200 per cent. You lose a lot of quality that way. And the frame rate is wrong as well.

It makes no sense for you to check the exported file size. That tells you nothing about what the original clips are. Select one of those clips in FCP and press APPLE-9, or open one up in QuickTime Player and check with APPLE-I (Information) and APPLE-J (Movie Properties).

Before you look at the post house, you really need to look at your own workflow. Everything looks wrong to me. I'm not saying they couldn't have messed up. But I'm saying that given your settings, right now you won't be able to tell what they did wrong (or right) until you get your setup in order.


www.derekmok.com

THANK YOU, Derek and Strypes!

I did not know about APPLE-9 keystroke. I have much to learn. When I followed your instructions, the clip was 720 x 486 10 bit uncompressed, as it should be. All is good!

I was confused by the export settings. I was exporting a clip for another visual effects artist and going about it incorrectly.

Thanks again!
Colleen

>It came up as 640 x 372 (setting: Apple Intermediate Codec 1080i50)

>I was exporting a clip for another visual effects artist and going about it incorrectly.


Totally. 640x372 AIC is a bastardized format that I have never heard of. Before you start wrecking damage into your project, I would suggest that you buy a good book from the store and spend a few days getting acquainted with FCP.

[www.lafcpug.org]



www.strypesinpost.com

I have exported clips from FC using QT conversion and when I go into size options it will default to native size(or what it thinks is native) and if I do not change anything I have seen similar numbers to what you are experiencing in QT. You can set the size to 720x480(4x3 or 16x9) in the size pull-down. Whenever I have done this it has resolved the funky number issue.