I am trying to transform from an amateur to a professional. I have one Issue with my new camera that no one is able to answer. When I shoot in hd or sd , in progressive or interlaced) (I think more in progressive) I notice when I move the camera, either panning or zooming, my straight lines start to move. I think it might be called Aliasing and it is driving me nuts. Are there any settings in the camera to eliminate this problem or is the an effect in FCP that I can use to eliminate this I tried the flicker effect on max and that seems to help, but at what cost to my picture quality. Is there an after market plug in i can buy. In the camera itself in the pic profile I found the setting called detail and I have turned that down to -30 which seems to help, there is also a setting called crisping which I haven't tried yet, am I going in the right direction. This aliasing CANT be a characteristic of this $6,299.00 camera I cant see giving a dvd to a customer with all that distracting Aliasing going on. Did my new camera just turn into a paper weight.... I did notice when I shot footage and watched it on my tv directly from the camera, (before going to FCP) the video looks great almost no aliasing at all. When I upload it to FCP using the XDCAM transfer software, from this point on thats when you begin to notice the problem. When I watch the video either in the XDCAM Transfer program or FCP, if I leave the video small thats when you see it. If i make the video big it goes away, UNTIL i burn it to a dvd where you see it all the time. Its driving me crazy... lol.
My work flo is 1. shoot in 1920/30p, 2.download to FCP using XDCAM transfer software, 3. edit, 4. then either share to dvd, or export to QTM then burn to iDVD. All of which is giving me a problem. Any advice you can give me I would really appreciate

Its all to do with the way that HD is downsized to SD (for DVD). There are plenty of posts on this forum that deal with this issue.

I too found this a big problem at the outset. I bit the bullet an purchased 100 blank DVDs and using a short clip I burned DVD after DVD making careful note of the settings used for each burn.

I have just published my latest DVD using these settings - Capture in 720p 24 fps. Edit in Premiere Pro CS4 & CS5. Export the time line as an AVI file 486p @23.97 fps (24fps) Open a new 486p time line and drop in the avi file. Export via Adobe Media Encoder as a MPEG2 DVD file using NTSC 486p Widescreen codec values Min - 2, Target - 6, Max - 9.

The resulting DVD is twitter free, sharp as anything I have seen from a blockbuster movie.

My advice - buy that stack of DVDs and try the permutations for your self until you have the desired result.

A nice quick and easy way to do this is to create a SD PAL or NTSC timeline in FCP. Prores is a good codec choice for this. Ensure your timeline is either progressive or interlaced depending on your source material.

Drag your completed video onto the timeline.

FCP will complain the video doesn't match the timeline. Do not let it alter the timeline parameters to match the video you are trying to load.

You now have a resized HD video on an SD timeline (it will look horrible until rendered). Apply any appropriate filters such as Broadcast Safe, and then export that timeline.

You now have an SD video which you can encode to MPEG in Compressor.

There are other methods but this is quick and easy.

There are lots of ways to "skin a cat" Marcus, Adobe Premiere can also do it this way, but I have found the quality of down sampling to be less than satisfactory.

I should have added that I also have a Matrox RTX2 card installed and this has a very good codec.

Michael,
As already stated, this is not a camera issue but one of converting from High Def to Standard Def (DVD). The problem is explained nicely in Alister Chapman's blog here:
http://www.xdcam-user.com/

It's in the February 2009 section and the article is called: Getting SD from HD and the problems of oversampling.
http://www.xdcam-user.com/?p=4431

There's a wealth of excellent articles there about the EX1R. I recommend subscribing to it for your journey. Bottom line is to change your workflow as prescribed.

Michael, as I've written elsewhere, ad nauseum, I had exactly the same problem as you with the horrible twittering DVDs (I'm PC with Premiere CS4 & CS5), and spent 1,400 hours one year (in off hours!) trying
everything short of some very esoteric solutions that had evidently worked for others.

Then I purchased Convergent Design's nanoFlash, and on EX-1 am recording DVI out to nanoFlash at 100Mbps, Long GOP, 1920 30p, with 422 colorspace, and not only do I see a better, cleaner picture on a 109 inch screen in HD (Blu Ray), but for the first time my HD downrezzed to 480x720 DVDs show up
what this camera can produce, without significant interline twitter on fine horizontal lines, and without a lot of garbage artifacts. Nuff said! And good luck to you.

LOl everything you said I appreciate, but remember im a newbe and some of that stuff you said to do lost me.... I been going through dvd like crazy but still haven't found my look yet. I don't know if im doing it right. I need somebody to tell me the steps from FCP. My work floe now is I tape in 1920/30p download to FCP using the XDCAM transfer software I edit in my time line then when project is done I either 1. Export as QTM as same settings then burn in IDVD or 2. from time line I send to compressor choose the make to DVD from templet without changing anysettings, or 3. from time line I goto to file in FCP then choose share and that makes a dvd. all of those ways I have the problem. If I should be doing something different at any of those steps please tell me..

thank you

Its all to do with the way that HD is downsized to SD (for DVD). There are plenty of posts on this forum that deal with this issue.

I too found this a big problem at the outset. I bit the bullet an purchased 100 blank DVDs and using a short clip I burned DVD after DVD making careful note of the settings used for each burn.

I have just published my latest DVD using these settings - Capture in 720p 24 fps. Edit in Premiere Pro CS4 & CS5. Export the time line as an AVI file 486p @23.97 fps (24fps) Open a new 486p time line and drop in the avi file. Export via Adobe Media Encoder as a MPEG2 DVD file using NTSC 486p Widescreen codec values Min - 2, Target - 6, Max - 9.

The resulting DVD is twitter free, sharp as anything I have seen from a blockbuster movie.

My advice - buy that stack of DVDs and try the permutations for your self until you have the desired result.

I have a few different workflows for creating different types of DVD's.

But here is a simple one:

Edit your 30p or whatever project in FCP in HD, until you are ready to export.

Then export the sequence either as self contained or by reference movie.

Then use Bitvice to make your MPEG file and AAC audio file. Bitvice is a fantastic way to create MPEG files in my opinion the best. It is available here:innobits.com - It is all about visions (http://www.innobits.com/)

Then drop those files into DVD Studio Pro, and author your DVD. You will love the result.

This is a really easy way to deal with HD to SD conversion for DVD's.

Others here may have different workflows that work well, but this is my preferred technique.

There are lots of ways to "skin a cat" Marcus, Adobe Premiere can also do it this way, but I have found the quality of down sampling to be less than satisfactory.


But the OP has Final Cut. There's lots of things Premiere is bad at. I should know, I spent 4 years of using it as my only editor before switching. The FCP scaler is much better than anything I ever used in Premiere. Perhaps Adobe have improved the scaling, who knows?

For most uses, the method I'm using seems fine in when viewed on a large screen TV. You can also do the scaling via compressor but if your end users will see the difference on their domestic TV's is debatable. We can all quarrel about how to get that final extra 5% quality in our downconversions, but since the end users don't all have Grade A broadcast monitors hooked up to their DVD players it becomes somewhat irrelevant.

To the OP, it's not your camera...happens with all cameras. Problem is in the downscaling as mentioned above. I have two paths I take depending on the length of the program. Since I edit in prores 1080 30P, here's the two workflows I use.
1) short programs...edit program in 1080 30P and export final to self contained pro res file same settings as sequence.
Open exported file in QT7 and export to 853x480 pro res file (this is faster than scaling out of FCP for some reason)
Put new file in Compressor and choose Best Quality 90 min DVD setting. Make sure it's seeing the file as progressive. This seems to be the one setting that matters most. Once done, take the compressed files into dvdsp and build your disk.
This has worked extremely well for me.

2) basically the same as above but for long programs I use a different export from QT7. Instead of pro res, I use h264 at a medium-high setting 2 pass. Also I do the same scaling to 853x480.
Rest of the steps are the same. Though in compressor, use the appropriate preset for the length of material. Usually I use this on material that is over 2 hours long.
The reason is hard to explain since a compression engineer suggested I try it. EssenntiLly, the extra transcode to h264 along with scaling works best and it has to do with h264 "smoothing" out the rough areas therefore the transcode to mpeg2 works more efficiently. It takes a lot longer but the results have been fantastic. Dont know if he was feeding me a line but it solved the same issues you describe.
The other benefit is I end up with a full hd file and a smaller h264 that I can youSendit to the client. Did this with my last 2-1/2 hr video and it turned out great!
Hope this helps!

Then export the sequence either as self contained or by reference movie.

Hi Olof.

I think I'll download the trial of the BitVice application that you mentioned. But I have a question as to your export settings from FCP to a movie.

Do you keep it in its native XDCAM EX settings or do you export it as ProRes HQ?

Thanks.

David, I always set my timelines up as EX timelines with rendering as Prores.

This way anything that needs rendering will be Prores, that includes color corrections, transitions, titles etc.

Anything that does not have cc or anything else will not be rendered, but Bitvice will use the original file a source. And this is fine.

This is if you export by reference. If you export self contained file use Prores422. I don't usually use HQ for anything. I find regular Prores to be fine.

If my only output will be DVD (no HD output necessary) I shoot HD but I edit with an SD timeline. FCP does a great job of scaling right on the timeline; plus there are many other advantages of editing with an SD timeline that are too important to give up. There are no special plug-ins, 3rd party software, or other time-wasiting steps needed in the workflow. I edit in SD . . . output a QuckTime movie . . . run that movie through Compressor using slightly modified DVD settings, and then import the audio and video files into DVD Studio Pro. It's fast and simple.

However, if I DO need HD output, then I use an XDCAM sequence that matches the majority of my raw footage. I then use Compressors to rescale the footage for SD if I also need SD output. It's still looks good, but the rest of the workflow is not as simple that way.

My philosophy is to forget about what your raw footage is, and match your sequence settings to your output instead.

Why burn all these DVDs when you can watch the dvd's video on your computer either by creating the image and using something like PowerISO to mount it or by opening the VOB files in VLC.

Steve,

It's quite expensive to send a computer by DHL, far cheaper to send a DVD

Thanks very much to Olof and Doug for those workflows.

Olof: Yes, I edit in an XDCAM EX 1080p25 sequence with the rendering always set to ProRes. I exported a 90 minute sequence as a reference movie and it's currently being compressed by the BitVice Demo which I downloaded. I've earlier compressed this sequence into a DVD using Compressor, so it will give me a nice basis for comparison.

Doug: I'll also try your method and compare. My concern in all of this is how well 1080p scales down to the 576 lines of PAL, as opposed to how well 1080p downscales to the 480 lines of NTSC.

I'm currently making a number of training videos for a client whose training facilities are currently standard definition, but will be upgraded in some months to Blu-ray and 1080p plasma. So I have to master in 1080p for the future Blu-ray, but currently deliver in SD.

I now think there is definitely something to what Alister says about 720p scaling better (than 1080p) into the 576 lines of PAL. I spent years shooting HDV 720p25 (with a JVC GY-HD100 series camera) and got marvellous results exporting directly via Compressor into a PAL DVD. The results of 1080p25 via Compressor into a PAL DVD have left me far less enthralled. So I'm definitely "all ears" to anyone who suggests an alternate workflow. I'm in the mood to test anything right now!

And finally, to Steve: Don't worry. I never burn a DVD while testing. And I doubt many others do, either. The Build step of DVD Studio Pro produces a VIDEO_TS folder which I simply drag over to the DVD Player in the dock and I can review it there. (And I also produce a .img file during the Format step so I can do a final double-check before I burn the .img file to a DVD-R using the Disk Utility application.)

I didn't read everything in this thrread so I might be repeating something someone else said, but it seems like you have 2 issues -

#1 - Is a non issue - seeing aliasing when looking at images in Final Cut when they are sized small- don't worry

#2 Bad SD DVD downconverts used too have lots of action on this board when the camera came out and lots of people had problems. I spent some time at it then setled on this workflow and DVD's look great.

----------------------------------------------------
EX-1 HD> SD DVD’s final results ( I think these were my good settings)

1. Edit in EX1 Native Sequence, PAL or NTSC
2. Set Renders > Go to "Sequence Settings >Render Control>Codec>Apple ProRes 422 (HDV XDCAM HD/EX only)."

( Some people may very slightly blur their EX-1 file or add a flicker filter which does something similar if they feel the DVD comes out too sharp and has aliasing as a result. I didn't find the need to do that)
----------------------------------------

3. Export to “Quicktime for self-contained movie” - Pro Res 422 > This makes a final Pro Res version > Then bring this file to Compressor
OR Export directly from FCP timeline to Compressor ( I do this)

4. In Compressor Select “ DVD Best Quality (90 unless it is longer)
- Copy the "MPEG-2" 6.2 Mbps 2 pass file and change these settings by double clicking and opening the Inspector (When finished name and save this compressor setting)

6. click "Encoder" icon and go through the icons
Under "Quality" tab
-choose bit rates, ( the defaults are prob OK)
-"Two pass VBR Best"
-*IMPORTANT select "Motion Estimation >Better."
(There used to be a bug if you picked Best that ruined the encoding I don’t know if its still there but it works fine at Better.)

Under "Frame Controls"
-Frame Controls "On."
- "Resize Filter "Better (Linear filter).
- CHANGE "Output Fields to "Progressive" (if its a progressive timeline)
-Leave deinterlace to Fast (Line averaging),
- "Adaptive Details" box checked. *Leave other settings *as is.

Be prepared for long renders.

7. Proceed to make DVD in DVDSP (you will also need to make the audio file in compressor) for DVDSP

By the way that was in Final Cut Studio 2 so the newer compressor could be a little different and the "BEST" motion estimation bug should be fixed by now I presume.

This has been an interesting thread.

We are gearing up for further production with an EX1R and were wondering if this down-vert to DVD prob has surfaced with anyone using a Cineform workflow and EX output?

We have not faced it up until now, but certainly would like to insure that continues. We master everything in 1920x1080p for future flexibility, but like most here are still outputting everything mostly to DVD for general consumption.

Tnx for any comments

Stephen
IMO, if you have EX1r sourced CFHD.avi 1920 30p masters, you are about as bulletproof as one can be.
With good transcoders you can go anywhere with that- DVD 60i, BD 60i, Web 30p- no fuss, no muss.
Even AME in CS5 does a very good job of producing all of these delivery formats from CFHD 30p.

Thanks Robert, I was hoping you'd chime in here! I know you have an EX1R, so was fishing for any indications these fine line aliasing probs would affect CF users. I can't imagine they would, but could have overlooked something CF's wavelet conversion didn't cure...

Sure do love the EX1R. Cameras come and cameras go, but this guy is one classic we'll remember fondly for a long time, even when we've get a "24K, 3D smellavision superwonder" someday (if I can still smell by then)!

Now if we could just swing buying a Nanoflash and new Steadicam, we'd be in short-lived cineheaven for a bit!

Sure do love the EX1R. Cameras come and cameras go, but this guy is one classic we'll remember fondly for a long time.

The EX cameras are magic indeed.
I just wish they would lose a little weight :)

Hmmm, I've been using the workflow of copying the edited XDCAM timeline to an SD DV timeline with interlace NONE for DVDs. On a lark, I went from FCP 7 to a self contained XDCAM file and then used Compressor (Best Quality in 90 minutes) to create the .m2v files. I didn't see aliasing. On a lark, I tried the 3 workflows I've read here (DV, Prores, Blur filter) and they all look the same as the XDCAM: No Aliasing.

I looked all through my clip and magnified various stills but the XDCAM to m2v is as good as the others as far as aliasing and a bit better than the DV and Blur Filter versions in clarity. Has compressor been fixed by some chance? Is anyone else seeing this?