Color smear? at DVinfo.net

Trevor Trombley · May 26th, 2005, 07:01 PM

I own a TRV-950.

The other day I went down to the beach, filmed a panoramic shot of the lake, captured the footage with Premiere Pro, dumped it into after effects and used magic bullet to dienterlace, added a preset look suite, as well as letterboxed the footage.

Here's something that I noticed. The green leaves on the trees became smeared or smudged, likewise with any detailed pattern in the background.

To see what it looked like on TV I recorded back to DV and played it on my Television where the smearing was not as noticeable.

Is this what is known in the industry as "color smear"

I'll add a couple links to some frames if you need them.

Trevor

Trevor Trombley · May 27th, 2005, 01:49 PM

Alright here are some frame grabs.

The first is an image done up in Magic bullet. I added the 24p, a preset look suite of Epic, and letterboxed. Note the smudgied areas where there is a lot of detail? What causes this?

http://www.imagehosterz.com/imgs/wide.jpg

The second image is taken from the raw frame grab without dienterlacing the footage.

http://www.imagehosterz.com/imgs/wide2.jpg

The last image is an image where I used After effects standard dienterlacer. Used the epic preset in Magic bullet as well as the letterboxer, but did not use the 24p conversion.

http://www.imagehosterz.com/imgs/wide3.jpg

Does the smudging occur when Magic bullet dumps frames to recreate the 24p look?

Boyd Ostroff · May 27th, 2005, 03:10 PM

I know absolutely nothing about after effects, so I'll only comment on what I see. I took your JPEG's into photoshop and enlarged 300% and visually compared the area around the 3 figures. Whether intentional or not, you have really altertered your image to obliterate detail. Look at the pine tress on the far side of the river. you can see their shape pretty well in the original. In both of the processed versions they're very blurry.

Same thing if you look at the outline of the trees against the sky. If you like this softer kind of look then you should check your camera's sharpness custom preset. On the TRV-950 and PDX-10 you get a pretty pleasing picture with the sharpness set to zero - see these examples:

http://www.greenmist.com/dv/pdxsharp/

Now the 24p version is bizarre! I had to look twice, I swore it was shot in a different location. Again, looking at the area around the 3 swimmers @ 300%... look at the rocks and the branches. Their shapes are totally different. It looks like there are a bunch of logs in the river in the 24p version. Was the camera moving in this shot? Or handheld?

Only one other thought... you should use your TRV-950's 16:9 mode if you want to get this sort of effect. You won't need to put such a big letterbox on the image and will end up with better vertical resolution in the anamorphic format. Sony intentionally crippled the TRV-950 by firmware such that it doesn't use the full CCD in 16:9 mode like the PDX-10 does. However it still uses a lot more pixels in 16:9 mode than it does in 4:3 mode.

Trevor Trombley · May 27th, 2005, 03:32 PM

The shot was handheld, with a bit of movement. We were at the hotsprings and I thought I'd bring the 950 just to capture some footage. The camera had a .56X wide angle adapter on it.

I'll do some more tests. But it appears that anytime you do a 24p conversion in Magic Bullet the footage becomes smudged or blurred to the point of being unrecognizable. Which is a huge piss off.

After effects does an automatic deinterlace to the upper fields the moment you upload the clip. But again it looks like it creates a very blurred undetailed image.

And of course the raw footage isn't even dineterlaced which is a problem unto itself.

Boyd, how do you process your image when you edit?

I'm going to look into this with more detail, I want to get the best out of my footage while giving it a more filmic look.

Ciao

Boyd Ostroff · May 27th, 2005, 04:18 PM

I've never tried the 24p stuff, don't see why I need it. I have DVFilm Maker and have done their 30p conversion which looks very good to me. It also does 24p but I haven't tried. You can download the free demo and compare though. I just use FCP for any other processing.

Jesse Bekas · May 30th, 2005, 11:30 PM

I might be missing the point of the topic, but here goes...

Trevor, whenever you deinterlace footage the fields become blended together and more thanm 25% of the original resolution is lost. I haven't used Magic Bullet but soem deinterlacers are better than others as well asthei method of deinterlacing (blending fields, interpolating, etc...)

Trevor Trombley · May 31st, 2005, 12:27 AM

I used The 24p deinterlacer that came with Vegas, And I gotta say it did a much better job than Magic bullet. At least to my eyes. Very soft around the edges, but there was absolutely no artifacting.

I guess color smear is a whole different beast entirely...........Is it the occurance where the edges look to bleed red, etc?

May 26th, 2005, 07:01 PM	#1
Trevor Trombley Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: kelowna bc Posts: 58	Color smear? I own a TRV-950. The other day I went down to the beach, filmed a panoramic shot of the lake, captured the footage with Premiere Pro, dumped it into after effects and used magic bullet to dienterlace, added a preset look suite, as well as letterboxed the footage. Here's something that I noticed. The green leaves on the trees became smeared or smudged, likewise with any detailed pattern in the background. To see what it looked like on TV I recorded back to DV and played it on my Television where the smearing was not as noticeable. Is this what is known in the industry as "color smear" I'll add a couple links to some frames if you need them. Trevor

May 27th, 2005, 01:49 PM	#2
Trevor Trombley Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: kelowna bc Posts: 58	Alright here are some frame grabs. The first is an image done up in Magic bullet. I added the 24p, a preset look suite of Epic, and letterboxed. Note the smudgied areas where there is a lot of detail? What causes this? http://www.imagehosterz.com/imgs/wide.jpg The second image is taken from the raw frame grab without dienterlacing the footage. http://www.imagehosterz.com/imgs/wide2.jpg The last image is an image where I used After effects standard dienterlacer. Used the epic preset in Magic bullet as well as the letterboxer, but did not use the 24p conversion. http://www.imagehosterz.com/imgs/wide3.jpg Does the smudging occur when Magic bullet dumps frames to recreate the 24p look?

May 27th, 2005, 03:10 PM	#3
Boyd Ostroff Wrangler Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Mays Landing, NJ Posts: 11,802	I know absolutely nothing about after effects, so I'll only comment on what I see. I took your JPEG's into photoshop and enlarged 300% and visually compared the area around the 3 figures. Whether intentional or not, you have really altertered your image to obliterate detail. Look at the pine tress on the far side of the river. you can see their shape pretty well in the original. In both of the processed versions they're very blurry. Same thing if you look at the outline of the trees against the sky. If you like this softer kind of look then you should check your camera's sharpness custom preset. On the TRV-950 and PDX-10 you get a pretty pleasing picture with the sharpness set to zero - see these examples: http://www.greenmist.com/dv/pdxsharp/ Now the 24p version is bizarre! I had to look twice, I swore it was shot in a different location. Again, looking at the area around the 3 swimmers @ 300%... look at the rocks and the branches. Their shapes are totally different. It looks like there are a bunch of logs in the river in the 24p version. Was the camera moving in this shot? Or handheld? Only one other thought... you should use your TRV-950's 16:9 mode if you want to get this sort of effect. You won't need to put such a big letterbox on the image and will end up with better vertical resolution in the anamorphic format. Sony intentionally crippled the TRV-950 by firmware such that it doesn't use the full CCD in 16:9 mode like the PDX-10 does. However it still uses a lot more pixels in 16:9 mode than it does in 4:3 mode.

May 27th, 2005, 03:32 PM	#4
Trevor Trombley Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: kelowna bc Posts: 58	The shot was handheld, with a bit of movement. We were at the hotsprings and I thought I'd bring the 950 just to capture some footage. The camera had a .56X wide angle adapter on it. I'll do some more tests. But it appears that anytime you do a 24p conversion in Magic Bullet the footage becomes smudged or blurred to the point of being unrecognizable. Which is a huge piss off. After effects does an automatic deinterlace to the upper fields the moment you upload the clip. But again it looks like it creates a very blurred undetailed image. And of course the raw footage isn't even dineterlaced which is a problem unto itself. Boyd, how do you process your image when you edit? I'm going to look into this with more detail, I want to get the best out of my footage while giving it a more filmic look. Ciao

May 27th, 2005, 04:18 PM	#5
Boyd Ostroff Wrangler Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Mays Landing, NJ Posts: 11,802	I've never tried the 24p stuff, don't see why I need it. I have DVFilm Maker and have done their 30p conversion which looks very good to me. It also does 24p but I haven't tried. You can download the free demo and compare though. I just use FCP for any other processing.

May 30th, 2005, 11:30 PM	#6
Jesse Bekas Major Player Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Ridgefield Park, New Jersey, USA Posts: 572	I might be missing the point of the topic, but here goes... Trevor, whenever you deinterlace footage the fields become blended together and more thanm 25% of the original resolution is lost. I haven't used Magic Bullet but soem deinterlacers are better than others as well asthei method of deinterlacing (blending fields, interpolating, etc...)

May 31st, 2005, 12:27 AM	#7
Trevor Trombley Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: kelowna bc Posts: 58	I used The 24p deinterlacer that came with Vegas, And I gotta say it did a much better job than Magic bullet. At least to my eyes. Very soft around the edges, but there was absolutely no artifacting. I guess color smear is a whole different beast entirely...........Is it the occurance where the edges look to bleed red, etc?