XDCAM 510p field order for Uncompressed
 

Evenin'

Does anyone know the field order workflow if i'm shooting XDCAM DVCAM which is upper field first and then i want to export to an uncompressed 8 bit finish, would i select upper field first on the export?

Thanks..

Actually, DV and DVCam are bottom field first in PAL or NTSC. Which platform are you editing on?

Thierry.

Thierry,

You are correct DV and DVCAM are bottom field first. However, Sony chose top field first for their XDCAM DVCAM system for some strange reason. Im editing on Final Cut Pro 6 but i'm encounting problems when i go to and from motion when exporting.

thx,
Ben

Weird... How did you find out that the field order is reversed on XDCAM (DVCam)? I have been importing/impoting XDCAM (DVCam) material on AVID systems using lower field interpolation and have not had a problem.

T.

I never had an issue with the standard field order for DV with the 510 either.

I have learnt the field order from 3 seperate sources though it still sounds strange as it is DVCAM (plus proxies off disc). The issue is only ever in the conversion to uncompressed 8 bit. I saw a similiar issue with XDCAM EX HD converted to SD just today. Maybe it is Final Cut Pro ..... I am importing XDCAM DVCAM into an 8bit uncompressed timeline if that helps.

I am not familiar with FCPro but importing/exporting interlaced footage can be tricky at best and you must pay careful attention to the various settings that are available. It sounds to me that some of these settings are incorrect when you attempt to import or export your XDCAM footage. I am still fairly certain that XDCAM DVCam is lower field first. I'd be interested to ear from your sources what makes them beleive it is upper field first. Have you tried importing your XDCAM material both ways, lower and upper field first?

Thierry.

The DVCAM stored on the Discs is lower field first. The proxies just use 1 field as far as I know.

FCP is terrible at getting the field order mixed up. I suspect your problem is with FCP importing the clips and swapping the fields. Are you using the correct XDCAM easy setup?

There is a field shift filter in the video filters that will swap the fields in real time if they are switched. When working with DV type material I always use a DVCAM deck connected via firewire with a CRT monitor for monitoring as this is the only way to really see what's going on with the field order. A decklink card or similar can sometimes show the wrong field order as it doesn't translate from lower first to upper first the same way that a DVCAM deck will.

The import is flip for mac, it just selects the clips. I too have argued with people that it is simply DVCAM on disc, but the resulting field order convinced Me that a station tech, and after effects guru were correct, the fact that you mention a Decklink card, may fill in a few gaps as i have never seen this problem before this specific system.

I dont know why FCP cant get it right.

I would suggest that flip4mac is not assigning the correct field order fag to the .mov's it creates. I assume you are using Ethernet as opposed to FAM. Have you tried FAM and XDCAM Transfer tool to see if that makes any difference.

The clips on an XDCAM disc are definitely lower field first as you can stream DVCAM over firewire directly from an XDCAM camcorder to a DVCAM deck. If the field order was swapped you would have issues.

Hmm Alister you might be correct about the FAM Settings. I will try that.

I think that the upper field first issue may have come about from confusion with shooting MPEG 4:2:2 which may(?) be Upper field first to cut easily with digital Betacam.

I will also try a straight DV workflow without using the blackmagic cards uncompressed output.

IMX MPEG 2 is upper field first, like Digibeta etc, while DVCAM (and DV) are lower field first. Which one are you using? Or are you mixing them in the same timeline in which case one or the other will need to have it's fields swapped depending on how the field order is set in the timeline settings.