'Waviness' in Horziontal / Vertical Lines
 

Greetings,

I am hoping someone can help me with this. I shot allot of footage today outside in bright sunlight, 1080i, all of it of freight trains. These Engines have many vertical and horizontal lines, and when viewing the output in Apple's Final Cut Express the waviness of these lines is nearly overwhelming. This is true of those views at wide angle, full telephoto, and everywhere in-between so it isn't related to focal length.

Having said that, when output to .MOV format (I.e., Quicktime) the end product does not exhibit any of the above and indeed looks fine.

I am new to Video, though I did Still work professionally for 37 years. I vaguely recall a term for this effect (Interlacing) if in fact I am recalling what I believe I am. Either that or there are some serious issues with this camera, which is a Sony HVR-A1U. I should add that this was not visible in the viewfinder as well....

Any input greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Lyman

Yes, indeed that is interlacing - not familiar with FCE, but in Vegas there's a switch to minimize those while editing. Perhaps dig around a bit in your documentation for the software and see if it has a similar feature.

Dave,

Many thanks, and I will do that. Is there a reason why this is present some of the time but not others? I am assuming lighting, angles, etc, will play a factor.


Lyman

It's actually "present" at all times in interlaced footage, it will manifest itself to greater or lesser degrees depending on the situation - movement obviously results in it being more noticeable. The way your software and monitor handle the footage and the signal will also determine whether you see the interlacing or not - some handle it better than others. The camera VF and LCD for instance are designed to display with the footage properly deinterlaced for display.

Hope that clarifies it a bit for you, since you come from a still background, think of it as if your stills were taken fractions of a second apart, run through a cheese grater, and half of each one was mated to the other half of the other, alternating every other line... that's an oversimplification, but you should get the idea.