How can I convert 60i to 30p in Final Cut? The best method I can think of is to edit in 60i then make a new sequence, drop the 60i into it and deinterlace. Is this the usual way or is there some way better?

If it helps, I'm looking for the quasi frame style chop rather than smooth 60i.

An adaptive de-interlace filter will give you better results.

With normal de-interlacing, there's two methods:

A- Interpolate a single field.
This takes a single field and uses it for the whole image. This gives the least vertical resolution.

B- Blend fields.
Blurs the two fields together. This gives a little more vertical resolution, but is not as good as adaptive de-interlacing.


Adaptive de-interlacing looks for motion and only de-interlaces motion areas. Static areas are untouched and retain their original resolution (about 360 lines of vertical resolution on most cameras). Progressive cameras have about 480 lines of vertical resolution.

Not sure what adaptive de-interlace filters are available for Final Cut, sorry.

Once I've deinterlaced, should I export to a frame based or field based format? I'm thinking that field based is probably not what I want - I don't want to reintroduce interlacing to the edit.

(correct?)

You should be fine exporting to "field-based" formats. In other programs, you may have to tell it your source is progressive instead of upper/lower field first. Most programs work best with progressive images anyways, and may default to assuming the input is a progressive source.

Thanks a bunch!

Joe's filters has a very good adaptive deinterlacing plug-in for FCP, plus a lot of cool stuff:

http://joesfilters.com/

DVFilm Maker also does a great job, but it's actually a little standalone application which can process batches of clips in the background while you do other things:

http://www.dvfilm.com/maker/

The nice thing is that both of these offer free trial versions. I own both, although I do my deinterlacing with DVFilm and use Joes Filters for other things.

"You should be fine exporting to "field-based" formats. In other programs, you may have to tell it your source is progressive instead of upper/lower field first. Most programs work best with progressive images anyways, and may default to assuming the input is a progressive source.'

From Compressor you would export as lower/upper, or progressive?