Bottom line flickers! It's driving me crazy
 

Hi all, I've got an issue that if resolved would increase my happiness greatly. I have an XHA1 using Final Cut Pro and Compressor. Everytime I burn my footage to DVD (using DVDSP) and play it back on a normal TV the bottom line of the video flickers. My videos are shot in 16:9 so the bottom line of the video is visible. It's not too bad so I doubt if my clients really care, but it annoys the hell out of me! Here's my workflow thus far:

1. apply deinterlace filter in FCP to all video
2. render and export as mov dv ntsc
3. use compressor to make m2v files (best DVD setting 4:3, 90 min)
4. burn disc with DVDSP

I've also tried, deinterlacing in compressor, changing the upper and odd things for the deinterlacing methods in final cut and compressor

Any help would be fantastic, because I'm so new at all this, and I don't know anyone that knows anything about this stuff. Thanks.

Why are you deinterlacing? That most likely is your problem right there. If you want progressive scan, shoot progressive scan, if you want interlaced shoot interlaced.

deinterlacing
 

If I don't deinterlace, the video is way to stroby, and my camera won't shoot true progressive video or I would be all over it. My videos are almost entirely slow mo too, not sure if that makes a difference but I think it does.

The XH-A1 will shoot true progressive!

Did you try playing the DVD on another TV ?
If the TV vertical offset is not working right you could end up with this problem.

Why aren't you shooting 60i, then conforming to 24p in cinema tools?

all i know
 

all i know is that when i shoot in 30f the slow mo looks way worse. I always shoot 60i and use a natress's g 50% slow mo filter to split the fields and make it look smooth. How do i conform the video to 24p?

use the cinema tools app that came with FC Studio. Do you have that or are you working on an older version of FCP, or a "borrowed" copy?

i have it
 

I have cinema tools but cannot figure out how to do the conform everyone speaks of. do I capture into cineform?

Just import the clip you want to conform (overcrank) and then click the "conform" button on cinema tools and specify the fps.

Hi Josh,

I'm having the EXACT same problem as you, and still have not found out whay it's happening. Like you, i also use Final Cut Pro, and shoot in 16:9 in standard DV. I run off MPEG2 not using compressor though, and then complete the DVD through DVDSP.

I've noticed that with the slow motion transitions it is particularly bad, and i also do some split screen stuff and it really shows up. It is quite visible when you play back in Final Cut Canvas, so i don't know if it's a capture problem or a software thing with Final Cut.

As far as the de-interlace, i only use that on still images used in the DVD.
If you find out why it's happening please let me know, as it's bugging the hell out of me too, and so far clients haven't spotted it, but it's only a matter of time before someone does complain about it.

Have you found anything out yet Josh?

The fluttering top or bottom line of letterboxed video is an artifact of the editing, compression, or monitor/display system, not the camcorder.

I've run into it when masking SD 4:3 footage in Premiere to give it a letterboxed look (for folks who want 16x9 wideangle look). But I've not yet made the effort to determine the specific source.

Not a FCP user, but the way I conform 60i to 24P slow motion is the following.
Open the 60i footage in a 720P 60fps timeline
Render the footage as a 720P 60fps file
Bring the 720 60fps file into a 24P timeline
Slow the 720 60fps footage to 40% original speed.
Result= perfect slow motion footage.

you can see some of the results of this in the following trailer shot with the A1.

http://www.stefweb.net/mantoman/Trailer%20TEST%205.wmv

that trailer looks fantastic - - a little off topic but are you using a 35m adaptor on the A1? And do you shoot everything in 60i and then convert to 24P?

trish

still nothing
 

I've still found nothing that helps the situation. I ended up just placing a mask over the footage on the top and bottom and re rendering. That took it away.

not an ideal solution. I've posted on another forum to see if anyone can come up with anything.

It may seem like a strange question, but what sort of monitor do you have? CRT of TFT?

Just because a good friend had similar problems with capturing. His CRT had a very strong magnetic field and that caused several problems during capturing. It also could be another device what does the same.

Who knows....

mine is a rather large CRT. I would doubt it, but you never know. Never had any trouble with previous camera.

a reply from another board - what do you think?:

Here's what I see when we shoot 16x9 from a Digibeta.

The top scanline actually starts slightly less than half a scanline in. The bottom ends half a scanline out. You can see this when you examine the picture on a field monitor with underscan active.

Sort of like:

......................--------------------
--------------------------------
--------------------------------
... etc ...
--------------------------------
--------------------------------
--------------------......................

Normally these half scanlines are out of the visible picture area but you can see them on a 4x3 monitor with the 16x9 aspect ratio enabled.

If I use FCP to slow down this footage with field blending on, it interpolates these half fields with their blank siblings and produces a flicker in the usually black part of the scanline.

Take a close look at your footage and see if you have similar half scanlines at the beginning and end of your video frames.

As I say, if we are going back out to a proper widescreen display, these half scanlines would usually be out of the visible area and not a problem, however if we are letterboxing they are brought back into view.

Added to this, DV uses a different field order from nearly everything else and I think FCP now automatically moves it up (or down) a field to conform it which might produce this flicker at the bottom rather than at the top and the bottom.

Obviously, different cameras and we're in PAL land so your milage will surely vary.

My solution is to crop off the top and bottom scanline.

I am seeing something similar in Vegas. Actually there are two problems, which may be related.

When I play back 16x9 24F SD footage from the tape, the video looks perfect on my JVC CRT monitor, using an S-Video connection. It even works when I play it back from an old Sony TRV50 and not the A1, which surprised me as the Sony is neither 16x9 nor 24p, much less 24F.

Problem 1:
However, playback of the same footage in Vegas causes the bottom line of video to flicker annoyingly. I noticed it doesn't happen all the time- there is one clip where there's no problem, but then 75% of the way into the clip the flickering begins. Other clips have the problem all the time, and none are completely free of this problem.

Problem 2:
When I watch this footage play back on the LCD screen of my A1, the aspect ratio crazily jumps back and forth from 16:9 and 4:3 every several frames. Unwatchable. The Sony's LCD would do this too, but then pass a near perfect image through its S-Video out to my JVC studio monitor (near perfect because it shows Problem 1 as above).


I'm sure I'm doing something absurdly wrong, as I'm new to Vegas, 24p pulldown and the A1. Here's a list of the facts:

-16x9, 24F, SD, 2:3 pulldown mode A1 footage, captured by Sony TRV50.
-Vegas Project:
NTSC DV 24p Widescreen (720x480, 23.976 fps)
Frame Rate 23.976
"Allow Pulldown Removal when opening 24p DV" is checked
-Footage in Vegas Timeline doesn't show as 24 fps
-Footage looks fine when played back on CRT computer monitor, neither problem 1 or 2 showing


Can anyone help? It seems the A1 isn't causing the problems; as stated above the footage plays back clean from the tape. So, Firewire? I'm kinda lost.

I see this same phenomenon while watching some SD TV broadcasts on an HD monitor.

I have noticed the problem many times with letterboxed video transfers from super16 film - so obviously the camera isn't an issue - as suggested, try lots of different TVs just to satisfy yourself...

Just for once....try to put distance between the camera and the monitor as much as possible.
You could end up putting the camera on the ground, a chair of something else.

Maybe the old camera was a bit more shielded than the A1.

At least, trying does not hurt and who knows....

Hey Martin
 

Hey Martin, I figured out a fix for the bottom line flicker. I was capturing in NTSC DV anamorphic but my sequence timeline was set to just NTSC. On my latest project, I captured in anamorphic and set my sequence to anamorphic and by golly when I sent it through to DVDSP and authored the DVD, the bottom line flicker was gone. Maybe this will help you.

never mind
 

Never mind, the flicker is still there. I'm on a new project now and it's there and clear as day. It's bastardly!