FCP transisitions arent sharp when on TV screen

[Ine Feijen]

I made a businessfilm. This film now is showed in several very large stores here. The other day, I was shopping and saw the film. I didnt like what I saw. The transistion I made in the fiilm were not good. Per example the transistion Center Wipe.. The lines where they split up an image, were not sharp but a bit cutted
On the computer the film and transitions are just fine.but, as said, when I see the film on a TV screen its not good at all. I wonder if anyone has an idea.

I exported the sequence in mov 1980x1080. Than burned it on DVD but the computer corrects the fiilm into 1440x1080.

I have an HD Sony HVR V1 camera. I shoot in progressive.
I upload the footages as hdv 1080i50.
The images are perfectly sharp.
I just wonder, when I upload in FCP in 1080i50, is that wrong, should that be 1080p50 or has this nothing to do with the bad transistions?

I look forward hearing from someone.

Thanks in advance,
Ine

[Robert Lane]

Welcome to the forums, Ine.

First, you need to understand that the DVD format is not high-definition. The format of your final output 1980x1080 is an HD format which the DVD does not support. That means whatever application you used to create your DVD had to down-convert it to SD resolution, which is 720x480, 4/3 aspect ratio.

This is why you're seeing "stair-stepping" or "cutted" lines as you describe, because your large HD files have been compressed - badly - down to SD resolution and you're seeing the nasty artifacts of the compression/resizing process.

In order to get a good-looking DVD from high-definition assets you have to FIRST downconvert your final movie into an SD-standard widescreen format. Most people who use Final Cut will use Compressor to make that downconversion. Then those down-converted assets are put into your DVD authoring program to make your final DVD. That's the correct workflow.

This process is not as easy or as straight-forward as it seems and requires using specific settings in Compressor to make a good looking final encode. I highly suggest that you use the "search" feature and do some research on exactly how to make your down-coversions and the proper DVD authoring workflows.

[Robert Turchick]

You really should upload and edit in the format you shoot in. But my guess is that is only part of your problem. Without seeing your project settings, all I can do is relay how I do it...Process is tricky as mentioned. in NTSC-land My best DVD's from HD go like this...

Shoot in 1080 30p

Edit in Pro Res 1080 30p

Output timeline as QT pro res 1920x1080 30p

in QT7 NOT compressor...scale to 853x480 pro res 30p

in Compressor use "best quality 90min" preset
under frame controls make sure it's set to progressive.

In DVDSP, make sure the disc is set as 16x9

You can substitute your frame rate but the key is keeping it progressive all the way through. The scaling in compressor takes way too long.

Hopefully I haven't missed anything...I did this last night for a music vid I just edited.

[Chris Korrow]

I've heard some say set the detail levels to 20, makes for longer renders but higher quality. Every tweak those?

Most of my previous footage is HDV 1080i, is it best to de-interlace that in FC or export it via QT conversion to 1920x 1080 30p. I've tried working with the 1080i for DVD's and was not impressed.

Since this seems to be such a common problem, I wonder if we could create a sticky where people could post their best settings. Did quite a bit of searching on this last week and there were a lot of threads that were long on the thread & short on the settings.

[Robert Turchick]

sticky would be great but everyone shoots such different settings might be tough.

Haven't messed with detail levels yet.

Deinterlacing is critical BEFORE scaling. I would try it both ways, filter in FCP and as part of the QT export. See which looks better.

[Chris Korrow]

Thanks Robert, will be shooting mostly in 30p from now on after I finnish up existing projects.

Originally Posted by Robert Turchick

sticky would be great but everyone shoots such different settings might be tough.

I think that that's one of the reasons that a sticky would be nice. At least they'd be condensed into one thread, rather than scattered all over the place.

[Robert Lane]

At one point I had planned on putting this exact information on my review site however Ken Stone has done it already - as have a few others - so it would be easier to simply refer to those sites. But, the point is the info in a singular place is out there, just not a sticky here. (Ken Stone's page is massive)