Trouble capturing from a DVX100AE in FCP

[jesped]

I'm trying to capture some DVX100AE recordings in 25p PAL on my new MacBook Pro in Final Cut Pro 6 using the "Log & capture".

I don't know what I am doing wrong, because the quality of the captured video is horrible. All is very jaggy and pixelated. It must be some problem with fields of something, but so far all my tests showed the same result. Check the following example:

http://www.narkohol.com/images/cam_mac.jpg

While this is how it looks in my PC capturing in Premiere:

http://www.narkohol.com/images/cam_pc.jpg

Is there anybody here who can help me get better results? I'm a newbie both in Mac and FCP, so I must have overlooked something here.

Thanks.

[Alex H.]

Looks like you're capturing in a low-rez codec. Check your capture settings and see what you're pulling in. What format is your source video?

[CaptainMench]

Also -- Although I think C2 is correct... where are these grabs from? The Log and Capture window or the Canvas?

Check it by watching it on an external monitor.

CaptM

[jesped]

The compressor is "DV - PAL" with "Best quality" selected.

The grabs are from Quicktime player.

[CaptainMench]

I'm sorry -- I've never seen BEST QUALITY button in FCP. Can you outline HOW you captured it inside FCP?

QT Player can be unreliable too... for fun do this (will help with anything in the future) with a QT movie open, hit Apple-J - select the VIDEO track and then the VISUAL SETTINGS tab. Lower right, make sure HIGH QUALITY is selected.

Prolly has NOTHING to do with anything above, but while I ws thinking about it...

CaptM

[jesped]

I mean Best quality selected in the "Quicktime video settings" section of the Sequence settings.

The "Hight quality" check on the visual settings tab did the trick. I wonder why this option affects the quality so much being so hidden.

Thanks for your help.

[jesped]

I am having another problem here. I got FCP to capture and show the video ok, but I get errors exporting the video. Although I set all options to best quality and Progressive I get fields in the output video and bad quality.

Check the following captures to see how bad is the resulting video (QTplayer) comparing to the FCP viewer window:

http://www.narkohol.com/images/FinalCut_01.jpg

and these are the settings I used:

http://www.narkohol.com/images/FinalCut_02.jpg

http://www.narkohol.com/images/FinalCut_03.jpg

I'll appreciate some help here, because this is driving me nuts.

[jesped]

It seems I was getting fields output because the Field dominance was set to Lower. I changed it to None and the fields are gone, but I still get a pixelated output video. Even in the FCP windows it looks pixelated. Check the following capture, the right window is the captured video, while the left window is the sequence.

http://www.narkohol.com/images/FinalCut_04.jpg

What the heck am I doing wrong?