Workflow

[Goblin]

Ok, this is probably a silly question, but I've not found a good answer searching in the forum yet, so I'll just ask.

I want to double check my workflow.

We shot some test footage in 24 (not advanced). I pulled it into Pro, in a 30fps project, and then rendered a Quicktime, which came out interlaced. Very, very interlaced.

So I started a new project in 24fps (or, well, 23.xx (And, I realize I don't need to be in a 24fps project unless the footage is shot in Advanced mode (right?), but I was trying to figure out why the interlacing showed up.)), recaptured the footage, rendered a Quicktime again, and it was still interlaced. So I rendered an uncompressed AVI, noticed that I could mark the avi as progressive, did so, and it was fine.

So, the first question is, why was that Quicktime interlaced? Was there a progressive check box that I missed when setting up the codec, and missing it caused my footage to be forcibly interlaced?

Second question is, outputting the AVI with the progressive box checked, that doesn't molested the footage at all, does it? That's just putting my frames straight out, yeah?

Is there an Avid specific article somewhere that I can read that would maybe answer newbie questions like these so I don't clog the forum?

Thanks for any advice/help.

[MichaelP]

Questions are fine, don't worry about it. When exporting the qucktime you are getting the full 60 fields as captured in a 30i project. There will be interlaced frames 2 out of every 5 when stepping through in full frame mode. That is the way that 24 frame progressive media exists within 60 fields with NORMAL pulldown. WHat you saw is expected.

The AVI progressive is most likely only giving you 1/2 the vertical resolution by dropping a field so you never would see an interlaced field. You can test this theory by stepping through the footage frame by frame and you should see a 4+1 pattern where an object will move , move, move, move, and the be a repeat of the previous frame where there is no movement. The only way to get true progressive material is to capture it as such using ADVANCED pulldown so it can be removed during the capture stage on Xpress Pro.

You can always remove NORMAL pulldown in After Effects if you want to see what a 24 frame progressive frame looks like.

Michael

[Goblin]

Cool, thanks.

Aha! I didn't notice anything weird when viewing the footage normally, but I had it Twixtored down to ultra slow, and was getting unexplained pauses every couple frames. I guess this would explain that, then. Excellent.

So, in the future, if I shoot Advanced, and capture into Pro, it'll do the pulldown, and then, what's the best way to output the footage for use in AE?

[MichaelP]

Once you capture in Xpress Pro, there will only be the original 24 frames, expirt as QT reference for use in AE. This is the fastest and highest quality as it just wraps the Avid media in a QT wrapper using the Avid QT codec. When rendering back out the mnovie in AE, select the Avid resolution DV24p (or something like that) so the import back into Xpess Pro is just a copy.

If you want to output back out to DV, yo umight want to consider adding a 2:3 pulldown effect in AE and inmport into a 30i project. Or you can always encode your native 24p files as MPEG2 with the 2:3 flags for DVD players. All of this assumes you don't have a Mojo.

Michael

[Goblin]

No Mojo. Yet.

Thanks for the info.