Captured footage looks awful. Any ideas?

W

Wano540

Active member
I am using FCP 4.5 to capture and edit, on my TV everything looks ok. But, when on my computer and compared to other stills I have seen on this site, my stills look awful. They look very soft and pixelated.

Here is one
screengrab.jpg


This still is at it's native resolution and no color correction.
I think my capture settings are correct, but I could be wrong. I capture 24p as I would normal DV and edit in 29.97fps timeline.

Any ideas of what can be going wrong in the capturing proccess? Thanks!
 
Well it looks like you didnt light that and its pretty dark naturally so I would say this is what its supposed to look like. When shooting that dark its hard to find focus and it introduces alot of grain which is what you are seeing too.
 
There are actually three lights, one with a gel, the gain at 0. Focusing was hard, however that does not explain why the footage looks crisp and clean on a tv/monitor and not on my computer after it had been captured.
 
Wano540 said:
There are actually three lights, one with a gel, the gain at 0. Focusing was hard, however that does not explain why the footage looks crisp and clean on a tv/monitor and not on my computer after it had been captured.
Click to expand...

Are you talking about outputing to a file and playing it back on your computer with Quicktime? Or are you saying that the image looks bad in the editing window inside FCP?

Most NLE have options for displaying video in the editng window that start at draft quality, better, best and auto. Or similar options. This allows you to obtain full rate video playback even if you have a lower MHz processor.

If you output the timeline to a file you have to set certain specs in the render module. If these are wrong then you can get mushy video.

Also analog computer monitors due not have the refresh rate and impediance match that compliments video. Most LCD's soften stills and video.

Digital monitors with a digital (DVI) graphics card and cable look much better.


S Cannon
 
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Wano540 said:
I am using FCP 4.5 to capture and edit, on my TV everything looks ok. But, when on my computer and compared to other stills I have seen on this site, my stills look awful. They look very soft and pixelated.

Here is one
screengrab.jpg


This still is at it's native resolution and no color correction.
I think my capture settings are correct, but I could be wrong. I capture 24p as I would normal DV and edit in 29.97fps timeline.

Any ideas of what can be going wrong in the capturing proccess? Thanks!
Click to expand...

There could be a lot of reason.
i think its better that you give details of what software u are using ?
and the tv that you are refering ?
 
I was having freak out issues with the DVX also. I would capture and it looked bad, then I would burn straight to DVD and would look really bad!
I had the best settings for the DVD but uhuh...noway....not acceptable for my$5,000 invest in this camera.
Now I am lighting better, holding steadier and burning many versions of DVD settings to see what my particular setup can do for me.
The still that you posted is hard to critique because it's dark so maybe post a brighter one?
SETTINGS.....all about the settings and there are soooooo many variables. grrrrr
 
As a wedding videographer in Singapore,
sometime you might have to rent extra DVX camera.
so what you can do, is to reset the setting of the camera.
than test it out before you shoot, to ensure that the setting are correct.
by right there should be a reset button on your camera.
just check it out.
if not, just bring it back to panasonic for a check.

www.vocaremedia.com
call to - vocare
 
Wano540, you and I both have seen some incredible stills and shorts on this website so we know this camera is capable but I think we just have software issues that have to be played with.
I use Premiere Pro 2 so I can't help you but I am sure some brain here can.
 
vocare said:
As a wedding videographer in Singapore,
sometime you might have to rent extra DVX camera.
so what you can do, is to reset the setting of the camera.
than test it out before you shoot, to ensure that the setting are correct.
by right there should be a reset button on your camera.
just check it out.
if not, just bring it back to panasonic for a check.

www.vocaremedia.com
call to - vocare
Click to expand...


If it looks correct on the RCA cable out to TV then his camera is fine. I think.
 
art metal art said:
If it looks correct on the RCA cable out to TV then his camera is fine. I think.
Click to expand...

If thats the case, most likely should be the software.
if you are using fcp, remember to check your setting .
 
Thanks for all the responses!

It looks fine on a production monitor and also a TV when played straight from a deck controlled through FCP 4.5.

However, it just doesn't look right on my Apple Cinema Display. Everything looks soft, grainy, and colors don't look right. The main reason it bothers me is because I have seen full resolution stills on this site that look sharp and gorgous and this is viewed on the same Apple Cinema Display.

I capture my 24p footage at 100% quality at 29.97fps and played back in a timeline at highest quality and in 29.97fps. I do not have the pulldown removal selected because this is not 24pA. Is this where I am wrong?

I know this is not a camera issue. I am achieving the results I would like and they look beautiful when played back from the tape, but after importing it doesn't look right.
 
none of the stuff i capture looks like it does in the "analog" monitors. whether out the composite, s-video, or even the LCD. it might be the NLE DV...though yes the firewire capture is a "data transfer" on the PC/MAC end there's a DV codec that reads the file and encodes it to the drive. right now a bunch of people are reading this and saying...that's not how it works. think about this take the camera and capture on a PC and then check the codec it will be a microsoft codec...take the same camera and capture on a MAC and check the codec. if it's the microsoft codec then geez, but i've seen apple has their own dv codec. so see the video gets encoded to a different dv codec and it could be argued that you lose some information because it is known that hardware dv codecs are better than software (NLE) codecs. so not all dv codecs are the same...heck for PCs the MainConcept DV codec is way better than microsoft's DV codec.

outside of that what kind of lights are you using. saying you used 3 really doesn't say much. you could've used 3 40-watt bulbs for all we know because honestly it does look like there isn't enough light.

and outside of that you're saying yours compared to other posts...from what i've seen and read nearly everyone here has done some form of color correction or exposure adjustment or some kind of work to improve the images.
 
There is one 400w with red gel in the room, 500w outside the room coming in through the door, and a 400w being bounced of the ceiling. I did turn down the iris a lot. It's suppose to be a interior night shot. On a production monitor it looks crisp with no grain and a bit lighter. The lighting is fine I just don't get how it can look so bad on my lcd.
 
okay you've got already recorded footage, but next time don't turn down the iris. do your "darkening" in post.

what kind of production monitor? are all your monitors calibrated? is your computer monitor calibrated? finally how does the footage look like played back from the timeline out to an external monitor?
 
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