Trouble Making DVD from P2 Footage

S

sam ketay

New member
Using FCP 6 i cut a project i shot on P2 480i/24p using what i thought were the correct dv50 ntsc presets. i then made a dvd through export > quicktime movie then > idvd & dvd studio pro. while editing and watching the footage on a computer screen, it looked great. then after watching the dvd on a tv, any shots with movement looked strobe-like, flicker-like, etc. shots with no movement looked normal. and the dvd plays the imagery normally on a computer screen.

should i re-import footage with different capture and sequence preset settings? and edit again? it was only 15 shots luckily.
 
I am having the same issue with some Avid footage that I exported as Quicktime and then loaded into Final Cut for finishing. Looks fine until the DVD is watched on tv when any shot with quick pans, tilts or motion effects has serious banding/strobing issues. Adding the Flicker-filter helps some of the shots but most of them have severe banding. Any ideas would be appreciated.
 
It might be a broadcast colors issue. Are the flickering parts white or some other bright/high intensity set of colors? Old TVs cannot display RGB values above 234 if I remember correctly. Then again, I have noticed a lot of flickering going on with many LCD TVs when visiting Best Buy. So, if you are not using an old tube tv, I think we'll have to see what others have to say.
 
Is your sequence 29.97? If so, what most likely is happening is that your 24p 3:2 pulldown cadence is changing from shot to shot. When idvd goes to encode, it is guessing the pulldown from the first few frames, but then the cadence changes in your sequence at the next cut. Now it's extracting the pulldown wrong, which is why your footage looks all strobey. The reason it looks fine on your computer is because it's progressive and you aren't seeing the interlace like you would on a television. This happened to me when editing footage shot at 24p on the DVX. I encoded using Toast Titanium instead which I guess detects cadence breaks because it came out fine. You can also encode at 29.97 using compressor and you should be okay. For some reason idvd, when it sees a pulldown sequence, tries to extract it on encode. Another thing you can try is processing your sequence using a free program called JES deinterlacer, which can do an inverse telecine, basically stripping out the 2:3 pulldown and giving you a pure 24p file. This will then encode fine. It detects the cadence and cadence breaks. You can download it here. http://www.xs4all.nl/~jeschot/home.html#DEI In the future, I'd have FCP remove the pulldown on capture so you have a pure 24p sequence.
 
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thanks! i'll try that program and those suggestions. i was also told that because it happened with dvd studio pro (and not just idvd), it could be the whole reading of lower field vs upper field (which i'm guessing would be reading the pulldown 3:2 vs 2:3), in other words in the wrong order. seems like it may just be an easy change in the sequence settings in fcp. does making this change with lower/upperfield dominance sound familiar?
 
It could be upper or lower field dominance, but idvd should be getting the field order correct. My question would be is it happening every shot, or is it hit and miss? If it's hit and miss then it's related to pulldown, because once the pulldown pattern is guessed by the encoder, some shots will have the pulldown removed correctly, and others not.
 
there are four shots of faces talking aggressively on cell phones and it happens on all four of those shots. pretty obviously. then there's a shot of a handbag turning on a turn table and it happens slightly there. and then the shots with no movement look normal. i was at an editing house yesterday and the owner kept coming around saying, "it's the pull down, it's the pull down!"
 
Wait, I just noticed you said you were using dv50 settings. Do you mean DVCPRO 50? You should generally be using regular DV NTSC for 480/24p footage. But since you're already using it, check your sequence settings and your field dominance should be set to lower. If it is already, as an experiment you might want to flip it to upper, export and see if that fixes your problem.
 
i'll try flipping it to upper when i get back on the system. would there be a reason to choose field dominance > 'NONE'? but as far as the settings go, i shot dvcpro 50 480i/24p and read that my settings should reflect that - dv50 ntsc.
 
Batutta said:
Wait, I just noticed you said you were using dv50 settings. Do you mean DVCPRO 50? You should generally be using regular DV NTSC for 480/24p footage. But since you're already using it, check your sequence settings and your field dominance should be set to lower. If it is already, as an experiment you might want to flip it to upper, export and see if that fixes your problem.
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once i go into the sequence settings and try 'upper field' will the project need re-rendering, or will i just be able to export it as a quicktime as is. do you recommend using export > quicktime movie or qt conversion or qt compressor?
 
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