Capture settings for DVX100b

B

bonedevi

New member
Hey everyone,

I have a pretty simple question, or so I think... I'm currently shooting a student film with my beloved DVX100b, and editing with the first Final Cut Studio (FCP 5). Here's the problem.

I've been filming, and everything I've captured looks AMAZING on the LCD screen when played back on my camera. However, once I upload it to FCP, the quality seems to decrease quite a bit. I don't know how to word this properly, but all the lines are jagged. This picture kind of shows it. Notice the bottom of the sign, the umbrella, and the outline of the black fellow' head. It just looks bad...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/50439644@N05/4632945181/

I'm assuming that this must be a capture problem, considering the film looks great on the LCD, so does anyone have any suggestions as to what the hell I'm doing wrong?

I'm shooting with a DVX 100b, AY-HDVM63AMQ tapes

capturing setting:
DV NTSC 48 kHz.
29.97 fps
Quality:Best
Dv-DVCPRO
Frame size: 720x480 Pixels




Thanks so so SO much in advance everyone!
 
Your only mistake is that you are trusting your FCP desktop to present video that looks great.

This is not an issue with your video, or how you shot, or how you captured. FCP gives you a proxy playback. Colors aren't accurate, and to keep RT rendering and playback smooth it must reduce the playback resolution. You need to be watching on an external production monitor, connected to your FireWire device (camera or VTR).

Also, QuickTime Player is going to be a lousy place to watch your video. It will make things look soft, noisy, and washed out.
 
Sometimes interlacing is difficult to detect with just one screenshot but that's what the jagged lines look like to me. I'm not a FCP user, but I would guess you can deinterlace the footage to see if that stops it, in addition to doing what the gentleman from Tennessee recommends.
 
Okay good to know its not the capture settings- Here's my next question. I've been searching all day on the internet for a way to connect my TV to my computer through firewire so that I can watch it on that. However- my TV doesn't have a firewire port- and it seems like there aren't any converters available for firewire to S-video, for instance.

Any ideas?

The TV is a Vizio, and has HDMI, S-Videio, RCA, and Component inputs.
 
I'm having a similar problem using Premier only my video looks outstanding on my CRT production monitor but horrible in Premier. Even just playing the captured video like in Quicktime the video looks degraded and contains artifacts. But if I play it in Adobe AE, the artifacts are gone but the image is so soft, it looks like I shot the whole thing out of focus. I'm not sure what to do at this point. Right now I'm feeling like doing some old school tape to tape editing but that would suck.
 
StillGuerrillaFilms said:
I'm having a similar problem using Premier only my video looks outstanding on my CRT production monitor but horrible in Premier. Even just playing the captured video like in Quicktime the video looks degraded and contains artifacts. But if I play it in Adobe AE, the artifacts are gone but the image is so soft, it looks like I shot the whole thing out of focus. I'm not sure what to do at this point. Right now I'm feeling like doing some old school tape to tape editing but that would suck.
Click to expand...

1) And I'm repeating myself here, QuickTime Player is going to be a lousy place to watch your video. It will make things look soft, noisy, and washed out. It's going to look awful. Period.

2) If you are watching on a true broadcast production monitor via external video from your NLE, you're doing fine and should trust what you see there. Do not trust what your NLE shows you. Often, the NLE will dumb down the playback quality in order to keep real-time playback and effects previews. I'm not a Premiere user, so I can't say for sure, but perhaps you have a quality setting somewhere for desktop viewing? But even with that, you should go by your production monitor.
 
C2V said:
1) And I'm repeating myself here, QuickTime Player is going to be a lousy place to watch your video. It will make things look soft, noisy, and washed out. It's going to look awful. Period.

2) If you are watching on a true broadcast production monitor via external video from your NLE, you're doing fine and should trust what you see there. Do not trust what your NLE shows you. Often, the NLE will dumb down the playback quality in order to keep real-time playback and effects previews. I'm not a Premiere user, so I can't say for sure, but perhaps you have a quality setting somewhere for desktop viewing? But even with that, you should go by your production monitor.
Click to expand...

I gotcha. I didn't know this about Quicktime. I am watching on a true broadcast monitor (I wish I could marry it. :) ) which is why I was so freaked out about it. On my monitor (which I used during the entire shoot) I'm in visual heaven. And I trust what I see on there. But my worry was... well if it looks bad on my pc and people will be looking at it on their pc, then it will look bad for them too. Especially the focus issue. I'll continue using just my production monitor and hope for the best. I shot my film in 24p which wasn't my intention but I had so many things to do, I forgot to change it to 30p.

Thanks for your thoughts.
 
StillGuerrillaFilms said:
But my worry was... well if it looks bad on my pc and people will be looking at it on their pc, then it will look bad for them too.
Click to expand...

Any problem in the end-user video won't show up until you've exported your final project and prepped it for wherever it's supposed to go. Again, your NLE is most likely altering the video for smooth playback and is in no way representative of the actual video quality.
 
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