D90 Stair-Stepping Removal

"the timeline" meaning what settings? any 720p 24 fps preset should do. make sure you change the framerate from 23.98 to 24 before you add anything to the sequence.

/matt
 
Sorry by timeline I meant the lower half of the program in which you drag the clips into where you edit them together.

When you say change the framerate, how do i do that?
 
yes, i know what you mean by timeline, i wanted to know what settings you're using for it. if you haven't set it at all it's probably set to dv, which is half res so that's what you get. open sequence settings and select a 720p preset, prores for example. and you guessed it, you set the framerate in the settings too. :-)

/matt
 
Will the Magic Bullet Instant HD FCP plugin work as well as the TMTS plugins when it comes to image optimization? Does anyone have any experience using the Instant HD with d90 footage?
 
yes, what you do is create a 1280x801 sequence, the native resolution of the d90 movie mode, add your footage to that using the d90 upscaler, then add this sequence to instant hd. i don't remember if you have to render the first sequence first, i think not. good luck.

/matt
 
Matt, I downloaded your plug-ins for FCP (version 6.0) for the 90, but I can't seem to get them to work. I'm trying to use the 90upscaler and 90rescaler plugins. I asked the digital media teacher for help and he said they weren't "installable" plugins and i couldn't use them. He told me they were just txt documents with code written on them and i needed an actual plugin.

I'm completely done with my edit and have held off on rendering or anything. I was going to use the plugins as a last step before I finished. Any help you could give me I would appreciate. This is my first project with the d90, my first time using fcp, and the first time i've picked up any type of camera in over 5 years. Don't assume I know anything. :) Thanks
 
i get around 300 downloads every day and i have 20,000 registered users, and only one every few weeks miss the "the plugins are supposed to be text files, don't worry" line on the page and in the readme. :-) just install them in the correct place and they will work, i just made the file type text so that you can open them more easily and edit them as you like. this said there's an issue with fcp 4.5 where you may have to open the files in fxbuilder and "create plugin" so if this is your version i suggest you talk to your teacher again. good luck.

(never listen to people who use words like installable by the way. the world is full of them and i can't say they matter much. ignore them just as they ignore knowledge and you'll be fine)

/matt
 
I am a FCE user - any suggestions how to make it work in FCE since it does not have Apple prores 720p 24FPS preset?
thanks in advance
 
i am kind of confused. is there order list for the workflow? i can't find it, only bits and pieces here and there. i was able to get the stairsteppin' and apply it to the timeline keep ending up with widescreen! although i am quite happy with the image otherwise. is there a complete step by step guide to working with the d90 in FCP 6? HELP! SOMEONE!
http://www.vimeo.com/3195920
 
the d90 shoots widescreen so that's not surprising. :-) i suggest you chose the prores 1280x720 24p preset, change the sequence timebase to 24, set rt to unlimited, add your footage, and apply the rescaler. done.

/matt
 
Hi Matt, thanks for your plugins, I'm trying them for the first time. Just so I've got it sorted (as I am a simpleton in this area):

The D90 rescaler - The D90 records in 800P then downscales to 720P which creates stair stepping. Your plugin removes this downscaling, taking the footage to 800P, then used FCP to re-downscale to 720P which increase the quality and helps w/this stair stepping.

The D90 upscaler - This goes one further and says, well instead of removing the D90's downscale then using FCP to take us back to 720P, instead lets remove the downscaling, taking us to 800P, then upscale to 1080P, giving us 1080P footage to play with.

Therefore you can choose which effect you want to apply based on what you want as your final video, if you want 720P footage, use the rescaler and use the upscaler if you want 1080P footage.

This takes care of the stair stepping in FCP.

If one wants to take care of the Noise, one can try using your Noise plugin, although as I understand it this is not one specifically for the D90.

Am I up to speed?

Edit - I've got the upscaler working but is there a way to have a clip of more than 1 minute, as that seems all I can set the slug's duration to. I've got some live music tracks I'd like to upscale, which last more than a minute - or do I have to split the files into 5 different slugs?
 
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yes, you got it. the noise reduction plugin is actually really good at removing dct noise if you set it to blur (average is better for electronic noise, heavy blur for film grain), so while it's not for d90 specifically it's well suited.

to fix the length just hit cmd-j and set it to whatever. it's a known "bug" in final cut.

/matt
 
Hello,
first of all, thanks to everyone who put effort into this stair stepping removal. It's really fantastic to see that people use their knowledge to find an own solutions for such errors big companies make :)

Currently I'm working on a project with has 720 x 576 widescreen footage from DV cam, and D90 footage.
I'm working with Premiere Pro and the project also was started as a DV 720 x 576 widescreen project, which should end up as mpeg2 on DVD.
I can import the D90 movies, but would need to rescale every movie to 81% to not cut off anything of the picture.
Can somebody think of a method to modify the avisynth code, so that the stair stepping will be removed, and the movie get's resized to fit in this project?

thanks in advance...
 
Sure, just put 720x576 at the last scaling function instead of 1280x720. Changing the scaler to lanczos is probably a good idea too, it's the best for scaling down. I don't remember the syntax but it should say in the docs.
 
I don't understand everything you said. Lanczos? Is that an algorithm? How can I change that in the script?
Btw. 720 x 576 wasn't right, in this case it can be real 16:9, so I changed it to 1024 x 576 and it worked.
But in the Virtual Dub preview I have a problem that, those vertical error lines appear sometimes. I'm not sure if they are there when I import the avi in Premiere though.
 
Of course it worked. I thought you wanted to avoid scaling though. 720x576 is the pixel dimensions of pal, widescreen or not. All you accomplish by going to 1024 is an extra scaling step that requires rendering and lowers the quality, and 40% more data that's completely redundant.
 
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