DVX100b Capture Settings with Final Cut Studio

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 zig zaggy. 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 is DV NTSC 48 kHz.

Thanks so so SO much in advance everyone!
 
Hello, i'm from an european country so my settings are slightly different. i undertand your concern cuz I bought a dvx 1 month ago and I had some surprises with some of my rush at the beginning.
First, do you shoot in progressive mode (24p ) or interlaced ? Cuz in that case you need to adjust the settings in the capture window and also in the timeline settings...
According to what I see, it should be a encoding problem, but maybe some good souls can give you a better advice...
 
I believe this this could either be the importing preset, or the playback problem.

If you are shooting in 24pa mode, then you need the DV NTSC 48kHz Advanced Pulldown Removal preset.
If you are shooting in 24p mode, stick to the DV NTSC 48kHz preset.

For the longest time I wasn't satisfied with what I saw in Final Cut as well as playing back my videos in QuickTime. But I later found out that it's not my footage that looks bad, it's the video codecs that my software players use that are not able to show me the right quality.

Export your video from Final Cut as a self-contained video without any compression and play it in VLC Player, see if you are happy with how it looks.

VLC used to lag on my Mac, so I switched to Mplayer for Mac OS. I love how my video looks now.


I hope this helps, good luck.
 
It's pretty easy to look amazing on a small screen like the LCD on the camera.

Try connecting your camera directly to a TV and playing your footage that way. If you still see the zigzags, then it's a camera settings issue. If you don't, then it's a capture or output issue.
 
Having the exact same problem

Having the exact same problem

I was curious if you've been able to fix this yet, as I've been having the same issue (ziggy lines on otherwise straight edges).

_Kai
 
When you look at the footage browser, you might check to the "Compressor" column. I've had instances when I've picked the right capture preset (24p Advanced Pulldown Removal) and it captures it using Prores 422. This may be because my timeline is ProRes - the Compressor should be listed as DV/DVCPRO NTSC. Whenever my 24PA footage is captured using ProRes the footage looks similar to what you are describing.

It could be something else, but check the Compressor column to any clips you've captured. To fix this, you have to change the capture compressor preset within the Capture Presets.
 
IS this just a preview issue? We had a junky final cut machine in school and it always looked bad while editing but when you exported it it was fine. FCP is designed to lower quality to improve performance on slow machines. I'm more of an avid guy now and i know in avid you can select the preview quality. Is there a setting like that in FCP
 
I just finished a wedding and have run into the same problem. Did you ever resolve this issue? It looks horrible in DVD Studio Pro. Not sure if I am going to have to upload all the footage again and if so what settings to use this time.
 
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