Pixelization/Artificating In Timeline

F

francheezie

Active member
Hey guys,

Check out the screenshot below:

Left side = Correct quality, as viewed in the Viewer
Right = Pixelized and crappy, once I drag it into the Timeline.

I've checked my Timeline settings and everything seems to be kosher... anyone know why this degrading is happening?

Timeline.png
 
What format is the source clip, and what are your project settings? Looks like the canvas is showing a real-time (albeit lower-rez) preview of a clip that will need rendering.

No matter what is actually going on, remember that the FCP canvas is not and accurate gauge of what's going on. In fact, it's a pretty unreliable place to judge the quality of your finished project. You need to watch on an external production monitor in order to see what's really going on. Chances are, an external monitor will look just fine.
 
Totally hear ya on the external monitor. Can you recommend somewhere on the cheap-cheap that sells them?

Just double-checked and settings are actually the same, 720 x 480 is the resolution. Very weird. I'm going to export a couple and see what they look like.
 
francheezie said:
Totally hear ya on the external monitor. Can you recommend somewhere on the cheap-cheap that sells them?

Just double-checked and settings are actually the same, 720 x 480 is the resolution. Very weird. I'm going to export a couple and see what they look like.
Click to expand...

Just don't expect QuickTime player to do it much more justice. This is also a very inaccurate viewing method.

For straight SD, miniDV editing, I go out of my deck to a Sony PVM-L2 series monitor. But monitoring for you depends on your hardware setup. Ideally, you want to watch from your FW video device, or from a video breakout box like Matrox or AJA. For absolute, color-accurate monitoring, you need to have a true production monitor. These are not cheap, though you may be able to find one used by Internet auction.

The other option is an LCD or plasma display.
 
Try viewing the canvas at 100% (and not 74% as it is now). Like C2V mentioned, the canvas is only a preview and can look very different especially if it's not at 100%.
 
The Viewer shows the file in its native format. The Canvas shows what's in the timeline *after* it's been processed by your timeline settings. So, for example, if you have a nice, hi-rez image in the Viewer and you drop that into a DV timeline what you'll see in the Canvas is what's left of your hi-rez image after it's been kicked in the nuts by the DV codec.


-A
 
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