Progressive footage on interlaced timeline

Q

quijotesco24

New member
Sorry if this has been asked before. I tried to search it but didn't found anything.

I've been shooting for a new client few events already and always I've delivered the final edit version as interlaced footage as they requested.

The thing is Ive been only shooting progressive for some time now. So the way I do it is to just drop the files on a interlaced timeline and edit from there. Export the result as an interlaced MOV file.

So far the client has never complained and they are happy. But no matter what. The final edited footage doesn't look interlaced to me. Even if the MOV file is.

In the past I had serious problems to get an interlaced MP4 file from FCPX and progressive footage, it was impossible. Only MOV for interlaced. When I did export as MP4 the final file was always changed to progressive. So I had to render the whole thing externally and it took me ages. At the end it looked interlaced at least.

The work Im sending to this client is for broadcasting so should I assume that if they don't complain is because it's ok to have interlaced footage without looking interlaced? Or am I doing something wrong and client doesn't realize it?

Does the new versions of FCPX let export MP4 interlaced? Or does anybody now how to do it all inside FCPX or Compressor? Last time I had to do it FCPX was on 10.2.

Cheers
 
What do you mean by "looking interlaced"? It will only look interlaced if you play it on an interlaced TV. (or simulate one with a bob filter)

It is trivial to get interlaced video from a progressive source. Usually all you need to do is drop a progressive clip onto an interlaced timeline. If the output comes out as an interlaced sequence, you're good. Offhand I'm not sure of a good way to check the scan type of a video file on a Mac.
 
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I remember back in the day I always wondered why I didn't see lines in my interlaced footage on my computer screen when I should have, and it was because QT7 was blending them. I had to go into the settings and uncheck the option and then I'd see the lines. Not sure about the newest QT.
 
Hmmmm. I am no expert but I am not sure you can actually "re-interlace" (?) something, which is what you sound like you're trying to do. I think once something is progressive (all fields part of the same image in each frame), it's progressive and that's it. If you want that interlaced/soap opera/reality/news look, you have to shoot interlaced in the first place (and then of course edit/export from a timeline with those settings) I don't think you can go from progressive to interlaced. You can go the OTHER way (deinterlacing), but not from progressive to interlaced, as far as I know.
 
60P and 60i have the same temporal motion. Camera is sampling the image the same number of times a second. By placing a 60P source on a 60i timeline the NLE will extract a field from each frame in creating the interlace output. I do this all the time to export DVD and Bluray. I shoot all source as 60P as I like the smooth motion . If the source is 30P on a 60i timeline then the NLE will sample the source twice to create the interlace output and it will tend to look just like the progressive source on playback. In fact it is easier to go interlace from progressive than the other way around since there is nothing missing in the progressive source where the interlace source has half the information missing for each frame.
 
My bad. I never think of 60p in these discussions. . .I was thinking of 30p. Although it doesn't look he says in the OP which he uses. But again, if client specifically wants interlaced, why not shoot that way for that client?
 
I feel the value of 60P especially in UHD is all the possibilities it gives for output. 60P UHD can be output that way, cropped etc for HD ( progressive or interlaced ) if you like the slow frame rate look then it is easy to edit on a 30P timeline too. That is why I now shoot always in 60P ( UHD and HD depending on camera).
 
Yes I understand but why start with the lowest quality when one can record the source better and deliver what is need likely at a better quality than recording at that lower level. At least that is true on my camera choices. One then has the option of delivering later at a higher quality level. Certainly, now I mainly record UHD60P but output is DVD and BLuray both interlace of course. There is a slight hit on file sizes of course so if that is important then just shoot for the required output. The other issue is that a lot of modern cameras will not shoot interlace !!!
 
I work in a 50 area so I tend to shoot everything at 25p. Not shooting 50i because it looks weird to me and sometimes I can use same day shooting for more than one client.
I shot news using fs5/a7s so for me shooting at 50p means my codec of 50mb/s has half information than shooting 25p. So I stick with 25p.
I was told that shooting progressive and deliver interlaced was a possibility so I just stay with that. But the other day I remembered how bad looking interlaced was and I wonder why my interlaced final edits didn't look thay way now.
Any ideas about FCPX and MP4 interlaced exporting?
 
Ron Evans said:
Yes I understand but why start with the lowest quality when one can record the source better and deliver what is need likely at a better quality than recording at that lower level. At least that is true on my camera choices. One then has the option of delivering later at a higher quality level. Certainly, now I mainly record UHD60P but output is DVD and BLuray both interlace of course. There is a slight hit on file sizes of course so if that is important then just shoot for the required output. The other issue is that a lot of modern cameras will not shoot interlace !!!
Click to expand...

It's okay for what you're doing, but if you would have to shoot anything on a high-end level in 24p and shot in 60p, you probably would be fired.
 
Yes I do not do film stuff or want to as the 24P motion upsets me as I like nice smooth motion. Mine are archives of events so want it to be as close to being there as is possible and for me that means the highest frame rate and resolution. As a comment, to me, 24P does not do well on a TV, shot to be projected in a cinema at 24P is different than having the playback cadence to sync with a refresh rate of 60hz. That 2:3 pulldown destroys the effect for me of a true cinema experience. As I get older this cadence effect is becoming more disturbing. So for me with playback on a TV some multiple of 60 is more appropriate. I do not like the slow frame rates but 30P is more appropriate than 24P for TV in North America. If I was employed by someone to do a job I would do exactly as I was told so no I would not be fired !! As it is I do this for myself so I decide. I also feel that as resolution increases for home viewing one may see even higher frame rates as small movement/artifacts become more obvious. I think we are at a stage where choice of resolution and frame rate can be made for project rather than one size fits all. Clearly story telling/fiction can use frame rate/motion and colour grading to impart emotion. However if one is shooting a documentary or training video then for me that is best served by highest frame rate, resolution and HDR to give the viewer the feeling of being right there.
 
Depend what you mean by interlace looking bad. Do you mean the smooth motion of interlace ? If you shoot 25P and export 25i ( 50i ) then the progressive motion is retained in the interlace stream. The viewer is still seeing 25 frames per second where for interlace 50i the viewer was seeing twice as many images even if they were fields the motion is twice as smooth. If you pixel peep at large magnification the different frame rates you may find some differences however one needs to look at how the Long GOP encoders work. I believe that in the same time ( 1 sec ) 50P will have 50 i frames and for 25P will have 25 i frames so the motion needed to encode the P and B frames for 25P is greater than for the 50P P and B. You are trading off more i frames of 50P for greater data needed for the differences at the slower frame rate. At the faster frame rate there is less movement for the P and B frames to encode but for the slower frame rate there is more movement requiring more data to be encoded. The way I see it at HD resolution 50Mbps may be sufficient to do both at an acceptable level. At UHD this will not be the case as I know from my own cameras. 100Mbps for 30P/25P and 150Mbps for 50/60P.

Can't help on FCPX as I am on PC with EDIUS.
 
Many people (who can see the difference) simply don't like the "interlaced look", associating it with cheapness/low quality. . .soap operas, news, reality shows. Even in non-fiction settings (corporate video, documentary, concerts etc.) many folks like the "cinematic" look of progressive footage. That's all they mean.
 
I think you are likely referring to frame rate as I do not think it matters whether it is progressive or interlace ( 60P or 60i ) for instance it will look exactly the same on a TV. However I do agree that 30P will look different to either 60P or 60i.
 
I'd have to hook something up to my HDTV and display something interlaced to be sure that's true. . .didn't used to be. You used to absolutely be able to tell the difference between 60i and 30p on TV. Both of those are 30fps.
 
60i is 59.94 fields per second, the camera is taking "pictures" every 59.94 of a second just like 60P ( 59.94 full frames a second ) the only difference is that for interlace the vertical resolution is half, an odd or even field . The frame rate is 29.97 which is a timecode that coincides with the interlace sync that tells the downstream equipment the start of the two field sequence as it is of course important to know whether it is an even or odd field for processing or display. The temporal motion of 60i interlace is exactly the same as 60P. 30P is entirely different since the camera is only taking 30 frames a second half the sample rate of 60P or 60i. Hence the smoother motion of 60i and 60p. It is unfortunate that the timecode of 60i and 30P are the same but the sample rates are very different and they certainly look different.
 
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