Basic Field Dominance question

In Tom Wolsky's FCE HD3.5 Editing Workshop book (xlnt), he mentions setting Field Dominance to None when working in 24p, but I'm unclear what this does and whether it applies to my situation:
I'm shooting 24p HDV on Canon HV20, exporting to QT movie, burn in iDVD. DVD to be played on generic DVD players - not going to Sundance.
Also, if I should be setting Field Dominance to None, when should this be done - before rendering, before exporting to QT, or ???

Most consumer cameras don't shoot true 24p. They shoot pseudo 24p recorded at 29.97. The material is still interlaced with a pulldown cadence. Pull the canvas up to 100% and step through the video at a point where there is some motion. If the HV20 uses the normal 2:3:2:3 pulldown you'll see a cadence of two frames without interlacing, then three frames with interlacing, then two without and so on. That's how movies are mashed onto television; four frames of film are spread over five frames or 10 fields of video. Changing the sequence field dominance to none doesn't affect the captured material in any way; it only affects how anything that needs to be rendered in the sequence is rendered. It should render it without interlacing.

Similar Messages

  • Field Dominance Question for Sequence

    I shot my video in DVCPro50 format at 30p. I have edited my video in a DV50 sequence. I am ready to take to a production house to be transferred to BetaSP. In the past with other videos I take the finished sequence and nest it into a Uncompressed 8-bit NTSC sequence and that is what I give to production house. In this Uncompressed 8-bit sequence should I select Field Dominance: None or Field Dominance: Lower (even)?
    Thanks for your help!

    If someone could help me out to confirm this. I would rather do this right than find out when my commercial is broadcast that I messed up the field dominance.
    My final sequence is being transferred to BETASP. I take to the production house an uncompressed 8 bit NTSC sequence.
    If I understand this correctly my uncompressed sequence will have a field dominance of lower if the original footage was SD.
    If my original footage was HD than my uncompressed sequence should have the field dominance set to upper.
    So the uncompressed sequence that is transferred to BETASP has a field dominance set by the original footage?
    Thanks for taking the time with this.
    Darrin

  • Field Order/Dominance question

    I've been noticing that spots I've produced that air on my local cable network appear to be having problems with jerky movement of elements created in Motion. I thought that maybe the field order was set wrong on my Motion projects. (I should add that I'm doing "the big no-no" by only monitoring these on my computer and not on a TV monitor. I know, I'll have to remedy that someday.) Anyway, I'm using the "NTSC Broadcast SD" preset and that means field order is lower/even. I'm definitely rendering these out with field rendering on (Apple ProRes, btw) as I can see the interlace combing when viewing the output file.
    I thought I'd try an experiment by creating a Motion project that would expose interlacing problems in the worst way and then render it out of Motion three ways: lower, upper and none. I then encoded these to mpeg-2 using Squeeze and burned them to a DVD (in DVDSP) to view on my consumer DVD player and SD television. (Remember, that's the only way I can view them played back interlaced...) To my surprise both the upper and lower movies looked terrible and the one rendered with no field dominance looked the best.
    What gives? Any ideas? Does this seem right?
    Thanks!
    --Kurt Cowling

    Wow Iain, you know waaaay more about this than I do. In fact, I asked a question in the iDVD area of this board many moons ago regarding whether or not there was some sort of metadata or tag that let iDVD know if the incoming file was interlaced or progressive and the response was basically "I don't know for sure, but I don't think so".
    Anyway, I can confirm what you say regarding the output of ProRes files. The content is interlaced, but when clicking the deinterlace button in the advanced area of QuickTime player nothing happens.
    I tried as you suggested and opened the "Advanced..." area of the output settings in Motion and found that interlace was indeed not checked in the ProRes settings. When I output a file after checking that box I can also confirm that the deinterlace button in QT player did actually deinterlace the display of the file.
    I normally output my Motion projects in several layers and bring them back into FCP (as rendered video, not Motion files) to composite them with the underlying camera footage. (Makes later changes and updates easier to deal with for my workflow.) I then export the composite out of FCP as uncompressed SD and then proceed to encode for FTP delivery from there (usually H.264). I opened a recent uncompressed file that was output from FCP and found that it suffered from the same problem, namely that the file was not tagged as interlaced, even though the content was interlaced.
    I then opened one of the H.264 files that was encoded from the uncompressed master. Same issue again.
    The one thing I haven't tried (yet) is outputting my test project from Motion as described in my first post (but with the files tagged correctly this time!) and see if the DVD that gets burned plays correctly. I will try this in the next day or two.
    I don't know what happens to my files after I FTP them to the cable provider, but I assume they must transcode them from H.264 into their system. If the files aren't tagged as interlaced then their system is probably treating them incorrectly, as well.
    This brings me to the final question(s) that may solve all of this for me:
    Is there a way to change just the metadata/tag in an existing QuickTime file (so that it is tagged correctly as interlaced) without having to re-render from the beginning? Also, It appears that FCP may suffer from the same issue since it obviously uses QT to export, just like Motion. If I correctly tag a file rendered from Motion and then import it into FCP and FCP doesn't then pass the correct tag on output to uncompressed I still have the same problem. Or, if FCP tags the uncompressed file correctly, but QT doesn't pass this along to the H.264, I'm still screwed. Hence, my question at the top of this paragraph! I think I really only need the last file I handle before FTPing to have the correct tag, since the content has been fine all along.
    Thanks so much Iain for looking into this! I would never have found this on my own. I'm not exactly sure if this is a bug or just a bad implementation, but this seems like a bad oversight for sure and not something that could be figured out from reading the manual.
    --Kurt
    p.s. I will try some more experimenting with this and hopefully can come back and marked this thread as "question answered" since a workaround seems doable. Iain, would you be willing to submit this to Apple as a bug report? You seem to have a much better handle on this than I do.

  • Field Dominance problem and questions

    I am trying to capture 24p Advanced DVCAM material. I've been using the easy setup. I've tried test captures of about 15 seconds (using capture now) which come into FCP with a field Dom. of NONE and load into my 23.98 sequence timeline with a olive green render indicator (I know I can edit with that as that is just a playback resolution downgrade). If I rewind to approx. the same start point on the tape and capture a 9 minute clip, it comes in with a field dominance of EVEN and loads into the exact same timeline with an orange render indicator. First off, that seems odd to me. Secondly, I've read in other forums that there is a possibility that I can change the field dom. of my longer clips and/or my sequence, but I'm not at all clear on it. Will changing the field dom. allow me to edit w/o render indicators? Do you think that it is the field dom. issue that is causing the render indicators' to appear, or could it be other issues. It seems to me that the fact that I can get the short clips to load with and olive green line, means that it probably is the field dom. issue that is causing my difficulties. Is there an error in my logic? I'm also unclear if I am able to tell FCP not to render in interlaced mode. Is that something I can do? Does it even apply to my situation?

    Jerry,
    Thanks for the reply. I've been "assured" (who knows what that means) that the material was shot advanced, but it might make sense for me to do a test to see if Cinema Tool pulldown removal solves my problem. Can I use the pulldown removal option in the FCP tools menu after I've captured or do I need to use Cinema Tool.
    I must say I'm still baffled about my different length clips capturing with different properties even though I never changed any settings between captures. Any hunches on your part about that anomaly?

  • Field Dominance Setting question

    Hi
    Just read an article suggesting setting the field dominance setting to 'none' to reduce the interlace on progressive footage on renders?
    I have checked the FCP manual and it doesn't specify a prefered setting for 1080i50, which I have been filming in.
    Could anyone clarify or suggest pro's and con's of the field dominance settings options?
    thanks

    For 1080i50, you should leave field dominance at Upper. The sequence field dominance (field order is a more accurate term) should be the same as that of the source footage. Stick to that rule and you'll be OK. For progressive sources it's None. For interlaced HD format sources, it's Upper. For SD interlaced sources it's Lower.
    Now, in the case of 1080p25...it's progressive, but it can be carried on a 1080i50 timeline with no ill effects EXCEPT that transitions, moving titles, and perhaps certain other effects will render with the normal interlacing of the sequence format. The fix is to change the sequence field dom setting to None. Hope that makes sense.

  • Field Dominance and De-interlacing: what settings to use?

    I've been trying to read about, and understand, the issues of deinterlacing and field dominance/order, but I'm having problems and don't yet see what the clear solution is.
    I'm shooting DV footage with a consumer grade camcorder:
    Capture Preset: DV NTSC 48 kHz
    Sequence Preset: DV NTSC 48kHz
    720x480 NTSC DV
    QT Video Compressor: DV/DVCPRO-NTSC
    The problems are "teeth and vertical lines" in the quick movements and transitions, but fixing one (by changing the "Field Dominance" setting in the Sequence) makes the other slightly worse, it seems.
    Or, maybe I should be using the de-interlacing filter on everything? I haven't found clear instructions about what destination material this should be used for...
    I'd be grateful if someone could look at this web page containing examples of what I mean:
    http://www.karma-lab.com/images-pub/apple-q/fielddom_nt.html
    Picture 1: NTSC DV frame, from sequence set to "Lower (Even)"
    Picture 2: NTSC DV frame, from sequence set to "None"
    Picture 3: frame from "Cross Zoom" transition in "Lower (Even)" sequence
    Picture 4: frame from "Cross Zoom" transition in "None" sequence
    Questions:
    1) What are the correct settings? it would seem to be "None", because otherwise my transitions all have "teeth" and look like somebody is viewing it cross-eyed, even at full speed you can see the teeth in the transitions. But if I set it to none, then it seems that quick movements of the people in the videos get slightly more "teeth" to them...
    2) I am producing web video (quicktime/flash video movies). Not for TV or broadcast. Am I supposed to throw the de-interlacing filter on everything?
    with "lower", it's jerky (half the frames missing, I guess) but the "teeth" go away
    with "flicker-free", it's not jerky, but it gets a little fuzzy looking, and I want to keep things "crisp"...
    I need less advice on the theory, and more advice on "set it like this for what you are doing." I've read some really technical explanations, and I understand why interlacing exists etc., but not exactly what I should be doing to get the optimal results for my needs, i.e. simply good-looking web video with decent motion and transitions, shot from a consumer level DV camcorder.
    Thanks for reading!
    G4 Dual 800 QuickSilver / PBook G4 Titanium   Mac OS X (10.3.9)  

    What are the correct settings?
    Since you mention that you've shot your material on a consumer-grade camcorder, that would mean that Field Dominance – in your FCP Sequence Settings – should be set to Lower. If you use None – and I'm sparing you the tech talk here – then you're basically rendering out at a reduced quality (as the last pic in your link demonstrates)
    I am producing web video (quicktime/flash video movies). Not for TV or broadcast. Am I supposed to throw the de-interlacing filter on everything? with "lower", it's jerky (half the frames missing, I guess) but the "teeth" go away with "flicker-free", it's not jerky, but it gets a little fuzzy looking, and I want to keep things "crisp"...
    If you really want to keep things crisp, you best quality option - within the Final Cut Studio suite of tools - is to Export Using Compressor, with the Deinterlace option in Compressor 2.x's Frame Controls to Better (Motion Adaptive) while setting your Output Fields to be Progressive (presuming that you'll exporting to QuickTime first, then converting to Flash. Having said that, this type of conversion can take a long time to process and may not be suitable if you're under a serious time constraint.
    Otherwise, the speediest option is indeed to slap a Deinterlace filter onto everything (or nest your sequence then place the filter on the nest) but the quality isn't always what folks would like.

  • Will setting sequence field dominance to "NONE" effect resolution?

    First, thanks all for the title help. It looks like i might have it licked. From this point however comes a new question.
    The only way to keep my titles clear and free from flicker is to set the imported livetype .mov file's field dominance to "none" and place it in a sequence that also has a field dominance set to "none". Great. now i need to put the title sequence on my master time line (project time line of 1hr 20min) which exists in a sequence set to the standard field dominance of "Lower" and which is made up of an hour and a half worth of clips that are all set to "lower" as well.
    My question(s) is this-
    While i understand what field dominance is doing as an upper and lower, what does none do?
    Currently the project (under the settings above) is rendering as i have changed the master sequence's FD setting to none. I haven't changed the individual clip settings to none due to my ignorance on the issue, only the title sequence has the same settings. Put another way- I'm currently rendering a sequence that has its field dominance set to "none". On this sequence, i have several clips that have their field dominance set to "lower", and one clip (my livetype title clip) has its field dominance set to "none". I've done all this in order to prevent flicker on my livetype scrolling titles.
    Q: Should i do this?
    Q: Will i suffer a loss of resolution on the clips that have a field dominance that is different from their sequence?
    Q: Will keeping them different effect the export and eventual dvd burn of the project?

    Your better off NOT making a movie from LiveType, but importing the LiveType project file and rendering in FCP. Leave your field dominance settings to match your clips. If you set to NONE, that is for Progressive scanned footage. You will lose clarity on your clips. But don't just ask and listen here... do it. Change the sequence from Lower to None and look very closely at a still frame. You will see that you have lost the "jaggies" but at the cost of edge clarity.

  • 30p with a Canon XA10 - need help with Final Cut 7 "FIELD DOMINANCE" setting and an explanation of "drop frames". Thank you!!

    I shot footage using a Canon XA10 and there are issues with the HD quality not looking as crisp as it should.  I am trying to make sure the settings in Final Cut are right.  Need help confirming what should be in "Field Dominance" --- have seen discussions about making sure it's set to "none" but I'm confused as to what to do. 
    Also someone suggested I use "drop frames" to change from 30p to 24p within Final Cut.  He couldn't explain how to do it so any input appreciated as well as any thoughts on whether this is a good option to try.

    If you're shooting 30p, field dominance should be set to none.   Since you need to use log and transfer to bring this material in to fcp, I would assume it would be set correctly automatically.  Are you sure you've set the camera properly?
    Drop frames will not change 30 p to 24p.   Dropframe timecode simply refers to the number assigned to each frame which drops an occasional number (not any frames) so the timecode duration is the actual duration, since 30p videoi is actually 29.97 frames per second which each frame assigned a timecode number. 
    This is very basic video stuff and requires some basic knowledge of video.  Wikipedia is a pretty good resource for much of this stuff plus there are lots of great resources on the web.  Look up interlaced and progressive video, 24p and 30p. 
    And as far as judging quality, you can only get an accurate view of the quality in fcp when you have a video card attached to a video monitor.  The viewer and canvas are only an approximation of what the quality is.  Minimally, set the canvas or viewer to 100% to get a better approximation of the quality. 

  • How to set Field Dominance

    Hi,
    Sorry if this is a dumb question and its one Im kind of embarssed to ask. I have final cut express 3.0 and I cant seem to figure out how to set the field dominance.

    Why do you need to set the field dominance?
    Select the clip in the Browser and choose Edit>Item Properties.
    In the window that opens Control-click the item you want to alter (in the Clip column) and select from the drop-down menu.
    Ian.

  • Field dominance issue?

    Hello all,
    Working on a project in FCP. The intended delivery format is mini-DV tape. I'm working on a sequence with the following settings: (basically NTSC DV anamorphic)
    Frame Size: 720x480 NTSC DV (3:2)
    Pixel Aspect: NTSC... 720x480 Anamorphic 16x9 is checked
    Field Dominance: Lower (even)
    Editing base: 29.97
    Compressor DV/DVCPRO - NTSC (might switch to ProRes422 down the road)
    Audio is 48kHz @ 16 bit Channel Grouped
    I'm bringing in a clip that was provided by the client on a data dvds. I trimmed a section of the Quicktime movie for download available here: (~100mb, 30 sec)
    http://dl.dropbox.com/u/11697459/Trimmed.mov
    Quicktime's Inspector says the clip is:
    DV, 720x480 (640x480), Millions
    29.97
    When I put this clip on the timeline I get some nasty artifacts that appear to be interlacing issues. I was wondering if anyone has any recommendations regarding how to handle this file to improve the quality?

    Yup, that's normal DV.
    This issue occurs because of interlaced video. In your pipeline, there are 2 places that it could be coming from:
    1) The DVD that you captured this footage from already had this problem (look closely, it may not be something that you can initially see unless you frame-by-frame), which means that it was "amplified" by your re-capture and subsequent conversions.
    2) The DVD clips don't already have this issue, and it only occurred after your filtering. This is the better of the 2 for you...
    So, here's what you can do about it:
    1) "Decomb" the video. There are filters available from Red Giant, The Foundry, etc... that can take video like this and "decomb" the video. Very similar to the decomb feature found in Handbrake and other video conversion tools. You can't use handbrake because Handbrake won't give you a usable file in FCP afterwards, you need a Pro tool to get good quality results that still gives you separate Audio and Video files afterwards.
    2) Go back and de-interlace all of your source material. As I mentioned earlier, the reason that this pops up in the first place is because of the interlaced frames of video. The better option for what you are doing is to go back and de-interlace all of your source media. That will give you the best possible results for what you are going to output later on, because it's going to eliminate as much of the combing as possible before you output.
    Please keep in mind, I'm not saying that you are going to be able to eliminate this issue completely. DV is a hated format by many Pros for exactly the issues that you are facing. But, it's not your fault. Your client has made the choice, just make sure you inform them that there are drawbacks for doing so.
    Good luck!

  • Progressive scanning and Field Dominence questions

    Beginning questions. I will be making simple video movies mostly for viewing on Macbook Pro, maybe on TV, but unlikely.
    I have some settings questions. I will shoot with miniDV Sony DCR-VX2100, 16 bit, 48 khz, NTSC.
    The camera has a setting: Progressive On/Off (normal). The (rather confusing) manual suggests Progressive for more stable stills, otherwise use normal for moving images.
    Should I use Progressive Off? And what setting for Field Dominance, in FCE?
    Hope that I have provided enough info.
    Thanks,
    Sonny

    Should I use Progressive Off? And what setting for Field Dominance, in FCE?
    For regular shooting I'd leave it off. A fast shutter and good lighting will give pretty good stills in off mode.
    If you need (rarely) rock solid stills then switch it on if you like.
    Lower field dominance for DV. When you select the correct Easy Setup in FCE all the leg work is done.
    You should use Easy Setup>DV-NTSC. Set this and Save before capturing to your Sequence.
    Al

  • Offline To Online Changes Field Dominance Settings?

    Hi - I have an offline DV PAL sequence that I am taking online to 10-Bit Uncompressed PAL.
    To my understanding PAL is Upper field dominance, and all my sequences and source files in the offline DV project are upper. However when I check the Uncompressed online project, many of the files (subclips especially) are set to Lower.
    My question is this - since it's easy to change fd for clips by just right clicking in the browser, if I just set the incorrect clips' Field Dominance to Upper and make sure the shift fields filter is not enabled, can I be certain there will be no field dominance issues?
    Maybe more importantly - what is the best way to determine if you have any field dominance issues? Is simply watching it on a monitor/television going to be obvious if something is wrong? Any way to check on the computer?
    Thanks everybody,
    Jason
    G5 Quad 2.5Ghz, 30" Cinema HD Display, Final Cut Studio, CS2 Suite   Mac OS X (10.4.9)   Powerbooks, other Powermacs, iBooks, iMacs, etc...

    Field dominance depends on the format, not the standard (pal,ntsc).
    DV is lower field dominant be it PAL or NTSC, and uncompressed is upper field dominant.
    For true monitoring, you'll need to view your image through an external broadcast monitor... a CRT television should be suitable for monitoring field issues (i believe... i'm sure i'll be corrected if that's wrong).
    The only obvious thing to look for is 'combing'... the lines (fields) that appear around the edges of a subject on the screen, especially when there is a lot of on-screen movement.
    Just out of curiosity... why are you taking a DV sequence into 10-bit uncompressed? Doing graphics etc?
    J

  • Reverse Field Dominance?

    Hello,
    Mac Noob here and very frustrated with imovie. I use a SONY HDD camcorder but also have Streamclip and the Apple mpeg2 plugin. Whenever I bring movies into imovie it looks great on the playback, but when I export or send to media browser to burn to a DVD, the video loses it's quality. It become slightly blurry and a little choppy. Not DVD quality. When I used a PC and use Adobe Premiere Elements I used to have to "reverse field dominace" due to how the Camcorder records.
    Can I do that in imovie. Anyone else having this problem.
    Thanks

    Hi Chas,
    The export to DVD preset provided by PRE expects 'lower field first' of an interlaced video. So if have shot your clip using tape based camcorders, then your clip will also have field order as 'lower field first' and export to DVD will work perfectly for you.
    However, if you shoot your videos using tapeless camcorders which have 'upper field first' then you would need to reverse field dominance to make your clip as 'lower field first' and after that you should export to DVD.
    The basic funda is that the field order of the preset export to DVD and field order of your clip should be in sync.
    Also make sure that you use the correct project preset i.e a preset which matches the type of your clip.
    I hope this will clear your doubt

  • Understanding Seq. Settings as Related to Frame Rate and Field Dominance

    Hello All, I pondered just how to ask this question and have studied the FCP manual, especially Vol. 4
    Pages 361 on. My HD project is a mix of stills and live video. The video was shot on a HV20, green
    screen, captured thru an Intensity Card as Prores. (DV Matte Blast does the keying rather well).
    The sequence settings are 1080i with an editing time base of 29.97, this matches the live footage. We
    are getting close to the question! I noticed that I can change the field dominance to NONE, and add
    my video to the timeline and still have a gray bar and good playback. I know Final Cut is doing a lot of
    tricks in the background, but I would like to be sure that my sequence settings are not going to come
    back and bite me
    Is the net effect producing, on output, a progressive image? When I output to a QT movie I can choose
    29.97 or 30 FPS. This project is not for broadcast, it will be played back off a computer, or Apple TV
    in a museum setting.
    I know that this is my mission, and any help in a better understanding production path is appreciated.
    Thank you, Tom

    Well, I was recommended to do that when using in animation.
    I am very new on the AEP and FCP, so some of my friends who works on AE on PCs (I am in Brazil at the moment and few have MACs to help me)and AVID told me to change the frame rate in the composition to 60, render the 2 fields starting with lower (for TV purposes) and do the final render in 30 Frames. The reason is that the 2 fields would blend perfectly and the animation would not be shaking at the end.
    Is that another simple way to do that?
    I just did a test to see the final result on the DVD: got the movie with no compression and save it with DV-NTSC compression and imported to IDVD. The lines have disapeared when viewing on the play mode.

  • PAL FIELD DOMINANCE

    Hi working in NTSC , I don't know about PAL, so here is my question:
    What is field dominance in pal ( upper or Lower)
    Thanks for your time
    See ya!

    Just checking archives and found a post from G Nattress
    "DV PAL, DV NTSC, DV50, DVCproHD all lower,
    HDV upper,
    PAL uncompressed SD upper,
    NTSC uncompressed SD is lower - I'd check the easy presets in FCP to be sure, although it could be hardware dependent on what you're capturing with.
    Not sure on DVD field order, but compressor usually gets it right if you tell it what the source is.
    Graeme"
    Question answered!

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