Field Dominance (FCP) vs. Field Order (Motion)

I am having a time trying to figure out what's going on with my clips that I send to Motion. I'm working with video that is HDV1080i60 and has a Field Dominance: Upper (Odd). Now when I send a clip from the timeline and it opens in Motion, the video appears heavily interlaced and I have to go into Project Properties and change the Field Order: Upper First (Odd) to Field Order: None. After I make the change to Field Order: None, my slowed down wakeboarding/tubing clips look fantastic.
I don't understand why I have to make this change however. I'm sort of a noobie, learning how to apply speed changes and variable speed changes to clips. But I can also send unaltered clips to Motion and I run into the same issue.

One thing to know is that by default in FCP you are only seeing one field in the Canvas but in Motion by default you are seeing both fields - so that may be all that's going on.
To see both fields in FCP you need to set the Canvas to 100%; to see only one field in Motion, you deselect Field Rendering under the View pop-up menu (or Option-F IIRC).
When you slow a clip down, you can run into field problems, which is why choosing Field Dominance of None can be helpful. Better to work with material that was shot progressively to begin with, though.

Similar Messages

Progressive Field Dominance vs Lower Field Dominance

I am putting a project together in FCP 5.1.4 Most assets are NTSC QT clips with lower field dominance. I have some PAL assets with Progressive field dominance. I am using a slow-PAL conversion method outlined here:
http://www.macworld.com/article/49306/2006/02/marchcreat.html
I just want to make sure my workflow is appropriate.
If I use Cinema Tools to convert frame rate to 23.98 and then Compressor to change aspect ratio, and finally FCP to add frames back in to arrive at 29.97 NTSC . . .
DO I NEED TO change the progressive field dominance to lower field dominance at ay point?
I will ultimately be outputting to DVD which may be viewed on either computer or video monitor.

From my rudimentary knowledge I believe that as opposed to upper or lower field dominance, the source asset was recorded as "progressive scan", which I assume means NO field dominance.
What I do not understand is, if I import assets into a FCP sequence that has a lower field dominance, then what happens to these assets in the timeline when I export them out of FCP to either mpeg2 for inclusion in a DVDStudioPro. Or as a compressed quicktime for a streaming video on the web.
I am concerned that progressive scan assets mixed with lower field dominance may cause weird interlacing artifacts when I ultimately playback the end project.
Don't know whether I'm overthinking this, but want to avoid hours of work in the wrong direction.
Help?

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 dominance upon import into fcp problem

having changed the project setttings in livetype to comply to pal video with lower field dominance so that i can use it in my dv-based projects, i've tried both to open the livetype project directly into final cut pro and also to render the movie in livetype and import that into final cut pro.
in both cases, fcp sets field dominace to upper field.
on the cinema display lcd screen that doesn't seem to make any difference, but surprises lurke when outputting to dvd ....
in an attempt to bypass the problem i've changed project settings to 'none' and rendered the movie again.
in this case too, fcp insists the imported movie is upper field dominant...
is this an annomality in fcp's import routines and does it assume that all pal video that is not dv is upperfield dominant or is there a setting in eithere program that can fix this problem?
livetype 2.02
fcp 5.0.x
thanks

Is your drive formatted macosextended? Can you edit bars and tone into a new sequence? What happens if you duplicate an existing sequence, select all and delete? Can you then edit into this sequence?
Have you tried deleting your fcp preferences? Get preference manager from www.digitalrebellion.com to do this.
Have you installed or updated any new software or hardware on your system recently?

FCP Field Dominance Error? 1920x1080p displayed as interlaced!?

Can you answer this?
Why is a video file in a 1920x1080 progressive format said to have Upper (Odd) field dominance in the Final Cut Browser, which implies that it is interlaced, not progressive?
Here's the details.
(A)Video shot in HDV on a Sony Z5U at 1080p30 (1440x1080) is transcoded in Compressor to Photo - JPEG in 1920x1080p30, that's 1920x1080 with square pixels with progressive frames.
(B)The video is reopened in Compressor, which reads that it is, in fact, 1080p30 (1920x1080).
BUT!!!(C) When the video is opened in Final Cut's Browser, it reads that it has an Upper (Odd) field dominance, implying that it has an interlaced frame.
My Plea.
I can't figure this out, and I need to deliver some video. I have every reason to think my video is leaving Compressor in 1920x1080p30, but the field dominance info in Final Cut is holding me up.
If I remember right, Final Cut Studio 7 isn't able to handle 1920x1080p, only 1920x1080i and 1280x720p. Is this what's going on, maybe? Does Final Cut just not even know about 1920x1080p?
I very much appreciate any help.

Wow, such a quick answer and exactly what I was looking for. All problems solved and ready to deliver.
I always assumed most programs interpreted files as they loaded them into RAM, or something like that, which is when they would determine something like if a video file is progressive or interlaced. Knowing that Final Cut, instead, looks to a table of standard values when opening a file is great to know. Thanks a lot.
And lastly, about the sequence settings, I'm ready to deliver - the Compressor export to Photo - JPEG was the last step. I was only opening the file in Final Cut to confirm the right final format.
Thanks again for the help.
Matt
Epokhe Cut Media
http://www.epokhecutmedia.com

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.

Why Would Upper Field Dominance Change The Quality Of My SD So Much?

I did a shoot in SD and edited it as such of course. The thing is when I was done, all of my slow motion looked echoy (a plague of mine if you're not familiar with my posts) and generally looked a bit lower quality then even SD usually gives. So I freaked out (finally) and found a guy on line that suggested changing the field dominance to Upper and to make sure that I have my Video Processing set to "Fastest Linear". Now this was a guy that has had this posted for a couple of years, so it wasn't like he actually told me this directly.
Well, it worked. The video looks good, slow motion is nice and smooth. Just for fun, plus the fact that I don't have a clue what I'm doing, I decided to see what it would look like leaving the processing the to Fastest and change the dominance to lower, and behold, the cruddy video plague of mine returned. It seems like everywhere else I look, people say not to do this, but it worked. Why? I do know what the dominance of upper and lower are, I'm just not smart enough to know why it worked and I want to learn this badly. For example, would I do this same dominance for HD?
Thanks again guys,
Crayton

I filmed it in SD on my Sony HDV-AU1 camera. What is killing me is if I choose upper then the footage looks fine, but then what I have done is add some jpeg images that I created in photoshop on a PC. they are simple images of text that say "Round 1" or "Round 2" in between the fights. I have them spin into view using one of the transitions in FCP, but when I get it to dvd, they look horrible, echoy, just like the footage looked like before I changed it to upper field. So as it looks now, I can't have both look good i guess. This doesn't make sense to me!! It is incredibly frustrating especially since I'm out of money and almost out of time on this project (it has to be done by next week). I keep re-doing the project, re-building it, re-setting it in one type of sequence after another and it's not looking good at all. what am I doing wrong?

24p DVX footage Lower Even field dominance interlacing?

I've captured DVX 24p (not 24pA) footage. When I check Item properties for a clip FCP shows Lower (Even) under Field Dominance? Shouldn't it be Progressive or is it because 24p was captured using a 29.97 timeline in FCP as opposed to 24pA.
I am seeing horizontal lines during motion when played back on DVD? Is that interlacing? Where did I go wrong.

Look, you really need to wrap your head around 24p, 30p, 24pA and 30i.
Interlace is not an ugly issue. It is a benefit. Interlacing normal on broadcast television. Your TV scans down and back up for each frame... alternating lines. When you shoot 24p on the DVX it puts it to tape where for every 3 frames of progressive it combines FOUR frames to give you TWO additional combined (interlaced) frames. So.. there are 6 sets of 5 frames per 1 second giving you 30 frames per second. If you take those 3 progressive frames by themselves 3x6 is 24 frames per second.
You OBVIOUSLY want to final out to 29.97 or 30 fps so you'll need those extra 2x6 frames to get you to 30!! If you wanted to final out to 29.97 AND you wanted progressive frames for EVERY frame you should have shot 30p mode.
Now... when are they ugly? When you are standing still on a frame. When are they unnecessary? When you plan to show them on a computer or progressive monitor. Remember, even when shooting progressive and playing it on a TV you will STILL have the TV doing interlaced scans... the only difference is the down scan is taken from the same point in time as the up scan.
Plus... you don't capture TO a sequence... you capture the video and edit it IN a sequence. You can still capture the footage in 24p at 29.97 and remove those 2x6 extra frames and edit in a 23.98 sequence.
Do some reading. It will only help.
CaptM

Which Field Dominance setting in Compressor?

Hello,
Which Field Dominance setting should I choose in Compressor, given that I shot on DV in progressive mode, and have rendered and exported to uncompressed 8-bit 4:2:2? (The Field Dominance alternatives in Compressor are: "Top First", "Bottom First", "Progressive", and "Automatic".)
I am confused by this because in FCP, I believe that the correct Field Dominance setting is "Lower (Even)" (not "Progressive"), since in DV format, images are stored one field after another, even if pairs of fields were captured simultaneously, i.e. even if the camera was used in "progressive mode".
But precisely because pairs of fields were captured simultaneously when I shot in progressive mode, I suspect that the correct Field Dominance setting in Compressor is "Progressive". But perhaps I'm wrong(?).
Would someone please enlighten me?
Thanks.
Robert

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 in photoshop menus?

I am struggling with making my photoshop - designed menus look good both on a computer screen and on a television set. They look perfect on the computer but blurred and distorted on tvs. - like the wrong field dominance is set.
I imported my pict file into FCP to investigate, and found it looks the same there as on the tv. If I change the field dominance on my FCP sequence to none, problems disappear. Aha.
But in DVDSP, the only thing I can find for this is in the encoding menu, field order options are auto, top and bottom. Auto works with all the other menus... but not my new ones.
am I missing something in photoshop? or DVDSP?
any advice so appreciated.
-Kathy
G5 powermac Mac OS X (10.4.6)
G5 powermac Mac OS X (10.4.2)

Yes, it's disconcerting that Streamclip doesn't have a None selection and that when brought into FCP, clip properties continue to indicate Upper. (A fun fact – the same clip from MPEG Streamclip brought into FCP X would be reported as Field Dominance: Progressive. ) But back to FCP 7… for future reference, you can change a clip's field flag to None in the browser.
BTW, if you bring your 5D clips in using Log and Transfer, the field info will be reported by FCP correctly.
The 1080i segment setting is a Frame size choice…for whatever reason they never around to putting in a 1080P selection.
You can copy and paste the original sequence into a new sequence. If it asks (and it probably won't) whether you want to change it to match your clip, you'd obviously say no. The new sequence will then need to be rendered. Hopefully, you'll be good to go.
Good luck.
Russ

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.

HDV to DVD-Change Field Dominance Or Not?

A search I did recently pointed to this article:
[http://www.larryjordan.biz/articles/bkhdvconvert.html]
The author claims that when exporting an HDV sequence from FCP to Compressor, he changed the default field dominance from Upper to Lower, resulting in a better quality DVD, smoother motion, etc.
There wasn't anything wrong with my HDV exports using the default upper dominance, but I decided to try it, just looking to squeeze out any improvement I could.
The results were terrible; awfully jerky motion, dot crawl across the top of the image, etc., so I went back to using the default.
But then I thought, I wonder if the improvement the author saw was because he exported an HDV Quicktime Movie first, then put that into Compressor and switched the field dominance . . .
I usually export my HDV timeline right out of FCP to best quality DVD in Compressor, without the in between step. Just wondering if anyone else has tried it the way it's mentioned in the article, and if it's made a difference for them.

Wow, this thread was way back there;
Anyway, I use a Sony V1U, and shoot 1080i60, and I had been getting acceptable results, but was just looking for a bit more detail.
After reading the article, I sent a finished project to Compressor both ways; 1st with the default upper field dominance, and then again changing it to lower, as the article recommended. The default upper file looked pretty good, but the 2nd time with it on lower looked terrible; all kinds of motion displacement.
I've been using the default since, and have not tried it the other way since that first time. When I get time, I'd like to try exporting a QuickTime movie first, then put that into Compressor with the switched lower dominance to see if there's any improvement that way. I usually just export directly to Compressor from the timeline.
I appreciate the comments, and I'm always interested in any setting changes that might squeeze out some more detail when going from HDV to DVD.

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!

Is there any way I can see field dominance?

I have been working on a project shot in HDV1080i50. Now I need to make a 14by9 PAL master in DigiBeta format. So I create an umcompressed PAL sequence and drop the final AIC 1080i50 version of the program into it.
Sending the uncompressed file off to be printed to DigiBeta the bureau says the fields are reversed. My problem is that I can't find any way to see the final project to see if I have got the field dominance right. Does anyone know of a tool that would let me look at the fields in the final Uncompressed print I generate. (when I play it on the computer screen it appears to play fine since computer monitors don't do interlaced)
thanks,
Paul Shard
Dual 1GHz Mac OS X (10.4.3) 1.75GB ATI9800, FCStudio

Hi Paul,
I've been battling these same issues, making DVD's from HDV footage, I didn't go via AIC, or out to a bureau, though.
I found that, the uncompressed codec, when dropped into compressor, is defaulted to a different field dominance than a DV codec, even though they were both lower field dominant in the FCP sequence.
I needed to manually change the dominance of the uncompressed movie, to lower, before I created an MPEG 2.
Can you tell the bureau to do the same ? That your footage is correct (lower first) but that they are not treating the uncompressed file as such.
What are they using, once you have given the file to them - compressor ?
The shift field filter is right. But the whole thing is quite confusing, and I found the default field dominance in compressor was different, if I printed an uncompressed file out, or exported directly from FCP to compressor (which is very slow, but does not require the uncompressed file).
However, regardless of the default compressor set, lower field dominance was correct, and the saved movie was correct for lower field.
Hope this helps.

Field Dominance (FCP) vs. Field Order (Motion)

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