Working out Field dominance

I've got a sequence I'm working on where the field dominance is causing me trouble.
Essentially I've got a wide view, shot on an SD/DV camera and this is intercut with footage from a HiDef/AVCHD camera. The finished output is a DVD via iDVD and looks mostly OK (although the HiDef originated footage is far superior) but some chunks/chapters have strange double-vision/lack of smoothness which I assume is incorrect field ordering. Removing all "Shift Fields" filters seemed to help a bit, implying that the automatic calculations were getting it wrong, but I still have some bits that need tweaking.
What I'd really like to know is - is there a way of determining what the setting should be without going through the (extremely time-consuming) process of creating a DVD and looking at it on a telly?
Also, I'm not sure about the difference between +1/none/-1 (I can't believe that there can be three possible options!)
Thanks!
By the way, I don't know if anyone else has experienced this, but to get the best quality DVD from my HiDef AVCHD footage (Panasonic SD1), I find it's best to have the sequence at DV resolution (eg. by dragging some old DV clip onto it, allowing the "change to match clip" request and then removing the clip) before dragging the HiDef clips onto the timeline. I presume that what I'm doing is getting FCE to do the down-scaling rather than leaving it to iDVD - that does a somewhat poorer job.

I must correct myself: step 2. in my previous explanation is not done by FCE, which leaves the field dominance of the clip unchanged in the sequence. In fact this step is not necessary since the field dominance of the containing sequence is used during playback and export by FCE, independent of the clips dominance.
As a result also "fixing" the clip dominance, as I suggested, is not needed.
Instead adding the Shift Field filter is mandatory (and usually automatic) whenever the clip and sequence field dominance do not match.
Piero
(Alexander I agree with you: even if the section of the manual I referred is in my opinion clear, there are other sections in the same manual that are confusing: e.g. IV-388 makes statements about field dominance that seem not correct to me, mixing up the time sequence of fields and the field dominance...)

Similar Messages

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.

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?

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?

Where do I set field dominance?

Hi,
A couple of months ago, I had edited a prgram in FCP 5. I deleted the footage after some time. Now my client has returned with some changes in the program. I re-digitized the footage & tried to re-connect it to the offline media in the timeline. However it fails to reconnect giving an error " The file does not have proper content to reconnect to " Final Edit 01" clip in sequence."
When I checked the logging info of the original clip & the re-digitized clip I found the difference in the settings of field dominance. the original is on
" Not set" while the Re-digitized is on " Even field" . I changed the settings in
" Sequence Settings" but doesn't help. Where else can I change the field dominance setting to capture the video?
Thanks.
Regards,
MANDAR
G5 Mac OS X (10.4.1)

This is the classic example of why one should NEVER load a project via Capture Now. ALWAYS mark your ins and outs and Log or Capture Clip.
That said, have you tried grabbing the clips in smaller chunks? You may find that one particular clip switches dominance and thereafter everything is switched. Try and capture the first clip only, see if it works. Then start working your way through. Otherwise, manually recreate your clips by typing in Ins and Outs, one by one.

Field dominance setting for progressive footage?

I'm still not sure about this subject.
I film with a Canon HF100. This is shooting progressive footage. I use a Imac, therefor the footage will be imported from a achvd to .mov files.
When I import it in FCE it will give automatically a fielddominance of upper odd. I heard I had to change it to fielddominace none. By mistake I edited a project without changing from Upper odd to none and there was nothing wrong with the project.
1. Is this true?
2. And why do I have to change it? What's the (technical) reason (try to understand it) and why doens't this go automatically?
Thank you!!

1) yes
2) ... field-dominance is a matter with interlaced footage ... in the older days, the many lines of a frame were splitted into two fields: even and odd lines. and funny as engineers often like to be, the odd lines (1,3,5,7,9, ... = don't neccessarily have to be the first (=dominant) field (.dv for instance: 'first' field is the even one 2,4,6,...)
progessive has no fields = no field dominance
but ..
some cams read out the chip progressive, but record the p frame as two identically i-fields! ... phewwww
summary:
if it works, don't change it ...

Field dominance = NONE

Is setting my field dominance to NONE in the sequence setting going to cause me problems down the line?
I have noticed that if I do the above (after a lengthy render) the graphics I place on the timeline, lower 3rds etc created in motion, appear a lot sharper.
All the footage I edit at the moment is SD interlaced and was wondering what problems this setting might cause or if there is a different workflow I should be looking at.
All finished work is turned in FLVs for the net.
Thanks

I do de-interlace with the flash encoder afterwards as I export the project back out as a QT. The resulting 3rds are always a lot sharper from a sequence with no field dominance.
Am I confused myself or is setting the field dominance to none effectively de-interlacing?

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.

Any Experts on Field Dominance?

There are a lot of threads on these forums concerning HDV footage turning out really bad footage when outputted to DVD (worse than using an SD source). The problem seems worse for those working in PAL. Here's my theory as to why PAL users seem to be suffering with this problem more:
HD is upper field dominance, PAL SD is lower. So a PAL based conversion from HD to SD involves resizing AND field shifting.
If you export a HDV sequence from FCP to Compressor (using any method), then compress using default settings, Compressor outputs an upper dominance file still. This must mean DVD SP (or Toast, etc) are converting from upper to lower before it burns the DVD.
We all know DVD SP does a crap job at compressing anything remotely hard, so why are those of us in PAL land trusting is to do field conversions? Is this conversion actually hard, or am I worrying about nothing?
Starting out with HD definitely makes worse PAL DVDs than starting out with SD footage, so which conversion/step is causing the problem?
If I set compressor to output a lower dominance field, the DVD ends up with unwatchable flicker in the movement, so I tried conforming the clips to a new lower dominance HDV sequence, meaning FCP is doing the field conversion. Movement is 100%, but the quality is still down a little (jagged edges). I might have to turn Frame Controls on in Compressor and let is spend 12hrs compressing a sequence already converted to lower field by FCP.
So, I think I may have deduced that FCP is crap at downconverting. Compressor and DVD SP are crap at converting to lower field dominance. Compressor is crap at downconverting unless it's set to PAINLFULLY SLOW (ie frame controls on with Resize Filter set to better quality).
Anyone got any comments or thoughts? Am I remotely on track or way off?
Cheers
Dav

Sorry, I haven't had time to read your post carefully as I am dashing out, but I came across the problem over 2 years ago.
Here are some notes I jotted down at the time, mainly with reference to using iDVD as the problem more or less disappeared when encoding with Compressor.
+1. Edit your HDV/AIC in the timeline. Then create a new DV-PAL (NTSC) Anamorphic sequence. Copy your edited HDV/AIC to the new sequence. Do not alter anything. Render the sequence ..... this will take a long time - up to twice the length of the project. Then File>Export>QuickTime Movie (Not Self-contained).+
+However, if you use the QT Movie in iDVD you will get a squashed 4:3 movie, so first of all you must make QT stretch it out to its proper 16:9 dimensions like this:-+
+a. Open the exported movie file in the QT Pro player.+
+b. Go to Window>Show Movie Properties.+
+c. Select the "Video Track" and in the "Visual Settings" panel uncheck "Preserve Aspect Ratio".+
+d. In the "Scaled Size" box set the width to 1024 pixels for PAL or 853 for NTSC.+
+e. The "Video Track" will have turned grey, so click it to make it blue again.+
+f. The opened movie file will jump to 16:9.+
+g. Close it with the red button and click Save.+
+2. This method is fast. Set your HV20 to "Locked DV" which means that FCE/FCP will capture it as anamorphic DV and edit it as standard definition anamorphic DV. (Use Easy Setup ... DV-PAL (NTSC) Anamorphic).+
+You can then Export>QuickTime Movie to be used in iDVD and use the stretching technique mentioned above.+
+An alternative to clicking the grey video track is to simply enter "576" in the height box and this should make the opened video file jump to 16:9, whereupon clicking the red button of the video should give you the window allowing you to "Save".+

Help Please - on a VC that works out of the box with MAC before I sellup

I have to declare that I’m somewhat frustrated at the moment and I could do with some good advise please bare with me while I explain.
I have recently converted from all types of PC systems and MS OS to Apple. The conversion was based on a few drivers.
1, My wife finally has decided to “learn” how to do her own web work instead of asking me to look up this or that for her. So as she was starting from scratch I thought MAC.
2, At the same time I had a play with Vista at work and disliked it. I was using XP & W2K at the time.
3, I wanted to update my home hardware, which was 3 years old.
4, The accountant said I hadn’t spent enough on IT last year.
5, New project work in the planning that required video/audio work to upload onto the web and everyone said MAC was the best.
So having looked around and done what I thought was enough research I started investing. To date I’ve invested £4500 plus.
Started by buying
iMAC 24” 2.8 Gz Intel with 4GB ram (for the home office)
MacBook Pro 2.4 with 4GB ram (for out and about working)
iPHONE 16GB (which is great)
VMware Fusion was installed for those things that I couldn’t live without until I found a suitable replacement like MS Money, Paint Shop Pro, MS Office etc. Installed XP.
Tried Open Office found it to clunky and hard work working off files for MS Office that others sent/required. Ended up buying Office 2008 only to find VB macros don’t work in Excel and all my company spreadsheets still need PC MS Excel to run so back into XP via Fusion.
Then to MAIL which is great on the iPHONE as I can easily monitor my 5 email accounts, what a result. But now I come to attach JPG files as I would in outlook and they open into the content of text in the mail and will not stay closed but disrupt the message. Wholly unacceptable to my way of working with no cure.
Scanning next, so I down loaded GIMP to replace PSP which I find useless so back to PSP I go again via XP & Fusion.
Next and finally the VC project, Now please bare in mind that all I want to do is shoot film, upload it to edit it and then mount it on the web page. I have no desire to become any form of expert in the field just get the job done.
So reviewed iMovie to understand the spec. Realise it has limitation and reviewed FCE which seems to plug the gaps and boarders on being more professional.
At this point I must say I’m not totally new to this subject as I have used Studio8 and a JVC GR-DVL166EK video cam a couple of years ago and got on ok without any issues simple plug and play with great results.
Having reviewed the standards that the software is reported to work too without any publicly declared exclusions or exceptions by Apple I went shopping for the VC. (I didn’t know of the forum at the time and to the best of my knowledge Apple don’t advise of its existence in any product information on anything I have bought.)
I buy a Panasonic HDC-HS9 for £700 which doesn’t flaming work despite the fact that it should based on all the standards quoted by both manufactures and there are no disclaimers from either party that it won’t work.
I have reviewed the compatibility list on the support page (now I know its there) and find that the Panasonic HDC-SD5 does work. I reviewed the comprehensive detailed model spec on the Panasonic web site and there is no differences between the to models at all accept the HDD.
So why don’t it work?
*At the end of the day can anyone please recommend a VC that will produce high quality results without the need of a 3rd party software to connect and upload files convert and muck about instead of getting on with the job.*
And if all the publicised specs don’t allow you to conclude compatibility how can you protect your investment? Where do we legally stand and where is the accountability to the consumer.
<edited by host>
I am that fed up with the last 3 months of mucking about Bill Gat*es may just get me back.
Thanking anyone in anticipation for some meaning advise and help.
Regards
Alan

Hi, and thanks for you interest. The problems is that whether I'm using iMovie or FCE I get to a stage where the thumbnail image is present but if you try to play, import or any other action in either app it closes down and a message comes up " The Application Final Cut Express/iMovie quit unexpectedly - Mac OS X and other application are not affected" then asks if I wish to relaunch. I then hit the report to Apple button and afterwards relaunch. I was recommended to use Voltaic which I have tried, it worked but is to much mucking about for something that should work out of the box.
This problem happens on both the iMAC and the MacBook so quite sure it's not a OS software issue. All software update are up to date also.
Any ideas?

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.

23.98 fps advanced pulldown removel with lower field dominance??

When ever I have captured 24p advanced material shot on a DVX100B, I have always used Final Cut Pro 5's advanced pulldown removel easy set up (2:3:3:2). I haven't run into any issues until now. When I try to capture 24p advanced material, for some reason Final Cut sets my field dominance as lower (even). I made sure I was using the capture pre-set for advanced pulldown removel (23.98) and I was. Is there any way to fix this? I tried trashing my preferences but that didn't help. This is progressive scan material so in the past Final Cut Pro has always set it to field dominance as "none". Also, because my 24pa material is having a lower field dominance and as 29.97fps, I have to render in my 24pa sequence which I have never had to do. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
PS: I'm using OSX 10.4.8 (the OS choice drop down menu hasn't been updated)
Update: I tried capturing a short clip (about 30 seconds) and it worked fine, but when I try capturing my clip, which is about 10 mins, I get it capured at 29.97 with lower field dominance.

Anyone ?

I have downloaded a trail version of adobe acrobat pro and when I try to use it, it says that it cannot be edited in acrobat, please use adobe livecycle designer to edit this form. I can't work out what I need to do?

I have downloaded a trail version of adobe acrobat pro and when I try to use it, it says that it cannot be edited in acrobat, please use adobe livecycle designer to edit this form. I can't work out what I need to do?

Acrobat XI is not distributed with Designer. Designer is now a separate product. You can create forms in Acrobat as an AcroForm or using Forms Central (an online forms program). You can print the form to a new PDF and then recreate the fields in Acrobat using the recognize form fields. You will likely have to fix the form fields, but that would be the process. Generally, once a form is taken to Designer, you can't bring it back without such steps.
Designer is available with AA8 - AAX, but since is a separate product as I indicated.

How do you work out the number of days difference between two dates?

I'm running Crystal v12.
We use a date field in our SQL database that we use to store the client's year end date.
As the year end date (date and month) doesn't change for a client, the year end date field in all of our reports is set to just show the DD/MM part. Over the years as new clients are set up we just enter the date and month - the year part is irrelevant although as in all date fields the year is automatically entered.
Doing it this way means that we don't have to adjust the year end year part each year. We just use the DD/MM part.
I need to create a formula that works out the number of days there have been (i.e. the difference) from the current date to the year end date. It MUST EXCLUDE the year however.
For example:
Year End Date = 30/04/03
Current Date = 25/05/10
Days Difference (EXCLUDING year) = 25
Days Difference (including year) = 2582
Year End Date = 31/03/09
Current Date = 25/05/09
Days Difference (EXCLUDING year) = 55
Days Difference (including year) = 420
If you include the year part then working out day difference is simply a case of creating a formula that subtracts the year end date from the current date (CurrentDate - {tblClient.YearEnd}.
HOWEVER I need to exclude the year part.
Can anyone tell me the formula or best way to do this?
Thanks in advance.
Edited by: BadBoy House on May 25, 2010 3:15 PM
Edited by: BadBoy House on May 25, 2010 3:15 PM

Hi
You can try this
datevar e := date(year(currentdate),month({tblClient.YearEnd}),day({tblClient.YearEnd}));
numbervar num_days := datediff("d",currentdate,e)
Create a datevar called e that uses the original month and day numbers for {tblClient.YearEnd} but uses the year of the current date
Then just datediff on e to get the number of days between the two dates
I hope i understand your problem and that this helps
Best regards
Patrick

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.

Working out Field dominance

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