interlaced to progressive conversion

Do any of you know the steps which to be taken to convert 720 X 480i to progress? I believe it may need to be done in compressor before import into FCP but am not sure of the steps. Thought I would ask before I spend hours experimenting.-Steve B)

You do it in FCP. Using the deinterlacer from Magic Bullet or some other plug in that eludes my brain right now. Compressor can do deinterlace DV content into whatever codec you want but it's not as good as Magic Bullet in AE before compression into other codecs.

Scubadru.....are you saying that a deinterlace filter changes footage to progressive? If that is so than all I would need to do is to nest a sequence and apply the filter to an entire sequence, but is that really true progressive? If so, than why would Magic Bullet's filter work any differently than the deinterlace filter in FCP? I am testing out Red Giants Instant HD plug in which converts the pixel and aspect ratio of SD and converts it to HD but I need to convert the footage shot with a 2000 to progressive before it can be applied.

Thanks-Steve B)

Steve if you are in contact with Red Giants, talk to Andrew about Magic Bullet.

I did make a mistake. I use magic bullet in Adobe AE (for most of sfx). I forget that Magic Bullet Suite doesn't fully work with FCP and one of the suites that doesn't work is the deinterlacer. I was thinking of RE:Vision Fields Kit, which was a great deinterlacer package that doesn't loose resolution. I used it until I found Magic Bullet.

The FCP deinterlace filter is lossy but free with FCP. The other plug ins you have to buy.

Thanks, will give him a call

Steve B)

Hey guys not sure if you have checked out DV Film Maker.

It can convert HDV i to progressive then you just edit as progressive.

DV FilmMaker

They seemed to have a MAC version out now as well.

I have done some tests with it and it seems to do a good job.

DV filmaker turns clips to 24P which may or may not be what you are looking for. Magic Bullet turns 50,60i to 25,30P and gives the film look to boot.

Drew

DV filmaker can turn Cineform AVI 50i files to 25p then you edit in 25p.

As I am a PC guy, I have had great success encoding straight from a HDV or DV Premire Pro timeline to a Progressve DVD mpeg 2 spec file for normal DVD's with Procoder 2.

In fact I just finished a 500 pic photo montage DVD yesterday and made a normal interlaced one and then a progressvve one to compare. Progressive one is heaps beter and has no picture filckering in it while the interlaced one has.

Shark "butt"

DV Filmmaker does a good job of deinterlacing and is faster than Magic Bullet in rendering and also much cheaper. MB has better color control and excellent deartifacting esp in HDV. The looks suite and editor suite are excellent but require serious computer power for speed.

Naettress also has a deinterlacer plug in for FCP.

Personally workflow should be to capture in, edit/splice, recapture in HDV, convert to lossless codec then color/luma correct and other plug ins. Downconvert back to M2v or whatever is end result. This is for best quality.

Shark BUTT... I thought it was Shark Ass...

Drew, have you had a go at editing in RAW m2t?

Mainconcept Pro for Prem Pro works well and it even outputs back to the camera via firewire while editing in m2t, but my 3 GIG is not fast enough to do it smoothly.

Since we are talking about Deinterlacing, DV Film Maker and MB, I came across this comparison and thought it would be interesting to share.

http://www.dvxuser.com/articles/60i/

Thought I would add the some feedback. I took some 4:3 SD footage and imported it into After Effects6.5. I added Magic Bullet to it from the effects which will automatically change it to progressive and exported it out to the desktop as a QT movie. Then I brought it in to Final Cut Pro and added Magic Bullet's new Instant HD which upconverts it to 1080i and it worked great. The Instant HD took some time to render, 18 minutes for a 19 sec clip, but the results are excellent. The workflow when applying Instant HD is different, you just don't plop the filter onto the clip but it was easy enough to do.

Steve B)

And I did some stuff on the PC.

Installed Cleaner XL

Encoded out from a Premire Pro HDV timeline, a wmv HD 1280/720 6mbps progressive file using Cleaner XL by using a small frameserver program all in one encode.

It looks better/sharper than what Procoder puts out.

Next I encoded out the same way a progressive 720/756 mpeg2 @ 8mbps file.

Looks very very good, even better than Procoder.

I then for fun re encoded the 720/576 mpeg2 back up to 1920/1080 with cleaner xl and it look allright as well.

Cleaner XL does not put out m2t transport files, unless I missed something.

Hey Wags,

Based on your PAL to NTSC conversion route as previously discussed I'm in the process of testing those steps by using the tools available to me in FCP 5.0.4

Basically prepared a project to completion including cropping, color correction and all the other post issues. Seeing as I am working in PAL I then exported a QT PAL version, 11.5 minutes is around 2.4Gb. Then re-imported the file to a DVPAL timeline and re-exported to QT NTSC DV progressive @ 25fps. The computer is currently spewing that one out. I then intend to import that file on to an NTSC timeline to see what gives before looking to make the final DVD cut. I'm hoping that the file will be 'tricked' into playing at 23.97fps on the timeline as per NTSC and have better quality over previous tests.

I'll post my findings as soon as this 'puter gets it's act together.

Cheers,

Mark.

Look forward to hearing the results. Also, would be interested in how the 25ps seems to play out and appear.

Steve B)

Steve,

I'm in the process of testing some deinterlacing to progressive tests in FCP 5.0.4. I basically prepped the file then went:

Eport using QuickTime conversion

Drop down menu to NTSC DV which gives you the option for progressive or interlaced

I only have FCP for this conversion available to me so am wondering how it will come out. I'll get the results in about an hour from now. I'll post my findings.

Cheers,

Mark.

Hey Mark

I recond it will play it at 25fps once back on the NTSC timeline..anyhow let us know what you get. Maybe get a PC laptop networked to your MAC then you can run the file through the little dgpulldown program.

I did another test.

Encoded out a mpeg2 DVD CBR 8mbps progressive file with Cleaner XL and then Procoder 2 from the HDV timeline in one go.

I then played them full screen at the same time in realtime on twin 17inch LCD screens. They looked near on identical......I did think Cleaner XL was beter before but after this side by side test, might as well stick with procoder.

Paul,

Good idea for the networking solution. One thing I do know is that this process really slows down the processor as it preps the file.

Got about another 30 minutes for the end result. Will post findings.

I take it the other programs you're on about are all PC dedicated.......

Mark

If you network the PC and ran the dgpulldown thing on it and just navigate to the file on your mac, it might work...It only takes about 1-2 mins to run a 20 min mpeg file through it on my 3GIG PC.

Cleaner XL will also run on a MAC. Procoder is just PC based I think.

Yes encoding a 720/576 25fps file is quicker than 720/480 25fps file from a Pal timline. 20 mins takes about 13 mins on my PC using Main Concept Pro out of Premeire Pro. If I use Procder and out to progressive it will take about 20 mins.

15 mins to go now I suppose...........

....and the test results are.........mixed <_<

OK, so the motion is MUCH better, no jittery frame playback when viewed through QT or even direct from the timeline.

Main problem is possibly due to the lower end progressive conversion treatment by FCP and its associated codecs etc. Whilst the motion is nice and fluid, plus the titles look a LOT better, no flickering etc, there is a distinct distortion on hard line edges of imagery in the film. Thats to say, this project is on Mantas. Everytime I get faster motion of the subject as it beats its wings etc I see a distortion of the linear edges of the wings and any other linear objects in the image.

For FCP users, sometimes when you capture successive clips you get the motion abberation on the image (select audio on the clip settings then un select to sort this little bug out) well it's the same as that in this instance.

I'm doing another conversion now. Whilst I would like to maintain the progressive aspect the motion of the mantas is a higher importance to me and will also be that of the intended audience so gonna stick with that as my first priority. I guess to get a decent progressive file we Mac users need to look at plugin softwares for better results. Looking around right now for the right stuff. I'll post findings on the new conversion.......just for the PAL users anyway seeing as it relates more to PAL>NTSC conversions it could be helpful.

Cheers,

Mark.

P.S No diving today....raining Cats 'n Dogs outside so day in the office.