Re: Workflow FCP FieldsKit - Twixtor

[Tom Kramer] "So, as not to mess to much with my project timeline, I create a second timeline and copy the clip in there, pad it by comping it with at least one copy of the same clip, and put the deinterlacer on there. As I am looking at minimum 50% slomos, I set FieldsKit to 1 Frame per field, already yielding a 50% slomo. Am I correct so far?"

yes, this sounds good.

[Tom Kramer] "Setting the sequence to interlaced will rather often give me some quirky in-between frames, a progressive sequence , while giving me crisp images both on the computer screen as on TV control monitor apparently just puts out doubled frames as in-betweens, resulting in a choppy slomo.... (fill method of course being set to anything other than DUPLICATE). So I stick with an interlaced sequence. "

You should be able to set the sequence to "none" as a field order setting, but I just tried that and it does indeed produce stuttery results (one field of each frame is deinterlaced and repeated, instead of each field being deinterlaced) . This is probably due to a bug introduced by FCP in some recent version that we simply have not caught. Sorry about that (a progressive sequence used to work just fine!)

[Tom Kramer] "So, let's assume I were happy with what I see, I would now apply Twixtor to that deinterlaced 50% comp (I do not even render it most of the time, cause with my equipment it takes forvever to do so). Or should I have quicktime-exported it first and twixtor the reimported, deinterlaced solid clip, this time in a progressive timeline? "

I would quicktime export the 50% slowed down sequence, so that as you place with Twixtor you don't have to have FCP recalculate the deinterlaced frames each time you change a Twixtor sequence. It may SEEM like it takes longer, but I'm not convinced it actually does in the long run.

Of course when you apply Twixtor, you'll want to make sure you mark the input as Progressive within the Twixtor settings.

Then, upon output, simply set the sequence settings (on the sequence that Twixtor is within) to progressive or "lower" or "Upper" as appropriate. If you want Twixtor to calculate 1 frame per field, set the sequence settings to lower or upper. If you want progressive output, set the sequence field settings to "None". Note that by setting the sequence settings to "lower" or "upper" you'll get 2x as many frames rendered by Twixtor to recreate each field.

Of course, since you've doubled the duration of your interlaced footage by using our Deinterlacer, then you'll need to factor that in to the percentages (or frame numbers) you use in Twixtor

Hopefully this helps answer your questions.
pete