Should I interlace 7D footage for NTSC beta delivery

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Should I interlace 7D footage for NTSC beta delivery
by Andrew Clancy on Nov 29, 2011 at 9:32:03 pm

Hi,

I'm editing Canon 7D footage shot at 1080p, NTSC 29.97fps. Delivery is SD, letterbox on NTSC Beta.

I thought it might be as simple as selecting a NTSC 4:3 sequence and dropping the footage in.

Will this interlace the footage, does it have to be interlaced? If it does, how and when do I do that?

To add some confusion I have some anamorphic, b-roll, beta shot NTSC footage at 29.97fps, wrapped in a ProRes file, but this will only be used sparingly for a few seconds at a time. The bulk of the edit is the 7D footage.

Thanks.

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Re: Should I interlace 7D footage for NTSC beta delivery
by Neil Patience on Nov 29, 2011 at 11:43:27 pm

Footage that has been shot progressive is totally fine in an interlaced timeline. You dont have to interlace it as such as long as your sequence settings are correct - (upper field first for digi beta)

It pretty much is as easy as putting it into a ProRes 4:3 timeline. However you can decide if you want everything letterboxed, which will happen by default or centre cut out.

This will indeed interlace the footage but the interlacing will not be visible on your 7D footage as both fields are identical so it will not change the look of it at all.
(Just think of every movie shot on film you have ever seen on a CRT TV)

The digi beta originated material will already be interlaced. So it will have a different look and quality to the 7D footage anyway.
Ironically you may find that de-interlacing that footage makes it match the feel of the 7D footage a little better. But it depends on the footage and the shots and movement within them. SloMo for example will be smoother interlaced. Just experiment with that to see what matches best.

So as long as your sequence is 4:3 ProRes NTSC 29.97 then the rest will work fine - just resize your HD clips as you see fit and maybe deinterlace the digi stuff if it matches the feel of the HD better.

best wishes
Neil
http://www.patience.tv

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Re: Should I interlace 7D footage for NTSC beta delivery
by Andrew Clancy on Nov 30, 2011 at 2:13:26 am

Hi Neil,

Thanks for the information. You mention a ProRes, NTSC 4:3 sequence, how do I go about getting this? I'm using FCP7 and in sequence settings there's an NTSC 4:3 option.
When I drop a ProRes file into this, and select No when it asks to change sequence settings to match, it needs rendering before I can view it, which is going to be time consuming. Maybe this is the only way?

Delivery is on Beta SP as opposed to Digi Beta so regarding field dominance, should I manually select upper field first, Upper Odd, (it's usually left None) or is this not necessary for Beta SP?

Anything I should look out for regarding Pixel Aspect Ratio? It's default is Square.

Thanks,
Andrew.

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Re: Should I interlace 7D footage for NTSC beta delivery
by Neil Patience on Nov 30, 2011 at 9:00:54 pm

Ok I am in Pal land and always get slightly confused with NTSC frame sizes however I believe that the setting should be

Frame Size 720x486
Pixel Aspect ratio NTSC CCIR 601 720x480
Field dominance Upper
Uncheck the anamorphic box

You should not use square pixels for SD.

Yes beta SP is upper field dominant.

I would transcode the 7D footage to ProRes using the log and transfer tool. (or whatever tool you prefer) Dont edit the H264 files you will end up with problems.
Sounds like you have already done this though.

You did the right thing to say no to the sequence settings change.

You will have to render as FCP has to resize the HD footage to SD however it should playback in realtime (green bar on timeline) without rendering but will look poor quality until it is rendered.

The ProRes SD footage you have should just drop straight into the timeline without needing to render or change anything.

You could always start with one of these clips and say YES when it asks you if you want to match settings.

Finally if you have like 99% HD footage and just a few SD shots you may find it easier to edit in an HD sequence and then finally drop that whole thing into an SD sequence at the end and replace the few SD shots (to save double resizing them up to HD and back to SD)

You would have to make a judgement call there depending on how much you have of each format.

best wishes
Neil
http://www.patience.tv

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Re: Should I interlace 7D footage for NTSC beta delivery
by Andrew Clancy on Dec 1, 2011 at 5:18:25 pm

Thanks for the reply Neil.

I followed your detailed settings and I'm now getting the green bar (I was getting the red bar) which means I can work much faster in that sequence.

You hit the nail on the head when you suggested 99% of my footage is HD so I'll do a test on editing in HD and dropping into SD then, and replacing the SD footage as you suggested.

Thanks again.
Andrew

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