mikeparsons2
03-30-2005, 03:04 PM
Video
No application has ever done roto for fields properly. Whilst 99% of all our tvc work is shot 35mm we do still get elements from the US which have been 3:2 transferred then standards converted... ugh!
Since the Harry days until now in Henry/Flame/iQ the standard way of working with fields in video has always been to deinterlace to get a clip twice the length then roto, then interlace the resulting matte.
I would like to suggest sRoto does the following; The user would select PAL Video or NTSC Video and then the system would displays only 1 field at a time and scale the field to twice its height to maintain correct aspect ratio. The jog buttons would now move you a field rather than a frame and render field based interlaced output frames. The frame counter should read 0,5, 1, 1.5, 2... as you jog.
This removes an entire bookend of processes required on every other system.
The added complication for film transferred to video in the NTSC world is the 3:2 pulldown added in telecine to get 60 fields out of 24 frames. Again since the Harry days the process has been to use a function variously called
Cinecompress
FilmCompress
Remove pulldown etc
what the user does is usually identify the first flicker frame in a sequence then process the clip to obtain a new shorter clip of just the original 24 film frames. When roto is completed the user then reprocesses the matte through a 3:2 adding process to reobtain the original length clip.
What i would like to see in NTSC video setup is an added box on the desktop which is a simple toggle to Remove 3:2 pulldown. The user would select NTSC 3:2 Video as the setup, the system would now display frames again not fields and work as normal. The user would then load the media then jog through to the first flicker frame THEN press the remove pulldown checkbox. Thereafter the system would only display the original 24 film frames but would render a 3:2 added original length clip.
Exported splines would have an option of being frame for frame or 3:2 added.
When handing to/from Flames etc the 3:2 would have been taken care of by the Flame artist so this may be asking a lot but it seems to me you have a real opportunity here to get this stuff right.
Course you need all the usual upper/lower field first crap in the session settings...
best regards
No application has ever done roto for fields properly. Whilst 99% of all our tvc work is shot 35mm we do still get elements from the US which have been 3:2 transferred then standards converted... ugh!
Since the Harry days until now in Henry/Flame/iQ the standard way of working with fields in video has always been to deinterlace to get a clip twice the length then roto, then interlace the resulting matte.
I would like to suggest sRoto does the following; The user would select PAL Video or NTSC Video and then the system would displays only 1 field at a time and scale the field to twice its height to maintain correct aspect ratio. The jog buttons would now move you a field rather than a frame and render field based interlaced output frames. The frame counter should read 0,5, 1, 1.5, 2... as you jog.
This removes an entire bookend of processes required on every other system.
The added complication for film transferred to video in the NTSC world is the 3:2 pulldown added in telecine to get 60 fields out of 24 frames. Again since the Harry days the process has been to use a function variously called
Cinecompress
FilmCompress
Remove pulldown etc
what the user does is usually identify the first flicker frame in a sequence then process the clip to obtain a new shorter clip of just the original 24 film frames. When roto is completed the user then reprocesses the matte through a 3:2 adding process to reobtain the original length clip.
What i would like to see in NTSC video setup is an added box on the desktop which is a simple toggle to Remove 3:2 pulldown. The user would select NTSC 3:2 Video as the setup, the system would now display frames again not fields and work as normal. The user would then load the media then jog through to the first flicker frame THEN press the remove pulldown checkbox. Thereafter the system would only display the original 24 film frames but would render a 3:2 added original length clip.
Exported splines would have an option of being frame for frame or 3:2 added.
When handing to/from Flames etc the 3:2 would have been taken care of by the Flame artist so this may be asking a lot but it seems to me you have a real opportunity here to get this stuff right.
Course you need all the usual upper/lower field first crap in the session settings...
best regards