Banding

I've been working on my wedding video for some time now and recorded it with my panasonic hand held 920X in 1080p, it looks fantastic when its in the timeline but when I come to exporting the file it comes up with some really strange banding. It might be something that i'm missing or being completely stupid about, but when I make the video window smaller it distorts the image even more! I've been told the best settings are H.264 and thats exactly what I used?!

Attached is exactly what i'm talking about.

Thanks if anyone can help me!

For some reason its not allowing me to post the picture up either... So, basically the video in certain areas has banding going across making the video really blurry. Features are undistinctive, and its very frustrating. I will try to attach some photos as soon as I can. But does anyone know what a solution would be? It's not lighting banding or anything like that.

Just guessing that it might be a field order setting problem.

Did you let Final Cut determine the project properties automatically from the first clip or are they custom settings?

Also, you could take the range tool and select a short section of the timeline and export it as a Pro Res master file to see whether the problems appear in that teat as well.

Russ

Most often it happens because of color space limitations.
Just try the old fashioned way: add some grain.

- Andreas

If it looks OK in the timeline and you only see banding (posterisation?) in the H.264 export... that's probably a bitrate issue.

- What are your export settings?
- Can you export a Master File from FCPX (ProRes 422)? How does that look? If it's good, try compressing from that.

I don't recall making any changes and just let FCPX do them automatically. I've tried the footage and exported in various different files (ProRes422, HD422.. and a couple others) but they all seem to give me the same results... a really banding. But it only seems to happen during movement or if someone is passing through the shot?!? It doesn't sound like, to me anyway, that it is a exporting problem if i'm getting the same problems on each... does it?

I think I may have an answer. It looks like field order reversal, but it probably is not. If the footage and project are interlaced and you export an interlaced video and then try to playback on your computer's progressive monitor, then you get this interlacing issue on playback. If you drag the exported file back into FCPX, it will probably play back fine, as FCPX can compensate for this and Quicktime doesn't seem to. If I am right, and your footage and project are 1080i, then you can overcome this by creating a new project and create custom video properties. Choose 1080p, 1920x1080, and whatever the native frame rate is. Go in the original project, select all and copy. Then go to the new custom project and paste. Then export a master from there. If you don't need a master, then you can force progressive by exporting through compressor and making the correct adjustments. And… there are probably 20 other ways to do it. I hope that I am correct and that this solves the problem.

Well, according tohttp://shop.panasonic.com/shop/model/HC-X920K, this camera only shoots progressive. Possibly it's progressive in an interlaced steam. I was asking about project settings because I wondered whether somehow the project was set to interlaced in custom settings or whether FCPX might be reading the clips as interlaced.

With your project open, take a look at the Info pane in the Inspector. How does it report the project (at the very top) – 1080P or 1080i?

Russ

Definitely looking in the right place with the footage being interlaced - that indeed looks like classic interlace tearing.

The X920K certainly can shoot progressive, but it's not immediately obvious from the specs that it always does so. Is there any way to check what the camera settings were? (though previous posters are right, checking the media in FCPX is more important).

It does appear to be that the video was 1080i and it should have been 1080p!? Very frustrating but thanks for all your help!

If the footage is 1080i that's OK (not ideal perhaps, but OK). You just need to deinterlace somewhere. Typically you'd edit in a 1080i project, and deinterlace during compression.

If you have Compressor (or another tool) you could take the existing ProRes output and compress from that, making sure to choose one of the deinterlace methods.