This IS the Avid L2: [Avid-L2] Sort of OT: Weird Pix240 Problem

Friday, January 9, 2015

[Avid-L2] Sort of OT: Weird Pix240 Problem

Today's Puzzler! I am wondering if anyone has ever bumped into this.

The setup was a Sony FS700 feeding a Pix240 to be able to record the
slo-mo buffer out of the FS700 at a higher res than the native AVCHD of
the FS700.

The error in the setup, at least I think, was that the FS700 was
outputting an interlaced signal (1080i) but the codec in the Pix-240 was
set to DNxHD 220x progressive.

All the internal recordings of the FS700 show up as interlaced and are
fine.

All the Pix240 material comes into the Avid as progressive and exhibits
weirdness.

In an interlaced timeline, the Pix240 looks fine. One can even put an
effect on it and it still looks fine. But if you export it as
progressive, it falls apart with an error that looks like wrong field
order.

In a progressive timeline, the Pix240 plays back fine but if any effect
is added to it, it renders as progressive frames of wrong-field order
video.

The general solution has been to go with the AVCHD recording (which
looks fine BTW.) But there are two shots that only exist as PIX240
material. (Why that is I don't know.)

I've tried some of the more obvious solutions like playing with motion
adapter settings or trying an interlaced export from the interlaced
timeline and bringing that back in, in the hopes that the export process
would cure the field order but it didn't. I believe I also tried the
Boris De-interlace filter which didn't cure the problem.

Thanks for any thoughts about this head-scratcher. (Today's thought: A
full-size QT screen recording of the Pix240 shot playing back on a
computer monitor in that hopes that it will playback in whole
progressive frames and then can be reimported. Haven't gotten to that
yet.)

Dan