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Deko / Thunder Clips

4 replies [Last post]
Fri, 09/16/2005 - 15:39
Clint Hendricks
User offline. Last seen 14 years 21 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 9 Sep 2005

Hello All,

We are just beginning to get our Deko 3000 and Thunder MX systems ready for air. We are currently experiencing problems when we ingest clips. Our graphics package has a significant amount of blue, reds, oranges, that mix from color to color and when we render these fullscreen background animations in After Effects using the prescribed Pinnacle DV Codec we notice banding/digital "smudging" when playing from the Deko and Thunder. (and when looking at the file in Windows Media Player) Also our horizontal scrolling text does not look as clean as we believe it should (looks jagged etc...). We have already checked to make sure that the lower field is being rendered first and for good measure have tried no fields, and upper field first.

When we use these same backgrounds in Chyron's Aprisa VCS we are able to import TGA sequences and we do not notice the banding or horizontal scrolling text issue.

Unfortunately, the Deko 3000 does not allow importing of TGA sequences.

We also have the Thunder MX which is suppose to be able to import TGA Sequences (it uses quicktime which our engineers are currently installing) from here we thought we should then be able to export the clip now converted into Pinnacles preferred MXF format into the Deko 3000. But when we try to play the clip we get a hardware codec error. We are currently working with Pinnacle on this.

But I was wondering how other shops are getting stuff into these Pinnacle systems and what their experiences have been.

Any sharing would be helpful.

Thanks,

Clint
WLUK-TV Green Bay, WI

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Sun, 09/25/2005 - 22:30
#1
Clint Hendricks
User offline. Last seen 14 years 21 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 9 Sep 2005
Thanks Guys for the response - sorry I didn't get a chance to reply before this. I believe the main problem we are having is the way the DV or AVI file is being rendered. Our art director must be missing some settings. The AVI files that she renders using the Pinnacle DV Codec, when played from Thunder or the Deko are having banding and problems with horizontal scrolling text. I already have had her try to render using Lower, Upper, and no field first, this does not solve any of the problems. The video is in the correct aspect ratio so that should not be doing it.....she must be missing some other settings in After Effects available with the AVI format or the Pinnacle DV Codec. However we are having success with her rendering TGA sequences (she already has all of the settings written down for TGA sequences for use with out Chyron Aprisa VCS DDR) I then take these TGA sequences and import them using the Thunder.....then export them using the Thunder to the Deko as DV files - and we seem to be having acceptable results. Thanks for all the side-bar info - and if anyone has a detailed list of After Effect settings for Broadcast quality AVI files (or how to render .DV Files) that would be helpful. Have a great day everyone, Clint
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Wed, 09/21/2005 - 02:43
#2
scottgfx
User offline. Last seen 9 years 4 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 18 Aug 2005
[quote="Kevin Hinkle"]We had a similar "banding" problem on video clips imported into our Thunder XL. It turned out the clips were rendered out of after effects with the aspect ratio of "720X486" instead of "720X480." We re-rendered the clips and all was well. Kevin Hinkle Director KOMU-TV[/quote] There are settings in the Thunder for how to deal with pixel aspect. That is probably at the root of your problem. We have all pixel aspect conversion turned off on our system. In reality, 720x486 and 720x480 are the exact same pixel aspect. ( .9 to be exact) 720x480 is an aberration of the DV format. The scanlines are the same hight and the width is the same at a standard ITU-R 601 frame. Why is it different? DV uses DCT encoding and it beholden to the rule that the dimensions must be an even multiple of 8. The DV codec overlords said "lets just crop off the 6 extra scanlines and make the frame 480 high. problem solved. Everything I send to the Thunder is 720x486. The machine translates everything without error or complaint. There are a whole set of rules on bringing in DV material into a ITU-R 601 environment. I can go into that if you would like.

http//twitter.com/scottgfx

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Tue, 09/20/2005 - 16:53
#3
Kevin Hinkle
User offline. Last seen 13 years 23 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 6 Sep 2005
We had a similar "banding" problem on video clips imported into our Thunder XL. It turned out the clips were rendered out of after effects with the aspect ratio of "720X486" instead of "720X480." We re-rendered the clips and all was well. Kevin Hinkle Director KOMU-TV
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Tue, 09/20/2005 - 02:01
#4
scottgfx
User offline. Last seen 9 years 4 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 18 Aug 2005
We have a 4 channel Thunder XL. It's DV codec is the same data rate as DVCPRO at 25Mb/s. Horizontal scrolling should not be one of it's problems. The only serious issues should be with DCT compression and chroma. If you have problem with horizontal motion, by best guess would be that the source TGA animation isn't field rendered to begin with. If you can, send me a sample frame from the TGA sequence. I'm on mac.com and my username is scottgfx. If it's a frame with motion going on, I could tell you easily if it's rendered correctly or not. Scott Thomas Art Director WINK-TV

http//twitter.com/scottgfx

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