Horizontal Streaks on Captured Footage....

[D.V. Dee]

All of a sudden I'm getting horizontal streaks (on figures in motion)on my Mini-DV footage that I capture to Ulead Video Studio 6 from my new camcorder. I am capturing in NTSC, at 29.97 fps, from a camcorder that's used only about four Panasonic DVM60 60-minute SP cartridges--hardly enough tape footage for crud to accumulate on the record head!

What could be causing this?

Is there any shareware utility out there that can eliminate horizontal streaks in captured footage? (I'm using a Pentium 4 PC).

Thanks for any suggestions....

[guns1inger]

Post a screenshot if you can, but I suspect what you are seeing is normal interlacing lines. You will not see these on your TV.

[D.V. Dee]

Can't post a screenshot at this time...but those streaks still do show up during UV Studio playback on my monitor....

Thanks for feedback.

[guns1inger]

Your monitor is progressive, and unless the preview is set to deinterlace on the fly, you will see the 'streaks'. On a TV these will not be visible. I would look into the settings for the preview window to see what options you have, or simply ignore it if the target is DVD anyway.

[D.V. Dee]

I do capture the Mini-DV footage in UVS at the recommended 29.97 frame rate...

I do notice that the streaking is reduced when footage is viewed in another utility,
like Media Player Classic.

[guns1inger]

DV footage is filmed at 29.970 frames per second, but each frame is made up of two field - one being the even lines, the other being the odd lines. These field are photographed approx 1/60th of a second apart, so on panning and fast in-camera movement there can be a noticeable difference in the frames. A lot of software players simply play back the field as they are, which makes this disparity very visible on computer monitors (which are progressive by design) and this can be jarring if you are not used to it. Some players do perform software tricks to hide interlacing to make for a more natural playback.

If you TV is an older, CRT model, it will display interlaced footage as interlaced by default. In fact, all the TC broadcast to it will also be displayed interlaced. However because of the way the TV and your eyes work you never see the difference in the fields. If you have a newer LCD/Plasma progressive TV, it will have all sorts of smart imaging processing to de-interlace this footage on the fly, and again, you will not see it.

Bottom line - it is normal, it is not a problem. Edit it and encode it as interlaced (bottom field first for DV) and author your DVD. You will not see these 'streaks' when you watch the disc on your TV.

[D.V. Dee]

Food for thought--Thanks!

[D.V. Dee]

If the order of fields isn't where it should be for already-captured (to DV) Mini-DV footage,
can it be changed OK during the editing process?

Or does that have to be set (in UVS) before capture?

[2Bdecided]

DV should be captured as DV - there should be no re-encoding, no swapping of field order, no nothing - it's a data capture. It's like copying a word document from one HDD to another - you wouldn't expect the sentence order to change, would you?

If it is doing, then you're not capturing DV losslessly - try WinDV.

Note that DV is always bottom field first, and anything that handles DV properly will know this. Other software might need telling. If you swap the field order by accident, you get horrible stuttery jumpy movement when watching the footage correctly (e.g. on a real TV, or on a PC with correct deinterlacing). Seeing interlaced comb line has nothing to do with field order.

Cheers,
David.

[lordsmurf]

Worth repeating:
"Note that DV is always bottom field first, and anything that handles DV properly will know this."

[jagabo]

DV from a camcorder can be progressive or telecined too. It's possible to create top field first DV with software.

[2Bdecided]

DV from a camcorder can be progressive or telecined too.

If it's progressive, then the field order doesn't matter - and if it's telecined, that will still be BFF not TFF.

It's possible to create top field first DV with software.

Yes it is, and that would be a silly thing to do because all correct software would handle it incorrectly by default! (though some could be over ridden).

Cheers,
David.

[thecoalman]

..... Mini-DV footage that I capture to Ulead Video Studio 6 from my new camcorder..

VS6 is older than dirt, might not be causing the issue but it will certainly have other problems. Upgrade or get a new application.