Hi,

So i see that MCS 3.0 can mix interlaced and progressive on the same project.

but, what is actually happens to the footage ? let's say i mix footage shot on HD 1080p/25 and SD 25i,  on the format tab i can select in which format i would like to work, but what happens when i need to render? it should be a differnt render for interlaced and a different render for progressive as i unserstand because Avid needs to know whether it should splice the frame into two fields or not, right?

and what happens when i need to digital cut this footage into an HDCAM tape, should i choose 25p or 50i on my VTR? cause if i will digital cut progressive footage into the deck when it set to an interlace mode, it will make the footage that has been recorded jurky, no?

Thanks

Dori

Very good question. Would be great to know what is actually happening. Perhaps Brian can elaborate?

I assume (I know, ass, u, me...) that the footage will be conformed to meet whatever the project setting is.

So if you're mixing 1080p25 and 576i50 footage in a 1080p25 project, then the SD footage will be scaled and deinterlaced to conform to the 1080p25 project setting.

This I understand but what methods is it using and how good is the quality? Does putting progressive footage into interlaced re-interlace your footage?

What do you mean by "re-interlace"? Split a progressive frame into two halfframes stored separately? That should be done automatically, depending on your choice of output format. But even if you split the frame in two, both frames are still taken from the same point in time, so you'll still see that "progressive motion jaggyness" (excuse my lack of proper terms); in originally interlaced material both half frames are captured at different points in time, making motions smoother (because of doubled time resolution) but causing combed edges.

Real conversion from progressive to interlaced material (or vice versa) always requires heavy (and intelligent) interpolation, either spatial (interlaced -> progressive) or temporal (progressive -> interlaced). Most NLE and even dvd-players and televisions do a nice job converting interlaced to progressive material; about the other way i can't tell, never needed it.

Yes indeed, which is why I wonder how MC does it and indeed how well it does it.

By 're-interlace' I mean the manner in which one can take a progressive clip and add fields, changing a film-like motion, "progressive motion jaggyness", as you call it, to a smooth video motion, the 'real look', a generally undesirable result for originally progressive footage.

Putting progressive footage into an interlaced comp will result is a PsF frame essentially. The frame is broken into field, but temporally they remain the same. This is exactly the same as the DVX100 does to create 25p PAL footage.

Putting interlaced into a progressive project is more complicated, as the footage first has to be deinterlaced somehow, before it can be scaled. Otherwise the interlacing is scaled also and that just looks wrong. Similarly SDi into an HDi project - the scaling has to be applied to each field and then the fields recombined. If the image is scaled as a whole then the interlacing is scaled also and looks very bad.

Overall I'm pretty satisfied that Avid will handle this well, as these things tend to be very well thought out.

 As far as I can tell, playing interlaced PAL in a progressive PAL project plays as interlaced footage but when paused displays both fields as it did with previous versions.  One other difference is the ability to apply effects accross p and I footage and it to look fine.  What you get when you take it out of avid and try to play it is another story.

I think you would need to match you interlaced footage to progressive footage with the use of fluid film progressive as putting interlace footage into a progressive timeline does not appear to convert it.