Apple Final Cut Pro 7 - Manual (Page 1904)

• Many HD video cameras can record progressive frames.
• Video destined for computer-only use, such as web video, should always be made
progressive.
About Field Dominance
Field dominance is an issue when recording and playing back interlaced video material.
With progressive video, there is only one way to play back a video frame: start at line 1
and scan until the end of the last line. With interlaced video, the video player must know
whether to scan the odd lines first, or the even lines. In other words, each time a frame
is displayed, which field should be displayed first, field 1 or 2? The field displayed first is
totally dependent on which field was captured by the camera and recorded first.
Each field is a snapshot in time, so if field 1 is recorded earlier in time than field 2, field 1
must be played back before field 2. If the wrong field order is chosen, each frame’s fields
play backward in time, even though each frame as a whole still moves forward. The effect
is a very noticeable stutter happening 60 (NTSC) or 50 (PAL) times a second.
Each piece of video equipment and each video format has a preferred field dominance.
This prevents you from, say, editing two field 2s back to back, and makes sure that each
field is played back in the right order.
Setting Field Dominance in Final Cut Pro
In Final Cut Pro, the field dominance of clips must match the sequence field dominance.
Otherwise, the fields stutter during playback because each pair of fields plays back in the
wrong order. For example, DV NTSC and DV PAL always have a field dominance of Lower
(Even). If you’re working in a sequence and you see that imported clips are flickering,
check to make sure the field dominance of those additional clips matches the field
dominance of your edited sequence.
Important: You need to change the Field Dominance setting of your projects and
sequences only if you change your video hardware setup.
In Final Cut Pro, there are two options for field dominance:
• Upper (field 2 is dominant, so the second field is drawn first)
• Lower (field 1 is dominant, so the first field is drawn first)
Generally, Upper is used by 640 x 480 systems, whereas Lower is most common in
professional 720 x 486 and DV 720 x 480 systems.
Color Recording Method
The color recording method of a video format may be either RGB, Y
′
C
B
C
R
(component),
Y/C (S-Video), or composite. The more discrete channels a format has, the higher the
quality of the image, but the more data required to store and transmit that information.
1904 Appendix B Video Formats