Apple Final Cut Pro 6 - Manual (Page 1871)

388 Part V Appendixes
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, while 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.
Today, almost all digital video formats are Y´C
B
C
R
(component). Computers typically
store image data using RGB, although many Y´C
B
C
R
(component) formats can now be
processed natively on the computer (such as DV).
Color recording method Video formats
Composite 1", 3/4" U-matic, 1/2",VHS, D-2, D-3
Y/C (S-Video) Hi8, S-VHS
Y´C
B
C
R
(component) Betacam SP, Digital Betacam, DVD, DV, D-1, D-5
RGB Computer graphics and digital cinema acquisition. Although video
originates in and is displayed in this format, it is rare for tape
formats (Y´C
B
C
R
is used instead).