Render for TV headaches

goodtimej wrote on 3/5/2008, 9:37 AM
I am posting here because I think I am having problems rendering for TV. I am just beginning a public access show which me and my crew produce little sketches for. These sketches consist of all sorts of footage from HDR-FX1, handicams, photos, stock footage and whatever else we throw in. We did a little pre-show last week, though, and as we were watching it back, the quality of these produced segments was noticably bad. Very, very dark in some places that were not dark before. I know this could be a combination of a few things but here are my questions:

1. In the properties settings, I have 8 bit pixel, best rendering, gaussian blur and no de-interlace. Is this OK? What should I have de-interlacing set to?

2. I render out at MPG2 DVD Arch. Does this take care of whatever interlacing or de-interlacing needs to be done for broadcast? I am still confused by these concepts.

Anyone have some experience I could lean on? Thanks

Comments

Former user wrote on 3/5/2008, 10:05 AM
The dark settings are probably just related to the equipment setup at the Public Access broadcasting facility.

Interlacing is a whole new issue, unrelated to dark images. The most important thing is to be sure that all of your material is the SAME field order. Most DV video is lower field first, but High Def video is normally upper field. If you are mixing these formats, you will run into interlacing issues when you render out.

Dave T2
rs170a wrote on 3/5/2008, 10:26 AM
Like a lot of cable stations, public access is notorious for not keeping their transmission gear up to date (i.e. not to proper technical standards).
What does the show look like on a TV at your house?
What does it look like on the scopes in Vegas?
If it's OK at your end, the problem is with your station.

Also, why are you rendering to DVD?
A show aired from tape will always look much better, mainly because it's not going through the compression required for a DVD.

Mike