Skip to main content
J
Jin Hong29105022u34q
Participant
May 18, 2024
Question

Trying to create interlaced effect from 60i footage; help with export settings/resolution

  • May 18, 2024
  • 1 reply
  • 1608 views

I've extracted some 60i footage from my Sony Handycam HDR-CX150 that records AVCHD (.MTS) files. I believe it records in 1440x1080 and it stretches it out to a vertical 1920x1080 resolution with a 1.333 pixel aspect ratio. I am importing my footage into Premiere Pro 2024 and I want to upload it to Youtube, with an intentional interlacing effect.

My bigger problem is that I want to extract the interlacing effect from this footage and make it viable (such as the video seen here). So, I interpreted my footage as Progressive Scan (instead of Upper Fields, which would get rid of the interlacing lines) and in my sequence I changed Upper Field First (which would have done the same thing as said before) to Progressive Scan. (below)

It seems to do the trick, but the problem is that when it is full screen, the interlaced lines are too thin (pixel-by-pixel on and off) and they kind of destroy my exported video into a mush of crushed bitrate. (below)

I looked at the preview screen of my export window for the crushed footage, and it looked EXACTLY how I wanted it to; the lines weren't too thin, but not too thick either. (below)

So then I got the idea of exporting my footage as a smaller resolution, so that the lines may become thicker and the effect will be less harsh. But for some reason, when I export it (say, at 1080p) and open it in preview, the interlaced lines almost look greyed out and not at full opacity, which tells me I'm doing something wrong with changing my resolution. (below)

Perhaps I'm supposed to export at some specific resolution that gives me those desired lines I saw in the preview? Looking for answers. Thanks!

This topic has been closed for replies.

1 reply

Warren Heaton
Community Expert
Warren HeatonCommunity Expert
Community Expert
May 18, 2024

The "crushed footage" look that you're liking is the apperance of the interlaced footage being scaled to fit the Program panel.  We'd usually set the settings to Display First Field or Display Second Field to avoid it when cutting at 1080i.

I'd screen record the playback of Premiere Pro, then use After Effects to crop out to the picture in that recording and then scale it to 1080p for use in your edit.

 

J
Jin Hong29105022u34qAuthor
Participant
May 18, 2024

Thanks for the reply. So is there no way to straightforwardly get those lines in an export (i.e. is a screen recording my only way out of this)? This just seems sort of impractical, and I'm worried that the quality from the screen recording compared to the export is drastically low. I've measured the pixel height of the preview window, and I've tried to export my video at that resolution, but it doesn't seem to work the same. Is there something the preview window is doing that the downscaling resolution is not?

Warren Heaton
Community Expert
Warren HeatonCommunity Expert
Community Expert
May 18, 2024

Thanks for the advice for the Venetian Blinds, but I've already tried it and I don't think my machine has the resources to render all of this with the amount of clips I have. Do you think the person in the video I posted in the original post used artificial interlacing (venetian blinds, etc.)? I'm really just trying to achieve authentic interlacing. To reiterate, what would be the difference between downscaling my 1440p footage to something smaller vs. what the Premiere preview (the look I'm going for) is showing? Thanks for taking your time to consider.


When we see both fields at the same time, that’s called “combing” - like combing your hair.

 

To see both fields at the same time in Premiere Pro, select the i60 clips in your project and choose Clip > Modify > Interpret Footage.  HDV 1080i60 source (that is, 1440-by-1080 1.33 PAR, interlaced, 29.97 source) will work well for this.  In the Interpret Footage dialog box, change the Field Order from “Upper Field First” to “Conform to: No Fields (Progressive Scan)”.  Ideally, these clips would be used in a Sequence that is 1080p29.97 or 1080p30.

 

However, in your screenshots, it looked like you are going for thicker scan lines.  Is that correct?  If so, then use Venetian Blinds.  To ease the processing requirement on your computer, you could pre-render the clips with Venetian Blinds baked in.  Import a clip, setup the Venetian Blinds, then export.  I’d use ProRes 422 LT for this.  Repeat until all of your clips have this look baked in and use these as your source in our main project.

 

A technical note:  Don’t summarize progressive 1440-by-1080 1.33 PAR as “1440p”.  Use the frame height, not the frame width.  “1080i” could be 1920-by-1080 interlaced, 1440-by-1080 interlaced, or 1280-by-1080 interlaced.  When summarizing settings, the PAR (pixel aspect ratio) value indicates how wide the frame is.  So, Full HD is PAR 1.0, HDV/DVCPro is 1.33, and DVCPro is 1.5.  As such, 1080p PAR 1.33 would be correct while 1440p means a taller frame size.

Terms & ConditionsAccessibility statement
Using the community Terms of use Privacy Cookie preferences Do not sell or share my personal information ad choicesAdChoices