Unfortunately, "the elephant in the room" of Field Order with digital video is something very hard to discuss, much like "the redheaded stepchild", if I may combine multiple idioms. There are so many aspects and considerations to it... I'll try to keep this short and sweet:
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Field Order is something that comes from the Analog Television days of yore, where full frames were not streamed down the pipe, but 'half frames' were (called Fields), where the original image was cut up into sections (lines, with even numbered lines and odd numbered lines). This led to much chaos as things slowly evolved into the digital realm, as some software/manufacturers went with "Top Field First" while some went with "Bottom Field First" (i.e. which of those lines that made up the video frame was processed earlier in the video sequence). Many computer video editing applications over the past decades tried to automatically detect whether video was one or the other, with various levels of success over the years. Today, it seems that most software (programs/applications) and hardware (cameras, capture cards, etc) are leaning towards "Top Field First" being used mostly (especially for HD video, like 1080i) and "Bottom Field First" being seen with non-HD "DV". Of course, this is not a constant, it is just something I personally have seen over the years.
The best way to handle Field Order, is to find out what your capture device utilizes. As a couple examples: read the documentation of your camera - it may put out "Bottom Field First" material. Perhaps you used a Capture Card inside your computer system - go to the manufacturers website and see if your product produces "Top Field First" video. PowerDirector12 seems to produce "Top Field First", when interlaced output is selected. It does allow you to change the Field Order, when video is imported, if you find that your Produced material looks wavy/shimmery/etc (Right-Click on the clip and choose Set Clip Attributes > Set TV Format). For instance, if you imported some DV material and your output looks wavy/shimmery with "Interlaced... Top Field First" selected, change this area option to "Interlaced...Bottom Field First" and this may solve the problem. As stated above, most software can detect the Field Order properly (TFF or BFF) - PD12 automatically detected some TFF material I had, correctly - but all software can possibly make mistakes, so if you are getting that weird wavy/shimmery or even 'stuttery' output, try changing the Field Order setting.
Hopefully that's all it will take, with your video clips. Good luck with it!
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at Aug 17. 2014 20:34
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