Quality Issues, Adobe Premiere vs Final Cut Pro

[Natalia V]

Hi all,
I am wondering if anyone is aware of this issue? The footage edited in Adobe Premiere comes out with much better details and quality rather than footge edited in Final Cut. Could that be the wrong encoding? I use QuickTime to encode FCP footage for DVD.
Or could that be the wrong way of capturing the footage?
When I say "quality issues" I mean jitter and grain that suddenly appears after I encode the footage. What should I do? Try a different codec?

[Light prod]

What codec are you currently using and what format are we talking about here? HD? SD?
I've never had issues either exporting from FCP as quicktime (using current settings) then bringing that into compressor and making conversions from there or straight from FCP to compressor.

I wouldn't recommend using the "export to quicktime" settings if your going to change the codec to something other than the source.

Also if your importing a file into DVD studio pro that is not the codec needed, DVD studio will re-compress it. Anything that DVD Studio Pro re-compresses turns to crap.

[Natalia V]

Hey, thank you for your reply.
It is SD footage, there are a lot of filters and slow motion put on the videos (that's the production company requirements so that might cause the quality loss as well?)
I think what they do is export the video as a quicktime movie (with current settings) and then they encode it in compressor or some other software using quicktime encoding.
As a result the footage looks grainy and jittery. As opposed to Adobe Premiere edits, which looks so much more detailed and crisp.
So could that be the wrong encoder to use?
And are you suggesting that DVD pro shouldn't be used as an encoder?
I am sorry, I am not really experienced in all that, I just started as an editor a few months ago. It is just sad that my finished product doesn't look as good as videos edited in Adobe Premiere and I am sure it is not about the software it is about the way they finish it up.
Also, could that be the wrong capturing methods? They capture it with Premiere using the camera. Maybe it would look better if they captured it straight into Final Cut? But that is just my assumption.
Thank you again for your help.

[Light prod]

as far the capturing method, its all about the codec in which they captured in.
Try and exporting (FCP) quicktime movie and set the settings as uncompressed 8 bit PAL or NTSC if it was shot in NTSC. Check the quality of that file and see if it has improved or not. If so, my guess would be that it was imported as dvpal and upping it to either 8 or 10bit will improve the quality and colour depth.
Then bring that file into compressor and convert to one of the dvd settings they have there.
Those settings will not be recoded by DVD studio pro. Do not use quicktime pro to do any conversions for DVD Studio pro as it will re convert it to it's desired format.

Avoid DVD Studio Pro doing any encoding. It does a horrible job. You end up with flicker, dropped frames and pixelated graphics/titles.

Another thing with slowing down your footage, if you go too far it can look jittery. If your working with interlaced footage this can be even more noticeable.
You'll also want to make sure that your field dominance matches your source video.
you can check this by going to your browser window and scroll right till you see the "field dominance" column. your sequence and source file should match. They should both be set to Lower(even). I'm assuming your working in PAL of course. If they are not the same then switch the sequence to match the source by right clicking on it.
If they don't match you can have some pretty flickery footage on your hands.

Also keep in mind that SD (especially DV) doesn't have much give in terms of colour grading and effects. As soon as you lighten or darken or put a number of filters that pushes the colour or contrast of the image, you will get grain. It doesn't work like film. With film, if the shot has dark areas and blown out area some of it can be brought back without loosing quality (to a point of course) and that's why film is still widely used. If the image isn't perfectly exposed and matching shot to shot, adjustments can be made without degrading the quality of the image.
This is not the case with DV.

I hope this helped. Let me know how you go.