Alludo USER to USER Web Board

1: I'm compiling a football highlight film with multiple clips. Several clips have the jitters which leads me to believe I need to reverse the fields. Is there a way in VS Pro X2 to reverse the fields on just these clips?

2: Don't want to be rude, but honestly this web site is agonizingly slow. It is a great resource for info and the exchange of info, but honestly I avoid it if possible. Last night I tried to post this question and just to bring up a page took several minutes. I went downstairs, made a sandwich, came back and the page was still loading. At that point I quit. Can something be done? Thanks for listening.

First -- the website. Yes, it is a mess. Unfortunately, none of us regulars here have any control over the servers in Taiwan. The forums have been experiencing considerable technical difficulties for months now. We complain to Corel, they promise to do something, and eventually they apply some kind of band-aid. And it works for a week or two, then we get the problems again. So all I can do is apologise. Imagine, though, what it is like for us who spend several hours a day on the Board trying to help out, and we experience the same slow response that you do...

Second, are your multiple clips filmed with different types of cameras? If so, which ones? Different cameras film using different field orders. High definition, hard disc and mini DVD models use Upper Field First, while mini DV standard definition cameras use Lower Field First.

But if you in fact do have Upper and Lower Field First videos mixed together, you may be in a spot of bother. A basic rule is you should not mix the two in a single project. One or the other will look wonky -- and the effect will be worse if, as like yours, a lot of action shots are involved.

But yes, you can change the field order of individual clips -- though I cannot guarantee the results. Put the clip in question in the timeline. Right click on it and look at its Properties. If it says Lower Field First, for example, then select Share > Create Video File > DVD, but in the dialogue box which appears, use the Edit button to change the settings to Upper Field First. As I say, though, you are unlikely to be pleased with the results...

Please read the following thread regarding Field Orders.
http://forum.corel.com/EN/viewtopic.php?p=169273#169273

I have started midway through the thread but you need to read all that follows to the end.

Thanks to all for your responses. I sympathize with you Ken about the site. Thanks for all you do to help people.

Mixed fields are not a problem when the video originates from my camera. However, when compiling video that originated from other sources the mixed fields can be a problem. Perhaps some folks set their capture settings to UFF. In this situation, I could see the properties of the clips in the timeline, but couldn't change them. It would be nice to be able to change properties, then render. If I change the properties in the original source and render, then I have to relink and recompose the clip.

As for this particular problem, I recoded the project through CinemaCraft and the video improved to an acceptable state.

A question. As technology moves forward, HD will become the standard in a few years. Will similar problems be encountered mixing old footage with new footage in a video compilation?

Apart from the obvious difference in quality between SD and HD, yes, the same problems will occur if people try to mix UFF and LFF video, regardles of whether it is SD or HD. If, for example, you have SD video shot on a mini DV camera, it will ipso facto use LFF. But it cannot then be mixed with, say, video shot on a camera (SD or HD) which uses a hard disc, or a card drive, or even a mini DVD disc, as they all use UFF.

And to make things very complicated indeed, consider the HDV high def cameras: they film HD in mpeg-2 format using UFF, but on a mini DVD tape. But if you set the same camera to film on SD, then it will film in DV/AVI format on the same mini DVD tape, but that will use LFF...

Whoever said that video editing was meant to be easy???