Working with progressive & interlaced footage

Denoiser II works with both progressive and interlaced footage. Here are tips about how to handle footage in each host application.

Separate Fields checkbox

The Separate Fields checkbox tells Denoiser II to process the even/odd fields of the input footage separately.

After Effects: In After Effects, it is best to interpret the interlaced footage as a progressive clip. Put the clip inside of a progressive comp or sequence, then select the Separate Fields checkbox when applying Denoiser II to the clip.

To turn on basic deinterlacing and interpret the clip as progressive in After Effects, go to File> Interpret Footage> Main Options> Fields and Pulldown. Use the Separate Fields pop-up to deinterlace and turn on the checkbox Preserve Edges (Best Quality Only).

Premiere Pro: As with After Effects, in Premiere Pro, it is best to interpret the interlaced footage as a progressive clip and put inside of a progrssive comp or sequence, then select the Separate Fields checkbox when applying Denoiser II to the clips.

When you work with interlaced footage in Premiere Pro, the interlaced clips have a vertical frequency component that will interfere with the denoising. Turning on Separate Fields will ensure that all the field handling is done in Denoiser II instead of reordering the interlaced fields in the host application.

Final Cut Pro 7: FCP 7 doesn't have any issues handling interlaced footage, so Denoiser II runs fine without separating the fields.

Field-to-Frame deinterlace in After Effects

Alternately, you can process every field as a frame, which is often referred to as 'manually' separating fields. You do this by telling After Effects to treat every field as a frame. Since 29.9 frames per second = 59.4 fields per second, you will put your interlaced footage into a composition that has a 59.4 frame rate output.

To render fields as frames, do the following:
1. Set Interpret Footage to interlaced settings for your clip (Upper or Lower Field First).
2. Drop the clip onto the Create a New Composition button in the Project Window.
3. Open the Composition Settings (Cmd/Ctrl-K).
4. Double the Frame Rate to 59.94 for NTSC or 50 for PAL media, depending on the original clip type. You can do this by typing *2 after the frame rate.
5. Double to duration of the comp to accommodate the double field rate. So 100 frame composition becomes 200 frames.
6. Apply Denoiser in this Composition and adjust settings accordingly.
7. When finished, Add to Render Queue and then adjust the Render Settings.
8. Set the Frame Rate back to the original clip rate (29.97 for NTSC or 25 for PAL).
9. Set the Field Order pop-up to the same as the original clip (Upper or Lower Field First).
10. When you go to render, After Effects will properly manage the field output and the results will be correctly denoised fields.