Joe’s Field Fixer reconstructs the current frame by combining any two fields from the previous, current or next frames. This can be used to reverse fields, fix shifted fields, field-double or experiment with various field combinations.

Without Joe’s Field Fixer many field-order problems had to be fixed in After Effects or corrected with a de-interlace filter. For mis-matched and out of order fields, re-ordering is a better solution than de-interlacing because the video data is fine, it’s just slightly out of order by being offset in time.

Example Images

Reversed Field Order

Upper Field: Lower Field Lower Field: Upper Field

Analog dubs

Occasionally when analog sources are dubbed with non-pro equipment the normal field sequence can spill across frames. Instead of reversed field order, the frames break across fields resulting in mis-matched fields. The following example frame was dubbed from VHS to DV and shows a cut between two cameras existing in a single frame.

Analog Dub Original

Upper Field: Upper Field Lower Field: Lower Field (Next Frame)

When correcting slipped fields, notice the effect of diagonals and curves. Make sure you’re not outputting the same field twice (once for the top and once for the bottom). If there is motion in the frame, the amount of interlace ‘tearing’ may also be a helpful indicator of which fields belong together. While there is a definite set of matching frames, whether you push the fields forward or backwards in time is up to you.

Other Uses

Joe’s Field Fixer can also quickly correct field-order problems resulting from processes which up-res DV to a Kona SDI card, which occasionally result in flopped fields.

Controls

Upper Field, Lower Field (upper/lower field, previous/current/next frame)

Determines the sources for each of the two fields making up the resulting frame.

Important Note about field-based effect previews

All of Final Cut Pro’s field-based effects need to be rendered for an accurate preview. At zoom values below 100%, the FCP desktop preview only shows the lower field of an interlaced video frame and pre-rendered effects use this scaled down, single-field image to preview before rendering.