View Full Version : ClipBrowser does superb HD-->SD Downconvert
Peter Rixner August 31st, 2008, 11:21 AM Hi :)
I downconverted the same EX1 footage (with very fine Detail, like tube structures) with Premiere, Aftereffects, a Matrox realtime downconvert and finally the EX Clip Browser.
I am completely stunned how well and much better the clipbrowser does that downconvert compared to Aftereffects, which is absolutely the 2nd best.
What are they doing so different in Clip Browser ?
And how are Your experiences with that and other downconvert methods.
It reminds me ay little, that the Z1 in-Camera donwconversion was alway better that any other software-solution. There is a Sony secret :)
Thanks!
Peter
Nick Csakany August 31st, 2008, 03:30 PM How's the rendering time for the HD to SD conversion in Clip Browser versus a full NLE?
Peter Rixner September 1st, 2008, 03:03 AM I didn't measure, but feels not really longer.
A big advantage is that you can convert a whole folder and get files with the same filename and perfectly in sync. I can then reassign the files in premiere and get a finished SD Timeline from my existing HD. Fantastic :) You see, I am still excited :)
Peter
Ian Briscoe September 1st, 2008, 03:56 AM When I tested HD->SD via Clip Browser it was taking almost double real time. I'd be interested in what timings others are getting.
Ian
Dennis Schmitz September 1st, 2008, 04:16 AM When I tested HD->SD via Clip Browser it was taking almost double real time. I'd be interested in what timings others are getting.
Ian
It's very fast for me, too (about as fast as MP4 --> MXF!).
But the quality is very bad:
- many DV artifacts
- Interlace artifacts (progressive not possible?!)
- much more scaling artifacts than with virtualdub (maybe due to the non-possible progressive-setting?)
PS: I always shoot progressive with Detail=Off, quality is stunning, even if converted to SD using virtualdub. ;)
Dennis
Peter Rixner September 1st, 2008, 04:51 AM Interesting ... I do no interlacing. My test was progressive.
But virtual dub reads the MP4 ?!? Really ... I'll give it a try.
Thanks!
But still. My clipbrowser downconverts look fine.
Peter
Brian Cassar September 1st, 2008, 05:53 AM I too, did not like the end result of the HD-SD downconversion via the clip browser. It is not always apparent this lack of resolution. However if you zoom in on a face and then slowly zoom out, the low quality downconversion can be easily seen. The SD downconversion is as if the camera has a severe backfocus issue. The close up is nice and sharp, the wide shot is severely blurred.
Whilst on this subject of downconversion, I've managed to get very good looking SD footage by exporting movie (as mpeg2) from PPro CS3 HD timeline. The resultant SD footage is again with severe loss of resolution. Then a sharpening effect (an effect of Premiere) is applied to this movie in a SD timeline and voila, the SD footage is brought to life. The down side of this is the severe rendering time involved. Even though I have an HP workstation (quadcore with 4GB RAM) and a Matrox Axio LE (which in this case does not offer any hardware acceleration since it is a Premiere effect) I've calculated that for an hour of footage one needs about 5-6 hours of rendering time!! However the end result is worth it.
Kenny Cowburn December 4th, 2008, 05:31 AM Could someone enlighten me
I´m having a bit of a hard time converting HD to SD, without losing clarity.
I´m shooting for German broadcasters and most of the are still broadcasting SD
what version of clip browser are you using?
and how exactly are you doing the conversion in the CLIP BROWSER?
Have you bought the upgrade software from http://www.mainconcept.com/site/index.php?id=21901
??????????
Peter Rixner December 4th, 2008, 07:33 AM Hi Kenny,
to me still the (free) clipbrowser does the best HD > SD.
I've read so much about this topic and meanwhile got the impression, that so many want HD quality after downconvert, which of course is impossible :)
Also I found that many are viewing their HD clips on HD-LCD monitors, which then have to upsample the SD after it has been downconverted. That looks terrible, but does the same with any SD footage not only EX1 footage.
SD from my EX1 watched on a good old SD-Tube looks fine.
I guess the core of the problem is, that HD is too sharp for SD. Especially interlaced SD. So after all, the only way to compensate flickering is blurring.
But if anyone has the ultimate solution for better downconversion - I am still interrested :)
Peter
Greg Hawkes December 4th, 2008, 07:57 AM It's very fast for me, too (about as fast as MP4 --> MXF!).
But the quality is very bad:
- many DV artifacts
- Interlace artifacts (progressive not possible?!)
- much more scaling artifacts than with virtualdub (maybe due to the non-possible progressive-setting?)
PS: I always shoot progressive with Detail=Off, quality is stunning, even if converted to SD using virtualdub. ;)
Dennis
Dennis: Do you shoot 720P/50 or one of the other progressive formats. If not 720P/50 which one?
I have had very good results with 720P/50 but occasional line twitter (too much detail)
I usually shoot with detail on and -30. So interested in your choice to switch detail off.
Kenny Cowburn December 4th, 2008, 10:43 AM Hi Kenny,
to me still the (free) clipbrowser does the best HD > SD.
I've read so much about this topic and meanwhile got the impression, that so many want HD quality after downconvert, which of course is impossible :)
Also I found that many are viewing their HD clips on HD-LCD monitors, which then have to upsample the SD after it has been downconverted. That looks terrible, but does the same with any SD footage not only EX1 footage.
SD from my EX1 watched on a good old SD-Tube looks fine.
I guess the core of the problem is, that HD is too sharp for SD. Especially interlaced SD. So after all, the only way to compensate flickering is blurring.
But if anyone has the ultimate solution for better downconversion - I am still interrested :)
Peter
Hey Peter, Thanks for the reply and I see your point about perhaps expecting too much from the SD material...
my question is: how exactly are you using the free version of the Clip Browser to convert?
What resolution are you shooting in and what are you converting to?
I tried to convert HQ HD(1920 x 1080i) MP4 files to AVI DV and noticed that it loses so much definition, it all gets a bit blurred, which makes me think that I should have taken a BETA SP for the shoot instead.......
I haven´t tried 720 p material yet....
anything you could let me know about your experiences?
All I´m really after is max. possible clarity once converted to PAL SD
should I be shooting progressive?
Peter Rixner December 4th, 2008, 11:07 AM I am shooting all formats, depending on the job. But the "worst case" is surely 1080, because of the huge difference in size.
I recommend 100% to shoot progressive.
Unless a customer definetly wants that, I NEVER shoot interlaced. It only makes trouble.
If you need the higher framerate (for rapid movements in sports e.g.) I'd prefer 720p 50.
Your question about how I use the clip browser:
As simple as can be and like you described it. Convert to DV AVI.
Again, it's by nature a big loss in sharpness to reduce the resolution from 1080 to 576.
And if you compare it to HD on the SAME monitor, you'll never be satisfied with the results.
And as SD displaytechnology on a TV or Broadcastmonitor is ALWAYS interlaced, even if you have progressive material (a fact that so many ignore) you get flickering if your material is to sharp (what it is when you come from hd) or you have to blur it to reduce flickering.
Still I think the clipbrowser does a good ratio of softness to flickering. The theoretic "perfect solution" that I know is doing scene by scene with manual amounts of blur. But that's most of the time impractical.
BTW: if noone else is interested in the tread you can also write german, as I seem to live less than 50km from You. But english is fine with me.
Peter
Steve Shovlar December 4th, 2008, 03:55 PM NO lads keep it in English please. There are people who don't post who are intersted.
Danke.
Attila Cser December 4th, 2008, 04:34 PM I am shooting all formats, depending on the job. But the "worst case" is surely 1080, because of the huge difference in size.
I recommend 100% to shoot progressive.
Unless a customer definetly wants that, I NEVER shoot interlaced. It only makes trouble.
If you need the higher framerate (for rapid movements in sports e.g.) I'd prefer 720p 50.
Still I think the clipbrowser does a good ratio of softness to flickering. The theoretic "perfect solution" that I know is doing scene by scene with manual amounts of blur. But that's most of the time impractical.
Peter
Hi, guys,
I so glad about this thread as often I supply SD material to client.
I'm no way an expert but few things I can share which is from experience:
1. For SD the best setting seems to be 720 50 p. Progressive 50 helps you with the motions while 720 is less trouble for the PC ( you can't shoot 1080 50p)
2. The Clip browser 2.0 does a great job, however the downconvert takes time but much faster than real time capturing.
3. The Shotput Pro is a great software to mange your offloadings,
I just bought it yesterday for the todays job and I'm fully satisfied.
4. Within a Clip browser you can select the parts of the clip you want to downconvert, the downside is if you wanted two different parts of the same HD clip, you need to SDing it to different output folders to prevent overwriting.
5. All NLEs I tried on Windows gave the SD downconverted footage with artifacts or other problems, however direct HD editing with NLE and SDing the output file is faster for short clips the one I work with ENG than via Clipbrowser, but as it was stated above Clipbrowser 2.0 gives a good SD quality for SD TV
-----------------
All in all Clipbrowser is the simple and quality downcovert way at the moment.
May I ask someone to confirm that when you are coming from the HD material
choosing SD DV avi output as squeezed DV is equivalent to the SD 16:9 ?
Thanks,
Atti
Ted OMalley December 4th, 2008, 07:42 PM Danke.
Very funny, Steve. :-)
Peter Rixner December 5th, 2008, 04:25 PM Hey Steve,
what a great opportunity to learn some XDCAM EX special german vocabulary :)
like:
drecksqualität beim runterrechnen = very bad quality when downconverting
or
ist das normal, daß die Tasten abbröseln = is it normal that the buttons get rubbed off
or
wer baut eigentlich den Griff so blöd an die Kamera hin, daß man nicht richtig an die anschlüsse rankommt ?
=
wo makes the handle to close to the camerabody, that you cannot get easily to the interface plugs ?
hmmm .. maybe the english isn't perfect :)
We can learn so much from each other ...
Peter
Ted OMalley December 5th, 2008, 04:53 PM Two years of High School German is slapping me in the face right now - reminding how little German I actually ever learned and how much I forgot. I'm such a loser.
Thanks for the memories.
(See, this is why we stick to English - it's for us unilingual people.)
Peter Rixner December 5th, 2008, 07:35 PM Really ? You can attend german courses in high school ?
I thought english / spanish mayyyyyyyyybe french ... but german ...
So, if finally Steve agrees, we can switch totally to german in this forum :)
BTW: As this is still a HD > SD thread:
I tried that idea of blurring vertically in HD BEFORE downscaling ... that's also nice.
And the explanation with Nyquist is probably the most adequate.
Peter
Ted OMalley December 5th, 2008, 11:00 PM Grew up in the "bible belt" of the US - Ohio/Indiana - lot's of German influence.
Oh, yeah, and HD to SD something or other.
Dominik Seibold December 6th, 2008, 10:06 AM I am completely stunned how well and much better the clipbrowser does that downconvert compared to Aftereffects, which is absolutely the 2nd best.
Was stört dich am Ergebnis von AFX? Dessen Verkleinerungsalgorithmus funktioniert doch einwandfrei. Falls es auf Röhrenmonitoren zu sehr flimmert (wovon bei ex1-Material auszugehen ist) muss man halt noch einen vertikalen Weichzeichner dazu geben, was ja in AFX sehr leicht geht.
(I asked him why he doesn't like AFXs results ;))
Peter Rixner December 6th, 2008, 12:42 PM Das ist schon ok, ich hatte nur den Eindruck ... äh sorry, we wanted to keep it english :)
AE does a very good downscaling and adding blur will of course help. However adding the blur BEFORE downscaling does meanwhile the best results to me.
By comparing the plain downconversion of AE with Clipbrowser, the Clipsbrowser does a better job to me. Probably they are adding some kind of vertical blur also.
I also found that for cinematic work is can be a good thing to add grain after blurring. .... sometimes :)
Peter
Dominik Seibold December 6th, 2008, 03:58 PM However adding the blur BEFORE downscaling does meanwhile the best results to me.
Yes, with adding blur after downscaling, you certainly reduce flickering, but with bluring before you're ultimately avoiding any aliasing, because AEs downscaler is good, but not perfect in terms of cutting off frequencies higher than the nyquist-limit becore downscaling.
But fortunately it's an easy task, because effects in AE always get applied to the nativly sized footage before any scale/rotation-operations. :)
Kevin Wayne Jones December 6th, 2008, 07:08 PM We use a pretty down and dirty method in creating SD DVDs of HD material.
Shoot XDCAM EX-1 1080i. Edit with Final Cut Studio 2.
Drop footage into a DV timeline.
Edit and render as usual.
Pipe the finished project out through firewire to our Sony RDR-GX7 desktop DVD recorder.
Record in HQ (60 minutes) or HSP (90 Minutes) modes for best quality.
No fancy menus, but looks great.
Better than I been able to do with Compresser and DVD Studio.
Kevin Jones
Peter Kraft December 7th, 2008, 02:19 PM Let add again for completeness's sake
MPEGStreamClip, which does downscales to SD
not only very fast but also with outstanding quality.
Would like to mention also that de-interlacing with
something like DVMaker or Fieldskit improves SD
picture quality visibly. No prior vertical blurring
nessecary, imo, however don't have a clue why.
Mark Krichever December 7th, 2008, 07:55 PM I do not understand why one should use Sony browser for down conversion while you can export your final sequence from FCP (for instance) in any format? My TV studio clients asking me for .avi.
I shoot in 1920x1080 p24 or 1080 p24. Then using export as AVI and DV/DVCPRO compressor (with interlacing) I am receiving excellent quality AVI that plays exceptionally well with VLC player. Do not use Microsoft media Player - it is nothing more than garbage.
If I export my FCP clip to .mov format with H.264 compressor output clip looks even better. In the matter of fact it looks almost as good as original clip.
The same goes for down conversion using DVCPRO HD 720p30.
The worst resolution .mov I got with 720x480 with H264 compressor. But even that one is not too bad.
So, pardon my ignorance, why should we use Sony browser? Unless you working on PC that I do not know too well.
Erik Phairas December 8th, 2008, 01:02 AM time to feel dumb, but I didn't see a way to downconvert in the clip browser.
Joachim Hoge December 8th, 2008, 01:32 AM We also edit in a hd timeline, copy everything and paste it into a dv or other timeline and render (fcp). We have great results this way. It looked good when broadcasted, even on my 42" hd tv
But I'm happy to try something new as it might produce even better results
Peter Rixner December 8th, 2008, 04:55 AM Peter: If you deinterlace you actually do blur the image vertically, by throwing away information and interpolating or blending with the other field. That's probably the reason.
But that might not be a solution when someone would wand to keep the interlacing.
Mark: If you use any mediaplayer to watch your results on the computerscreen you cannot see the problem. Flickering of course only happens on a external monitor that uses a interlaced technique like all broadcast monitors and Home TVs.
After all it also depends on the content of the movie (fine structures or not) and of course on personal judgment.
I've seen clients that where happy with other's productions that flicker or even had the wrong fieldorder(!!!), wrong aspect ratio an so on.
And some of them even judge footage from viewing a DVD on their notebook.
Peter
Kenny Cowburn December 9th, 2008, 06:24 AM time to feel dumb, but I didn't see a way to downconvert in the clip browser.
Erik, no need to feel dumb.
are you using Clip Browser 1.1?
if so, there is no way of down-converting in there.
here a link for version 2:
Sony | Micro Site - XDCAM EX (http://pro.sony.com/bbsc/ssr/micro-xdcamexsite/resource.downloads.bbsccms-assets-micro-xdcamex-downloads-XDCAMEXBrowserForPC.shtml)
when you hit the export option, you can export as AVI DV, amoungst others...
Erik Phairas December 10th, 2008, 12:27 AM Erik, no need to feel dumb.
are you using Clip Browser 1.1?
if so, there is no way of down-converting in there.
here a link for version 2:
Sony | Micro Site - XDCAM EX (http://pro.sony.com/bbsc/ssr/micro-xdcamexsite/resource.downloads.bbsccms-assets-micro-xdcamex-downloads-XDCAMEXBrowserForPC.shtml)
when you hit the export option, you can export as AVI DV, amoungst others...
Hey thanks, I'll check it out!
EDIT: HA that is so much easier to use. Now I know what all you guys were talking about when you just select the containing folder.. I just clicked on the drive the files were in and all the thumbnails showed up. SO much better than digging them out one by one with the old browser...
Hell you just saved me 30 minutes off the start of each new project.
Andy Nickless December 10th, 2008, 09:46 AM They've sold me (and all subscribers to this thread) a complete pup.
Deinterlace, flicker control, adding blur, what are all you guys talking about? What next?
NONE of these things should be necessary if Sony sorted the codec before releasing the camera.
This camera gives the most stunning footage I've seen from anything near the price. But it's a complete dud unless you have BluRay.
Argue with me if I've hurt your pride but personally, I'm in a desperately serious position now. Been working on a project solidly since May this year.
Have received many pre-orders of my DVD but do you know what?
I'm going to have to refund all their money unless some miracle happens and I can find some way to produce acceptable SD from this (admittedly stunning) EX1 footage.
It's a complete con.
PS - My best shot so far at converting EX1 to SD has come with MPEG STREAMCLIP.
As in a post above, it's VERY fast and does a better job than I've managed so far with Compressor (and I'm no novice with FCS2).
Steve Shovlar December 10th, 2008, 10:10 AM Well Andy its back to H Prestons with it then?
Seriously of course you can get great SD footage out of it. I have produced over 25 different wedding dvds and they all look just great. the problem is not the camera, but Compressor and the way it works with the footage downconverting. An easy work a round sorts that out.
Edit in HD
Export as a QT using Prores422 as a stand alone movie.
Make a new sd sequence in FCP ( right mouse click on the sequence and make sure interlaced is set to non, and its set at 16:9, Best Quality. Drop the prores422 file on the timelime, click no when it asks to change the timeline to suit the footage.
Render the footage, then export to Compressor.
Result = beautiful SD dvd.
Dominik Seibold December 10th, 2008, 11:20 AM My best shot so far at converting EX1 to SD has come with MPEG STREAMCLIP.
As in a post above, it's VERY fast and does a better job than I've managed so far with Compressor (and I'm no novice with FCS2).
Compressors rescaler is better than mpeg-streamsclips. But you have to set the scale-quality to best, as shown in the attached screen-shot.
Andy Nickless December 10th, 2008, 11:22 AM Well Andy its back to H Prestons with it then?
CVP actually!
But Prestons are a tad closer to us than CVP.
Edit in HD
Export as a QT using Prores422 as a stand alone movie.
Wish I hadn't tried this a dozen times, Steve.
But I'll try it again once more.
When you say export to Compressor, - MPEG2 ??
What sort of Bit Rate? Average say, 7 - Max 8.5 ??
And when you say Right-Click on the SD Timeline, I presume you mean Apple+0 ??
______________________
I will try this in a few minutes time but I must say I'm not holding my breath.
______________________
Interestingly (I'd love to know the reason for this).
In the Simulator of DVDSP, the footage looks wonderful (on my HD Monitor) but any scenes that are Wide or even Semi-Wide with lots of detail, grass, trees etc are positively fuzzy - and make my eyes go funny (watched on SD TV).
So WHY does it look so good in the Simulator?
______________________
Anyway, thanks for your help.
I'll post back.
Andy Nickless December 10th, 2008, 11:28 AM you have to set the scale-quality to best, as shown in the attached screen-shot.
Dominic I've been using the "Best" setting for Resizing since you were in short trousers!
(Little joke - but I AM quite old).
Dominik Seibold December 10th, 2008, 12:07 PM Dominic I've been using the "Best" setting for Resizing since you were in short trousers!
(Little joke - but I AM quite old).
But why don't you like Compressors?
I attached a comparison of a conversion from 1920x1080p to 720x480p. The upper one is mpeg-streamclip, the lower compressor.
Don't know why streamclip produces black bars.
Perhaps the edges in the version from compressor looks very little more smooth. But definitely streamclip isn't better.
Mark Krichever December 10th, 2008, 02:18 PM But why don't you like Compressors?
I attached a comparison of a conversion from 1920x1080p to 720x480p. The upper one is mpeg-streamclip, the lower compressor.
Don't know why streamclip produces black bars.
Perhaps the edges in the version from compressor looks very little more smooth. But definitely streamclip isn't better.
Would you, please describe how you use Compressor (step by step). It would be of great help to me.
Thanks,
Mark
Andy Nickless December 10th, 2008, 03:40 PM But why don't you like Compressors?
I didn't say I don't like Compressor - but it's part of an expensive professional package and I would have expected it to be far better than a free application that I downloaded from the internet.
The two images you supplied are very similar - although I think the top one (Streamclip) is a little sharper. But I tried to make the point earlier that what looks good on your computer screen isn't necessarily good on DVD.
As I said (in my post above) the DVDSP Simulation of my movie looks really good. So why does it look so bad on SD TV?
If we could get screen grabs from SD TV, it would be interesting to compare them.
Andy Nickless December 10th, 2008, 03:47 PM Result = beautiful SD dvd.
No - sorry Steve,
I tried this again this evening - just the same blurry result on the wider shots where there is grass and trees etc.
I'm going to have to buy a new camera and re-shoot this project - 7 months work down the pan!
(Thanks Sony).
Peter Kraft December 10th, 2008, 04:31 PM Andy,
have you ever tried Bitvice by Innobits (Sweden)?
Very sharp, very good downrez.
BTW leaves and grass are the worst thing to downrez.
I did once apply a sharpen filter prior to DVD encoding.
It did help :-) P.
Peter Rixner December 10th, 2008, 06:51 PM Gentlemen:
We are talking about a HD Camera.
If you want to produce only SD then it might be the wrong choice.
But editing in HD and downscaling with a little vertical blur in Aftereffects isn't too hard I guess. Each and every big movie, shot on 35mm and then downconverted to standard SD DVDs has to go through such process.
So it's not Sony's fault to sell us a superb, sharp HD Camera.
Still (for the simple way) I would use clipbrowser for Pre-Edit downscaling to DV.
Peter
Dominik Seibold December 11th, 2008, 01:03 AM Would you, please describe how you use Compressor (step by step).
YouTube - high-quality HD to SD-DVD conversion with FCP (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSw9JfVmIpI&fmt=22)
It seems, there's some kind of a youtube-bug. You have to skip the first seconds.
I didn't say I don't like Compressor - but it's part of an expensive professional package and I would have expected it to be far better than a free application that I downloaded from the internet.
The result of Compressor is almost PERFECT. It's not possible to get better than perfect.
But why is a freeware-app capable of doing (almost) the same?
Well, writing a piece of software which downscales pictures perfectly isn't very hard: First you have to to eliminate the spatial frequencies above the (new) nyquist-limit using a (windowed) sinc-low-pass-filter. With FFT this can be done very fast. Then you downsample the picture using the sinc-function again (if the old dimension isn't an integral multiple of the new). Done! This method is also called "lanczos resampling".
The two images you supplied are very similar - although I think the top one (Streamclip) is a little sharper.
The extra-sharpness of streamclip could be some aliasing, but the difference is so little that it's not worth discussing it further.
But I tried to make the point earlier that what looks good on your computer screen isn't necessarily good on DVD.
As I said (in my post above) the DVDSP Simulation of my movie looks really good. So why does it look so bad on SD TV?
What exactly do you mean with "bad"? Perhaps you mean flickering on interlaced displays:
To reduce flicker on interlaced screens you have to vertical lowpass-filter (= blur) the pictures. But by doing this you're loosing sharpness. You have to find your own tradeoff between more sharpness and less flicker.
Andy Nickless December 11th, 2008, 06:31 AM have you ever tried Bitvice by Innobits (Sweden)?
Thanks Peter - I had an email from them last night and I replied expressing an interest.
I suspect it will mean I have to buy a Mac Pro but I'm prepared to do that if Bit Vice will produce a satisfactory result.
Episode is another one - but again, it requires Intel processor.
At barely two years old, my Mac is obsolete!
leaves and grass are the worst thing to downrez.
I did once apply a sharpen filter prior to DVD encoding
Yes I agree.
I've even tried exporting as an image sequence and using Batch Process in Photoshop to apply the Unsharp Mask (I don't get on well with US Mask in FCP).
That seemed to help significantly, so I can't understand for the life of me why the guys are going on about adding blur!
I'd dearly like to get Photoshop CS4 Extended because I understand you can use it for video now but guess what - (Intel again)!
Andy Nickless December 11th, 2008, 06:46 AM What exactly do you mean with "bad"? Perhaps you mean flickering on interlaced displays
No Dominik, I mean Blur - so bad that if I watch for more than a few seconds, my eyes feel strange.
As I said, there's grass, trees, and to make matters worse, shiny steel fencing with horizontal bars.
So it's not going to look great but what I've been trying to explain is that in the DVDSP Simulator it looks really good but once formatted to DVD and played on an SD TV it's VERY blurry.
I suspected the DVD media or my DVD burner, so I encoded an old SD movie clip from our last DVD production and it was absolutely fine.
____________________
I don't think I've taken the time to thank you for trying to help, so I'd like to do that now.
It's a huge help to be able to talk to others on forums like this one. I've even had private emails from other people who've seen the thread and want to help too.
So thanks to you all (please keep it going - we haven't fixed it yet).
I rather feel I've hi-jacked the OP's spot but it's well "on-topic" so hopefully I can be forgiven.
Peter Kraft December 11th, 2008, 09:16 AM Thanks Peter - I had an email from them last night and I replied expressing an interest.
I suspect it will mean I have to buy a Mac Pro but I'm prepared to do that if Bit Vice will produce a satisfactory result.
At barely two years old, my Mac is obsolete!
Not necessarily. They still offer a PPC version which (I think) is not bad. However, they changed the scaling engine in their latest version 2.4 to 3D Flir or something like that. BTW that's the same engine MPEGStreamClip uses. So a good workflow for the time being would be to scale HD > SG with MPSC and encode into MP2 with BitVice 1.8.1.
Piotr Wozniacki December 11th, 2008, 09:26 AM You guys sound like you're looking for problems. When I need to produce an SD DVD from my EX HQ 1080/25p material in Vegas, I simply use the DVDA PAL widescreen video stream template for my final (and only) render; it produces gorgeous DVD image without any additional tweaking etc.
The only FX I add at the track level is slight Unsharpen Mask (forcing it to act only after downconversion), and - if the DVD is going to be delivered to a wide audience - the Broadcast safe colours on the Project level.
That's it; never encountered soft picture or line twitter... From what you're saying I'm beginning to suspect there is some weak link in your viewing hw/sw chain...
Peter Kraft December 11th, 2008, 09:31 AM When I need to produce an SD DVD from my EX HQ 1080/25p material in Vegas, I simply use the DVDA PAL widescreen video stream template for my final (and only) render; it produces gorgeous DVD image without any additional tweaking etc.
Piotr, what stands that template for? I'm on a Mac... P.
Piotr Wozniacki December 11th, 2008, 09:36 AM Piotr, what stands that template for? I'm on a Mac... P.
Nothing special; obvious things like frame size, fps, pixel aspect ratio. Of course it has the quality settings - I'm always using the highest possible (including bitrate).
Interestingly, this produces 50i version of my 25p material, but in fact it's really 25PsF so no problems with either authoring DVD (as it's flagged 50i), or watching on a progressive flat displays (as it's really still progressive, with no time shift between fields).
Dominik Seibold December 11th, 2008, 01:18 PM No Dominik, I mean Blur - so bad that if I watch for more than a few seconds, my eyes feel strange.
I don't have clue what's going wrong, but believe me: It's not the downscaling-quality of compressor. ;)
Mark Krichever December 11th, 2008, 08:03 PM Compressors rescaler is better than mpeg-streamsclips. But you have to set the scale-quality to best, as shown in the attached screen-shot.
Indeed, when I set Compressor to all "best quality" parameters, recorded on DVD picture came up as good as one can expect for SD.
PS. The only problem that i do not know how to overcome is INTERLACING. I shot with 1080p24 and in FCP I turned Interlacing to De-Interlace. In compressor I did the same and yet final DVD has this problem. Any advice?
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