I've often taken bits of footage I've done and tried to do the "film look" steps that people say to do in post to see how good I can get it looking. Although the footage looks nice on my computer screen, whenever it goes to TV, well it still looks like crappy old video. I'm not after a 35mm with $50 million production budget look but I just can't work out how to remove some of that "videoness". I just don't know what the specifics are that are causing it with my pieces, either as I'm not educated enough on the subject. Not enough colour correction? Bad acqusition (lighting)? Not deinterlaced? Dunno.

Has anyone got some video that they've shot with some prosumer type cam, that they've "film looked" (Yukky term I know) that looks good on TV and that can be downloaded at a good enough res for me to play on a TV and see it?


Aaron

I have a trailer for a short film "Sophie" that was shot with the Sony VX1000 and "film looked" in post. While the trailer is online in a low resolution format, I'll see if I can't upload a full 720x480 MPG2 version for you. You can also read this www.starcentral.ca/filmlook.htm and see if it doesn't explain how "film look" is achieved.

In the meantime, what prosumer camera are you using? Usually the best results are obtained with a 3CCD camera. Also, what software are you using for your film look? If you are going to TV simply deinterlacing using your editing software is not recommended. Instead try magic bullet, cinelook, cinemotion or dvfilm maker to name a few.

As for coloring try adjusting your gamma from 1.0 to 1.2 or try adjusting your brightness/contrast setting then tweak your color saturation and hue a tad.

Hi Dennis, that would be great if I could see that footage.

I use Vegas and shoot on a Canon Xm2. Vegas has all the CC, level adjust and everything I need. Unfortunately I haven't shot on frame mode yet to see how much difference that makes and it would save the deinterlacing. I tried using DVFilmmaker to deinterlace and didn;t notice much difference in the finished product. Although I was rushing to finish my LadyX episode and it was about 5 in the morning ;)

It's hard for me to describe what's wrong which makes it hard to fix of course. I alter colour curves, gamma, brightness etc etc etc but no matter how cool it looks on my computer monitor, it looks naff on TV. Now I know that when I've shot I haven't had the most controlled and perfect conditions, but I would have thought I could have got something that didn't look like a home video on my TV with a bit of effort in post production.

Will check out that link too.

Cheers
Aaron

hi aaron, did you try using any filters on the camera, tiffen soft fx, that sort of thing?

Joe, no I haven't tried that. I was of the thinking like others, to shoot clean and do that in post. But no luck so far.

I know it's just my inexperience - I have no doubt some people can get some really nice stuff on prosumer gear. It's just getting a bit frustrating, compounded by the fact I'm on a deadline for LadyX (I.e. about a day left) having worked on it through the night and need to sleep but can't cause I'm at work ;)


Maybe if I just close my office door.....

Cheers
Aaron

Do you have anything available online we could see, even if at a low resolution and only a couple of seconds?

And now for a really important question: How does the footage of your camera played directly to TV compare to just regular footage edited with your system and then put out to TV? If you have any kind of difference here, then your problem is not even "film look" related. It could be field settings, field order (odd vs even), codec, compressor, firewire, etc.. .

I also find it odd that your footage when run through DV film does not look any different as it should instantly look smoother and "slowed" down when compared to regular video.

Lastly I wouldn't worry about frame mode just yet. It sounds like the problem could be elsewhere. It would really help to see some of your footage, or even a few frames exported to JPG.

aaron, for what it's worth good luck, and i look forward to seeing your episode. you're obviously very busy right now so i'm gonna ask denis this question ( or whomever else is interested in sharing some wisdom with someone brandnew ( but learning fast, thanks to this board, and everyone on it) to dv ) shooting clean, advantages?

Hi Dennis, sorry I don't have anything online and I'm not sure I'm allowed to prerelease any of the Lady X stuff. I did, in the end manage to get DVFilmmaker to do something with my footage and it does make a lot of difference. Not the best but did remove a lot of that crappy look. The softness and the different movement due to 25fps is very noticeable. I've never actually qualitively seen the difference before but it's quite a lot. Of course your video looks all soft but I guess that's the key ;)


I will have a little play wth DVFilmmaker and if it's good on the rest, buy it. It seems though that a lot of these deinterlacers only adjust moving parts of the screenn. Which can lead to some stuff staying sharp and other stuff softening. And then when I object stops it jumps into sharpness. Will have a fiddle.

Found that virtualdub has filters for deinterlacing, so I'll try those too cause they are free :)


Cheers
Aaron

<<<-- Originally posted by Aaron Koolen : , compounded by the fact I'm on a deadline for LadyX (I.e. about a day left) having worked on it through the night and need to sleep but can't cause I'm at work ;)
-->>>

This sounds so familiar. You get my sympathy, Aaron. I wish you all the best.

(I didn't sleep practically at all for over a week before our episode (21 and 22). )

Aaron - just a note that "Sophie" on my site was shot with a NTSC VX1000 3CCD 60i/30fps with no filters on the lens. Post effects used were: color correction, brightness/contrast, hue & saturation & cinemotion (as opposed to cinelook) using After Effects.

You also hit the nail on the head! A good deinterlacer will only fix the areas that have movement or "jaggy's" which you should stay away from built in deinterlacers.

Joe - As for shooting clean advantages, for me it simply leaves you with the most options in post depending on what look you're after. A person like me believes more in shooting 50i or 60i native and getting a progressive or film look in post, and probably would never shoot to tape in 24P - unless you're 101% sure this is what you need. This is also why the DVX100 does not appeal to me. Basically shooting clean is the most versatile but has its downsides too - you will need good software, computing power and knowledge on how to manipulate your images. Read this thread for some interesting perspectives: www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?s=&postid=112967#post112967


On a last note, I'm shooting a short film in a couple of weeks titled Sous Le Jour, and here's a link to my site where some screen shots were posted of the test footage I shot with the mini 35 on location in Toronto if anyone is interested in checking it out: www.starcentral.ca/mini35rig.htm.

I'd love to hear what you guys think.

Denis - just looking through your web site and spotted a couple of things on the PAL v NTSC page.... NTSC DV is 4:1:1 not 4:2:0 and PAL is 4:2:0 not 4:0:0 ( which would make PAL black and white...)

I'd also debate that 4:1:1 is better than 4:2:0 because it allows for easier and more successful up-rezzing. Technically, they're both recording 1 in 4 colour samples, but in a different pattern, so I don't think you can say that PAL is better in this regard.

And I don't know where the PAL being a closer to 16:9 aspect comes from.... That's an utterly bizarre statement.

However, PAL transferred to film generally looks much nicer than NTSC in the tests I've seen - higher resolution and no need for motion interpolation (just slow it down a touch) to get it onto film at 24fps.

And I also agree about shooting 60i NTSC for the utmost flexibility. BTW I used to be PAL in England, and I'm now NTSC in Canada, so I've lived and worked extensively with both formats - and hate them both for different reasons!

Graeme

Graeme - Thank you for pointing out the mistakes on the color sampling rate, I'll have them corrected.

I think where PAL being closer to 16:9 came from was in trying to say that 16:9 is pretty close in shape to the aspect ratio used for cinema projection in Europe ie. 1.66:1 which your right has nothing to do with PAL.

It's great to hear you've worked with both formats, I just recently started working with PAL on the mini35 here in Canada but have kept my NTSC gear as well.

I checked out your site and based on your solid and technical knowledge in both formats, would you agree or disagree that the PAL is a more versitile format over NTSC for switching standards and going to 24fps film?

PAL will go to film and NTSC without throwing away any temporal information. PAL to NTSC does throw away some vertical resolution though. NTSC has to have frames removed to go to film or PAL.

NTSC 60i and PAL50i are pretty much the easiest formats to transfer around. Quantel preach doing everything at 24p as it converts to PAL and NTSC easy.

Basically, I'd say everything is pretty good bar NTSC 30p which is a dog to convert to anything else...

But on balance, I prefer PAL's frame rate, but with DV I prefer 4:1:1 over 4:2:0 because I find it easier to use code to up-rez it to a higher quality in post.

Also, most of the worst problems with NTSC (the never twice the same colour bit) don't happen unless you try to broadcast it. As a digital medium it's colour is as perfect as PALs.

Graeme

To be honest, playing around I've made the deinterlacer work on all the fooatage, not just the moving bits. Where it's sharp tend to give it more of that video look, but if it blurs everything a little, it looks better on the TV.

I'll keep playing a little, but I have to render today so I can send it off!


Thanks for the help
Aaron

Thanks Graeme - what you've said is encouraging then considering I just invested in the PAL XL1SE.

I haven't had time to read through your entire website, but does your PAL -> NTSC software work on anything for the Windows platform? I would really like to try it out with my PAL footage and then watch it on NTSC TV.

I haven't purchased any PAL -> NTSC software yet but until meeting you was only aware of Atlantis by DVfilm.

Good luck Aaron - I'm sure your footage will look great!

I'm only developing for Final Cut Pro at the moment. It would take more resources than I can muster (day job and all) to look beyond that at the moment, and quite frankly, I'm developing for myself first and foremost. Most of the filters I've written are because I wanted them for my own projects. I wanted a decent film look but thought that the Magic Bullet was way over-priced for what it did. I wanted a standards conversion that fitted in with my workflow, so that meant not leaving FCP.

Graeme

Man, I could talk to you all day about filters and post prod effects!!! What do you think about Synthetic Aperature's "Color Finese" and Grain Surgery? I'm looking for something similar to tweak color and remove grain to go along with my mini35 services that I'm offering. The images on my site look great, but under less ideal conditions it will probably be necessary that I perform more correction in post.

You've really been a blast to talk with, it's great that you've developed your own tools for your own purpose.

Keep in touch, maybe we'll collaborate on a future project!

Dennis, what deinterlacing software would you recommend? VirtualDub's filters are free and they seem pretty good, but DVFilm Maker seems to be one of the highly recommended ones.


Cheers
Aaron

thanks for the reply dennis, and the thread ( so much to learn, so many options/ decisions ) also e-mailed you at star, looking forward to your reply.

Aaron - I like Cinemotion but it works as a plug in to Adobe After Effects so you need time to understand all the settings and field options, otherwise your footage will look worse. Quality-wise I think DV film is as good if not better than Cinemotion and the best part of all is it is a stand alone program. You just drag and drop your AVI file to it and let it render to another AVI file. That is the cool part.

Aaron, just wanted to say you're not alone. I've deinterlaced in Vegas and the footage looks washed out, with a significant loss
of resolution. It doesn't look like film at all; it looks like bad video.
Would DVFilm Maker be any better? After all, isn't it just doing the
same thing my NLE is doing? What's the advantage to that program?

There are many different ways of de-interlacing, and each program uses it's own.

A de-interlace should never alter the colour or tonal balance of an image. If it's doing this then it's broken.

A de-interlacer will reduce resolution. A normal de-interlacer which duplicates fields will loose half of the vertical resolution over the entire image.

If it uses blending it will reduce the resultion, but by a lesser amount, and again it will be over the entire image.

A smart de-interlacer will leave the vast bulk of the image alone, retaining full resolution over most of the image. Only in areas of visible interlacing or movement will it reduce the resolution, and ony by a small amount if the algorithm is well written.

Smart de-interlacing looks great, but will take a little longer to compute.

Graeme

I think, though not sure, that Vegas just offers blend and interpolate. Does DVFilm Maker offer smart deinterlacing?

I think DV film Maker is a smart de-interlacer.

Graeme

Yeah DVFilm Maker is a smart deinterlacer. I've tried the Smooth deinterlacer plugin for virtualdub and it's not too bad, and free compared to DVFilm. I'll do a couple more tests and if I think DV is better I'll just buy it.

One thing I've noticed though, there is a definate contrast change after a deinterlacer has had it's hands on the footage. Well at least on the ones I've used. DVFilm, Smooth Deinterlacer etc.

Cheers guys
Aaron

Here, there is a sample using my homemade 35mm system, and magic bullet and look suite.

http://altoque.tv/35mmAdapter/moto35mmfilmtest2.mov

Thanks Agus. Can't wait to get home and look at it on a tele.

Thanks
Aaron

i dont have the webpage space, but i can upload it at higher res to where and ever format you would like it

Thanks, Agus. Nice clip. So in 100 words or less, what's the secret? Help all us out who can't get nowhere the way we're doing it. What would you recommend for a person who doesn't have Magic Bullet?

1. Levels set it to 1.2
2. Curves, make a S type
3. Desaturate
4. Curves, pull down a little the Blue one...

I am making a new video without magic bullet too show you can get almost same look.

And would you say deinterlacing is required?

OF course !, De-interlacing had to be done always to get filmlook, you dont see any films with interlacing, right ?

I second the deinterlacing comment. I've been having "film look" <shudder> issues and deinterlacing is probably one of the biggest first steps you can make

Aaron

And what about the loss in resolution and the loss in contrast from the deinterlacing?

Why are you suffering loss of contrast from a de-interlace? A de-interlacer should not alter the colour or the tonal range of an image - if it is, then it's broken an you need to find a compatent de-interlacer!

Also, a good de-interlacer should only loose you some resolution on areas of the screen that move - areas that are not moving should retain full resolution. It will be very hard for you to see any resolution losses in the moving areas unless you pause the tape.

Also, for a film look, de-interlace will only work if you're in PAL where film is transferred to video on a frame matching basis. For NTSC you have to get to 24 frames from your 60i somehow - wether the camera does it (DVX-1000) or you do it in software. De-interlace is part of the software 24p process, but not the entire part. Just de-interlacing will give you 30p which looks somewhat, but not entirely like film motion.

Graeme

What would be some good deinterlacers that you could recommend?

I can recommend my own if you're an FCP user, along with Matt's Too Much Too Soon, and Joe's FCP plugins. All work well, are fast and of high quality.

For cross-platform solutions:

DV film maker is quite fast, but quite expensive for a one trick pony.

Fields Kit seems very good,

Magic Bullet is very, very expensive for what it does,

I've seen quite a few reviews on de-interlacers on other threads on this forum which will be able to give you much more PC info than I can.

I can only help you because I've written a number of de-interlacers using all kinds of algorithms, hence know how they work and what they do.

Graeme

Aaron, what did you think of my color correction job on my
episode of Lady X? It looked quite nice on my TV set here at
home.

You can download a higher resolution SVCD (mpeg2) version
(which is PAL! 480x576 at 25 fps) from here (www.visuar.com/movies/LX_ep14_SVCD.mpg) (89 MB)

So 75% of this thread is about deinterlacing.

Has anyone ever come across a comparison of the same scene recored in film then DV, with shots/clips available - not just one format?