Does anybody know either from Canon or from their own tests if the composite or YC analog output on the XL2 outputs the video before it is compressed with 4:1:1 or after?

What I mean is uncompressed video is 4:2:2 and is what all CCDs produce. The camera then converts this signal to 4:1:1 to fit on the DV tape. Some cameras leave the video raw when sending the signal to the analog outputs so the video is 4:2:2. Other cameras however convert the signal right away before sending to dv tape or analog outputs.

Does anybody know how the XL2 handles this?

Uncompressed is 4:4:4, not 4:2:2. That is another form of
compression actually. At this point in time it is unknown how
the signal arrives at the analog outputs on any of the XL
series camera's. Testing might be in order with some high
contrast scenes etc. (and an EXCELLENT analog capture board,
because it would otherwise not matter at all).

yeah I know uncompressed video is 4:4:4 but not much suports that. In the video world 4:2:2 is kind of the high end standard and is considered uncompressed. Take a look at any uncompressed editing system such as the video toaster or dps velocity and their uncompressed is 4:2:2 going in and out of the board. Even though 4:2:2 has color compression it has no other form of image loss compression so it is considered uncompressed in terms of video.

I know it is being used a lot and it is considered near lossless
(or uncompressed), but it just ain't. I'm trying to avoid some
confusion here. I'm pretty sure the truly high-end packages like
combustion, flame, inferno, da vinci, digital fusion etc. all support
true 4:4:4 etc. So I'm assuming you are mainly talking in regards
to the broadcast sector?

Do you have a HQ capture card to do these kind of comparisons
with? Would be an interesting test for sure.

I do not have one here in this studio yet but will hopefully shortly. I do work with somebody who uses a Video Toaster but that is just broadcast standard at 4:2:2.

I totally agree with you about uncompressed being 4:4:4. Those are some very high end cards you listed. Most cards I have seen are only 4:2:2. At this point I think getting 4:2:2 even would be a lot better then 4:1:1.

Definitely. When I say HQ capture card I'm talking about one that
does 4:2:2 at least preferred uncompressed or at least a very
high bitrate MJPEG so we can actually check for the difference
between that and DV. Not some el cheapo TV capture card or
a dazzle for example <g> Just a professional capture card, 4:2:2
is fine for comparison!

I'm also very curious to find out what kind of video comes from the composite out. I have very little knowledge in this area as I've always used firewire for capture. Could it possibly be uncompressed raw video? (same question for Sony FX1 composite out) If so, what would be the best way to pull this into your NLE? I'm pretty dedicated to my Canopus setup and I'd like to stick with a Canopus solution... perhaps Edius Pro. I imagine if it was uncompressed, it would bog my 3.02ghz processor. Any thoughts?

Uncompressed composite capture is daft, composite is going to look worse than firewire in the resolution due to a to D and D to A conversions. Even comming direct off the camera without going to tape, I doubt composite is going to look good.

Even if the S-video is 4:2:2 live, it's doubtful wether even a perfect capture of the analogue will be any better than a firewire capture after compression. It will also be hard to tell if the S-Video is 4:2:2 or 4:1:1 upsampled to 4:2:2 because even after recording to tape, the output from the camera will get upsampled and the chroma smoothed after the codec.

Finally, compression masks camera issues, like resolution, so even if you can pull a perfect analogue capture before DV compression, the picture may not end up looking any better because you get to see different issues with the camera that the DV codec masks.

Giving up the convenience of firect DV recording and capture for, perhaps, a marginal improvement at best, and the need to either tether the camera to a computer a portable digiBeta deck to record 4:2:2 is a bizarre way to make a movie...

Graeme

Graeme,

Thanks for your input. I had a feeling that was the case. I guess it's just wishful thinking. I've invested quite a few bucks into my NLE + computer and I think I've pretty much came to the conclusion that the XL2 via firewire is my best option for the next year or so.
I've been checking out the clips and frame grabs posted recently and it appears that if I learn how to utilize the XL2's functions, I can come up with some great images. Even with the new HDV cameras coming out, I'm really skeptical about maintaining a nice picture after major mpeg compression, editing (a whole 'nother story) and then recompression. Perhaps the format will be fine tuned next year. Until then, I can't wait to see some shorts made with the XL2.

The fact is that DV and firewire were intended as a consumer format. It just so happened to look good enough for people to start using it for pro use. Most high end video actually uses analog connections and not firewire. Of course they do not use S-video or composite but they do use component which does look very good. The funny thing about firewire is that everybody thinks that is whats doing the trick for them seeing good video. Do you hook your firewire cable to your TV? When we are actually watching our video we shot we are hooking the cameras or decks up to our TV's with either composite or S-video/YC. At that point do we sit there and say man the stuff I just shot looks like crap? No we think it looks very good. Hooking up your YC cable to your TV and seeing high quality video is no different than hooking that same cable up to a high end capture card. The one major downside to editing with analog however is the generation loss of quality. This will only hurt you if you plan on going in and out numerous times. This was a big issue in the days of tape to tape editing but with non linear editing it isn't really an issue anymore.

If you capture with analog compared to firewire your footage will be very slightly softer. You can however gain more color detail in return. You see a normal dv frame of 720 x 480 only has a color resolution of 180 x 480 pixels. The human eye has a hard time seeing this color information loss but it is there. If we can have a camera with true 4:2:2 analog output that will at least give us 360 x 480 pixels of color information which is a lot more detail. 4:4:4 is even better because then the color channels have the same 720 x 480 resolution as the luminence channel.

Finally when you use dv and firewire the compression ratio is 5 to 1. That means 80% of the video information is thrown away. Yeah it might look ok to the eye but 80% is a lot. If we can use our analog outputs we will get slightly softer video but all 100% of the information will still be there. I will try to do some tests with my old XL1 with my friend who has a Video Toaster and let everybody know what I find.

Thomas, pro video does use Firewire, look at DVCPro50, and DVCProHD for that - AJ100A deck from Panasonic. Pro video is also all digital - using SDI (4:2:2) or HD SDI (4:2:2) or dual link HD SDI (4:4:4) for signal transfer. Pro video no longer uses component for transfer of signals - that went out with the ark...

Capturing DV over S-Video does not uncompress the picture, does not make it 4:2:2 and does not improve the picture. DV is, as you say, 5:1 compressed, and 4:1:1 but nether of these are a problem, as you still end up with a better picture than the old BetaSP analogue standard - yes - they made DV too good!!

Yes, when you send DV over S-Video you get a softer picture - that's loss of resolution to me! And you don't get 4:2:2! You get 4:1:1 interpolated to 4:2:2 which does not give you any extra resolution, just makes it look nicer. It's really easy in your NLE to do a similar interpolation and change the codec of your DV file to a 4:2:2 or 4:4:4 compressed or uncompressed codec and get the same effect, without making the picture softer. Indeed, I did experiments to compare 4:1:1 with it interpolated to 4:4:4 with it reconstructed to 4:4:4 using an algorithm I invented:

http://www.nattress.com/filmEffectsGNicerTests.htm

and being improved now.

Your comments about the TV and S-video are interesting..... Yes, people generally do hook their TV to their deck via S-Video and a good picture emerges, but if, instead, you had a DV deck with SDI output or a monitor with firewire input (yes, they do exist) and you connected to your monitor digitally, you'd get an even better picture still. Once video is digital, you don't want to, for quality reasons, convert to analogue at any point, and indeed, because we see analogue, and it must be finqally converted to analogue for us to see the video, you should leave that to the last possible moment for the best possible quality.

There is no SD camera for 4:4:4 video, but there are some HD cameras that do 4:4:4, like HDCAM SR and Viper.

I was not talking about recording to tape and then trying to get uncompressed from that. Of course once it's on tape it is already compressed. I am talking about a raw video signal from the camera live without recording to tape. "Some" cameras actually do give us a 4:2:2 uncompressed video output.

I do not think the fact that one high end deck with firewire means it is a standard. The deck you mentioned is very new and the only one of it's kind. The fact is up until a few months ago firewire was not in the high end market. It is slowly starting to work it's way in but in a different format. Firewire is just a cable connection. It is capable of 400 Mbits/s. DV is only 25 Mbits/s so clearly firewire could be used for more than it is. If you are talking about getting dvcpro50 or Hd from the panasonic deck well then we aren't even talking about the same thing anymore. You can't really compare a 4:1:1 dv signal and a 4:2:2 dvcpro50 signal by saying they are both coming from firewire. That fact is however for 98% of us DV users firewire will only give us 4:1:1 because that is how it is hardwired into our cameras/decks.

Finally all I wanted to know is what cameras actually do give us the uncompressed signal before going to tape. Regardless if it is softer or not that is my problem to deal with. I just want to see if I can get a raw 4:2:2 with no interpolation. Why does it bother you for people to try different ways of getting a different image.

by the way I am currently working on a capture utility to capture the luminence from the firewire cable and the U and V channels from YC for cameras that do have 4:2:2 YC output. This will give you a live capture utility that will give your Y channel the same quality and sharpness of DV but the higher yet slightly softer resolution of the 4:2:2 analog color. I know it isn't as good as dvcpro50 but it would be better than 4:1:1 DV. Softer doesn't always mean less resoultion. If I use a soft dissusion filter on my camera I am not getting less resolution just a softer picture. In my opinion 360 x (400 for theoretical resolution loss) is better than 180 x 480.

Thomas, I don't mean to get argumentative, but as you can realise from my R&D, this is a subject that interests me - getting the most out of affordable video formats!

I guess what I'm getting at is that without looking at a circuit diagram, there's no real way to measure from the outside what the S-Video is outputting - either 4:1:1 or 4:2:2, because even if it is 4:1:1, it gets upsampled to 4:2:2, and how easy is it, at that point, to tell wether it's real 4:2:2 or upsampled to 4:2:2?? Next, is the bandwidth of the S-Video output capable of sending a full 4:2:2 chroma?? And finally, are the losses in the conversions and analogue cable capable of extracting back 4:2:2 from the S-video if indeed it starts life as true 4:2:2?? I'm not saying that things are impossible, just that there are an awful lot of "ifs" with no guarantee of success. Do the digital to analogue converters that take the signal from the camera head have a full 4:2:2 bandwidth even, or are they bandwidth limited. I guess they must be, to some extent. Measuring that with a test pattern and osciliscope will give you an idea of wether the rest is worth pursuing.

If you can find an affordable DV camera with 4:2:2 out of the S-video, live, so to speak, you're right that capturing the luminance over firewire will be better than luminance over S-video. I think such a capture program will make for a very interesting experiment, comparing upsampled 4:1:1 chroma, with reconstructed 4:1:1 to 4:4:4 chroma to captured via S-video 4:2:2 chroma and luminance. I'd be very keen to see the results.

Just as I'm trying to push the bounds of DV using software after it's been captured, it's great to know that others are working on their own methods, using different means!

Graeme

Quite a spirited discussion.

First of all, it could be said that you could never get 4:2:2 out of an s-video port, because S-video irretrievably mixes the chroma signals together, so it could be stated that you'd get (at best) 4:2 out of it (if anybody follows what I'm saying).

DV is compressed and recorded as component video, and s-video is a form of composite video. DV records Y:Cr:Cb, but s-video transmits ony Y:C. So you're going to suffer a signal loss just by it being s-video in the first place.

Second, the basic premise Thomas has is that some cameras are outputting the s-video signal prior to compression. The question I have is, is that true?

First, let's point out that there are two types of compression going on: 4:1:1 chroma decimation, and 5:1 DV. The 4:1:1 is not counted in the DV compression (because, technically, if you count the bits up for a raw data stream vs. a DV stream, the overall compression ratio is more like 8:1).

If the signal is decimated to 4:1:1 when the image processing DSP gets ahold of it, then the entire argument is moot, because all video going out that s-video port is unquestionably post-DSP.

Furthermore, it was proven many years ago that the Sony VX1000's s-video port came AFTER the DV compression engine, which in some ways only makes sense: the s-video port has to play back info from tape, so the DV uncompressor has to be doing its job prior to the signal hitting the s-video port. Does it really make sense that there are two different paths to get to the s-video port, one avoiding compression and one after uncompression (for playback)?

For that reason alone, I'd be willing to wager that you're not going to get the higher chroma sampling of 4:2:2 out of any DV camera's s-video port.

But until someone either tests it (someone who has a 4:2:2 analog capture card) or traces some camera schematics, the whole debate cannot be resolved.

What about using a device like a Datavideo DAC5 DV to SDI converter or a Canopus ADVC 1000 DV to SDI converter. The claim is that they take a DV signal and send it out 4:2:2 via SDI?

Because any device that takes DV and converts to 4:2:2 is not putting any extra information in - they're just interpolating the new colours inbetween with no "real" information there!

Graeme

Yeah, you can actually do that without hardware, depending on the DV codec you use. Avid's codec does chroma smoothing, and you can configure the Matrox codec to do so also. And Vegas includes a "chroma blur" option which will smooth out the chroma.

Very, very handy thing to do for up-rezzing or chroma keying. It doesn't create any actual new information, but it definitely smooths things out and delivers better results.

this experiment would be much better if there was a dv camera that actually had a component output. The I could get a full U and V channel. Although that still doesn't mean it is 4:1:1 or 4:2:2. I once had this ancient Panasonic 300 CLE camera here. I wish I still had it. It wasn't digital since it was 20 years old I think but it was a 3 chip 2 piece pro camera. The great thing this 2 piece camera is the SVHS deck could come off. You then had a 26 pin connector which could be converted to a component cable. I know it wouldn't help with my dv/analog capture experiment but it would have been a good way to compare a raw component uncompressed video with a dv video. I use a lot of high end cameras now but they are all 1 piece and the best video out they have is composite which is worthless. Anybody have an old camera head with a 26 pin connector. If you do you can buy a cable to get component from the 26 pin for about $50.00.

The firewire is a component output, just compressed to DV first.

If you really want high-res 4:4:4, consider the new Sony HDR-FX1. It's 1440x1080, but if you downsample it to 1/4 size (720 x 540) you could get 4:4:4 color resolution out of it.

yeah I have thought about the SONY HDV camera. I would be interested in testing out some 1080i HDV footage from this camera when it comes out. I figured there would be other benefits from 1/4 scaled HDV footage as well.

1. a psuedo 4:4:4 color YUV image. I say psuedo because it wouldn't be a raw pixel per pixel image. The 4:4:4 color image would be interpolated to get to that point.

2. 30p or 60p footage instead of 30i. You can either throw out every other line for for 30p or use each field line scaled down to get 60p.

3. Mpeg2 HDV compression artifacts would get smoothed out and be partly eliminated from the scale down.

4. Noisy footage from low light and high gain will get smoothed out.

If this works out the way it does in theory then the SONY HDV camera will have three shooting modes instead of 2.

1. Normal 4:1:1 DV.

2. Normal 4:2:0 HDV 1080i

3. Psuedo 4:4:4 SD at 720 x 540 anamorphic. To get real SD however the image would have to be scaled to 853 x 480 or 720 x 480 anamorphic.

Barry,

Do you know if FCP HD has a codec or filter that smooths the chroma?

For FCP you have two choices I know of:

Apple's 4:1:1 keying filter, does a linear chroma interpolation to improve the colour sampling of DV,

and my G Nicer Chroma reconstruction filter, which intelligently works out what the chroma should have looked like and reconstructs it for you.

You can see my comparisons here:

http://www.nattress.com/filmEffectsGNicerTests.htm

BTW, G Nicer V2.0 will look even better still.....

Graeme

In addition to Barry's posting I want to add that talking about 4:2:2 or 4:1:1 (4:2:0 for Pal and DVD) is irrelevant in terms of S-video (Y/C) or composite video. In best case one could estimate how comparable a DV compressed 4:... signal is to S-video in terms of resolution. The 4:...whatever is an information originating from a spacially sampled form of video images, S-vid and composite video are encoded (NTSC,PAL, SECAM) forms of non sampled (or reconstructed) video signals.

Thomas,
I thought about a component output option for the Sony DSR 570P. I was wondering if that camera outputs from the CCU port a component signal and that signal comes before going through the DVCAM circuitry. Sorry for posting it here, just followed the discussion.
Thanks for any replies anyway.

One other great thing about analog or SDI capture compared to "DV" firewire is with DV your video will always be 8 bit per channel. With certain analog and SDI capture boards you can get 10 or 12 bit video per channel. This is a huge bonus for color correcting. Yes you may get slightly lower resolution or sharpness but you make up for it with the bit depth.

Analog can also fix aliasing issues you may get with dv actually being too sharp. Super sharp video is almost the best thing to have. Expecially with digital compression. The sharper the image the harder it is to compress and the more artifacts you will get.

Finally somebody mentioned that YC might only give you 4:2 color because only the luma is seperated and the U and V are combined into one C channel. This is true but the C is just stuffing both the U and V into that channel. Both U and V can be extracted again. The problem with YC is that some small amount of color information can be lost or it can drift or bleed during the conversion. Most of it is still there however. Well at least enough to get 4:2:2. If you have a bandwidth of 4 and you need to fit two channels in it you cut them in half to 2 each. If the 4:2 theory were to work then you would have to say that since composite puts all three YUV channels into one channel that you would only have 1.33:1.33:1.33 color space or a 4:0:0 or just 4. Therefore I think if you were to give a number system to YC it might be 4:4 where the second 4 is made up of 2 2's. Boy is this stuff fun.

Thomas, is there any basis for your ramblings? You seem to be ignoring the replies of very knowledgeable members with expertise in a wide variety of areas. What is your degree in? Are you working in the industry?

if it is ramblings then why are you here reading and talking about it. You must have had some level of interest at some point to come here. I happened to just be asking if anybody knew about which cameras had a raw YC output and all of a sudden people came on here talking about how bad analog is. I asked a simple question which somehow turned into an argument by those defending DV. I never once bashed DV or praised analog but was trying to compare the two. Some people listed the faults of using analog and I was just pointing out that there are also benefits as well. I thought some of us were talking about ways of getting the best image quality but it seems some people do not like other people to talk about that stuff.

I was not being rude about any of this but trying to talk about higher quality color. If you do not like what I or others are talking about then you do not have to read any of it. I am not ignoring anything anybody has said. I know there is no way of trying to compare a digital 4:?:? signal with an analog but I was trying to come up with a way to compare everything. I am not a video engineer which is why I am on this forum trying to figure this stuff out. I do however have a BFA in visual effects and am trying to work a better image out of cheaper cameras for compositing . I am also currently starting up a software company and making 4 different video and vfx related programs.

I know digital is for the most part better. I also know starting with a high end digital format at 4:2:2 or 4:4:4 is better. Of course SDI is better. What I am getting at is how much better? It is easy to say something is better but how can you put a value on it? SDI will be better than component but by how much?

Many people have been quick to say analog wouldn't work for increased color resolution but so far I haven't had enough reason from them to feel the same way. All the points they made I agree with. I was however trying to bring up other points that nobody talked about yet trying to help the topic. I am sorry if anybody feels as though I have been "rambling"

Thomas, I'm glad you've come to learn. SDI (serial digital interface) is not a format. It is a pipeline. It is the means to move a signal from one device to another. Just like FireWire. FireWire and SDI are not formats. Formats are a standard for recording video. Today we have formats like DV, DVC PRO 25, DVC PRO 50, Digital Betacam, D1, D3, D5. These are all digital formats and their digital signals can be moved between compatible devices via SDI and in many cases FireWire.

The digital signals can be uncompressed, such as 4:4:4 video, or compressed into 4:2:2, 4:1:1, 4:2:0 etc. The first number represents the luminance channel and the next two numbers represent the chrominance channels. In 4:2:2 video, for every four luminance samples the chrominance channels are each sampled twice. Betacam SP is a form of CAV (component analog video) in which the signal is divided into 3 components, 1 luminance channel and two color channels, each carried on a separate wire. Each wire carries an analog voltage that varies with picture content.

There are various types of analog CAV signals as specified by NTSC or PAL, such as (Y, U, V), (Y, R-Y, B-Y), (Y, I, Q), and (Y, Pb, Pr). Again the first letter Y, represents the luminance signal and the next two sets of letters represent the color difference signal.

S-Video or more commonly Y/C is not true component analog video. The signal is merely separated in to one luminance signal and one chrominance signal.

<<<-- Originally posted by Thomas Smet : One other great thing about analog or SDI capture compared to "DV" firewire is with DV your video will always be 8 bit per channel. With certain analog and SDI capture boards you can get 10 or 12 bit video per channel. This is a huge bonus for color correcting. Yes you may get slightly lower resolution or sharpness but you make up for it with the bit depth.-->>>

But DV is 8 bit per channel!! How can it be anything else?? FCP, for instance, will, if you ask it nicely, calculate a lot of it's filters in 32bit, It hink, thus you edit with compressed DV, but as soon as you apply a filter it gets fully uncopmpressed, all effects calculated in high precision mode, then back to 8 bit DV for layback to tape. 10bit etc. is only needed for the calculations. 8 bit, if properly dithered, has enough levels to accurately represent the video signal for most purposes. Yes, 10bit is better, but 8 bit properly done is good enough. Also, any SDI or ananlogue output from DV will be 8bit or from an 8bit DtoA. You won't get any more than that!

<<<--Analog can also fix aliasing issues you may get with dv actually being too sharp. Super sharp video is almost the best thing to have. Expecially with digital compression. The sharper the image the harder it is to compress and the more artifacts you will get.-->>>

DV is already pre-filtered before going to tape to remove the higher frequencies. If you do get a specific aliassing issue, surely it's better to write a filter to address just that particular issue rather than reduce the rez of the whole capture???

<<<--Finally somebody mentioned that YC might only give you 4:2 color because only the luma is seperated and the U and V are combined into one C channel. This is true but the C is just stuffing both the U and V into that channel. Both U and V can be extracted again. The problem with YC is that some small amount of color information can be lost or it can drift or bleed during the conversion. Most of it is still there however. Well at least enough to get 4:2:2. If you have a bandwidth of 4 and you need to fit two channels in it you cut them in half to 2 each. If the 4:2 theory were to work then you would have to say that since composite puts all three YUV channels into one channel that you would only have 1.33:1.33:1.33 color space or a 4:0:0 or just 4. Therefore I think if you were to give a number system to YC it might be 4:4 where the second 4 is made up of 2 2's. Boy is this stuff fun. -->>>

Y/C is inherently bandwidth limited on both chroma and luma.

Graeme

Thomas, FYI, DV on itself doesn't generate aliasing which is an effect which occurs when (analog) continious information is being discretized (sampled). So, only the DCT preceding AD conversion process if not well filtered, and the pixel structures in CCD's if there is no optical lowpass filtering, can result in spatio-temporal aliasing effects in the end result. The latter effects are also seen in pure analog camera signals. DV only causes artifacts like musquito noise, quilting/blocking and some complicated motion induced artifacts.

Hey Jeff I know how the formats and connections work and how they are different. I also know YC isn't as good as component would be. With that in mind however and the "C" being not very good would is still give more color resolution then DV color? Or at least just a good fake of it. I know YC isn't digital so it is hard to compare it with digital. The whole point to this thread was to find out if

1. Any cameras actually gave us raw YC output.
2. If there would be any enhancement to the color information with doing this.

So far the popular opinion has been no even though not very many people have ever done it with a raw YC signal.

Later on in this thread I sort of ditched the YC thing because I cannot test every camera and do not have access to an older analog camera with raw output. I am now trying to figure out if component would be better than DV in terms of color information. Now remember I am not talking about recording to DV tape and then trying to output through component. I am talking about outputting from component live during shooting from the camera.


Some people were saying hands down analog video is not as good as digital and all I was doing was pointing out some areas where that may not be true. Analog component may have a slightly lower resolution but it makes up for it compared to DV with

1. No compression. DV having 5:1 compression.
2. Potential higher color resolution?
3. 10 or 12 bit video. If anybody feels this is worth it or not is an interesting point.

I know there are short comings with analog video but I am trying to find ways around that.

Bandwidth of analogue video equates to resolution with digital video. Unless you can measure the bandwidth of the S-Video's chroma, you'll never know for certain. I think, without access to tech notes from the company that makes the camera in question, or to speak to one of their designers, you'll never know. It is most highly likely that the digital to analogue converter in the camera is 8bit, and hence no chance of getting 10 or 12 bit from the S-video.

Graeme

you might be right Graeme. Since most dv cameras were never meant for this sort of thing I now doubt any of this really matters. I however would still like to know if any advantage would be gained from a raw component output from a camera head. By the time I bought a decent enough camera head with component I might as well get a dvcpro 50 camera.

I have written an e-mail to Black Magic Design the company that makes the 10 bit Decklink capture cards. I asked what their opinion was on the subject.

On the subject of psuedo SD from HDV I did some tests on 1080i HDV footage. No I do not have the SONY HDV camera but I took some Animation from 3D Studio Max and rendered it at an anamorphic 1440 x 1080. I then converted the video to 4:2:2. I have not yet converted to 4:2:0 but will test that later since I need to find a mpeg2 encoder that can do HDV.

I took my 1440x1080i footage at 4:2:2 and scaled down to 720 x 540 and it sort of worked. Instead of smoothing everything out like I thought it would do in theory it kept a lot of jagged edges. It helped a lot but wasn't perfect. I think if we used Graeme's tool first and then scaled down this would help a lot.

Oh by the way nice work on the filter Graeme. I finally had a chance to take a look at it. Do you plan on keeping support for only Final Cut Pro? I am on the PC side and I have been working on a chroma upsampler but I gave it up for now to work on other things.

Interesting discussion.

Thomas you could check out www.pixelmonger.com. There is an article by Scott Billups from DV magazine. "Re-creating Krakatoa" where he talks about shooting with an analog Beta-SP camera with coponent outputs using direct to disk recording, in order to get D-Beta quality on the cheap for the visual fxs he needed for the project. This could answer your question.

Graeme regarding the high-precision rendering in Final Cut Pro. I have an idea for a production workflow that preserves the DV-25 color resolution as much as possible. This workflow would involve shooting in DV PAL 16:9 with a Canon XL2 in 25p progressive mode. Then firewire transfer to the computer. Do the editing, fxs, color correction, filters, etc. but no rendering. Then when ready to output move the sequence data to an uncompressed sequence format and render in high precision. Then if there a transfer to film just send the hard drives or use this uncompressed file for output to videotape or encoding to dvd, etc. As far as mini-DV goes would this preserve the luma and color resolution as much as possible versus going back to the mini-DV format on the master?

Bob, if you edit as DV as normal, then at the end change the sequence settings to that of an uncompressed and render, you will stop any losses incurred by rendering to DV codec. I'm not currently keen on the high precision YUV rendering or 10bit rendering in FCP as it seems a bit buggy to me - you'll have to watch each effect to make sure it renders right.

Graeme

Thanks for the info Graeme.

As far as green screen, fxs work and FCP filters with DV do you think it would be an advantage to shoot your footage and work with the 4-2-0 color space of PAL versus the 4-1-1 colorspace of NTSC DV?

They're both as bad as each other. Just make sure that your chromakey software works on DV. DVMatte is good for that!

Graeme

Yeah, they're the same but different.

Adam Wilt did an article on 4:2:0 vs. 4:1:1 in DV magazine, you can probably find it by searching the past articles.