Blu-Ray discs, AspectHD 1440 vs 1920

[Don Blish]

As a longtime Premiere 6.5 user, I’ve been looking forward to being able to make HD movies including camera footage and 30 years of hi res stills. I’ve purchased a Sony HDR-HC1, am building a muscular workstation and was expecting to purchase the AspectHD+PremPro1.5 bundle….but at this late date I’ve noticed the AspectHD/ProspectHD comparison and have had a nasty thought. I have aimed all my efforts in being ready for the Blu-Ray drives next spring and have always assumed what Blu-Ray players will expect is 1080x1920. I know the HDV2 standard is 1080x1440 and the camera scales that when directly connected to an HDTV. Will AspectHD be able to combine my HDV footage and hi-res stills and burn 1080x1920 movie discs? I find the $999 AspectHD/Ppro bundle expensive but manageable, but more than a grand more just to burn an acceptable disc seems like way too much to spend.

[David Newman]

That is not how it works. You can export to 1920x1080 formats from a 1440x1080 timeline without an issue. You only need Aspect HD for your HC1. Note: Aspect HD + the Adobe Video Collection sells for the same price as the Adobe sells the Video Collection alone, so it is great deal. If you have Premiere and don't need the other Adobe tools, you can purchase Aspect HD for only $499.

[Don Blish]

Thanks for the prompt and to-the-point response. Yes, I had recognized the great deal that PremPro+AccessHD represents. Can't wait to get my machine built and loaded.

[Don Blish]

I've loaded my new machine and imported some HDV footage. If I want to export HDV to (soon to be) Blu-ray 1080i ATSC (1920x1080)....I guess what you were referring to is in the Export Move/settings/Video panel: I change the 1440 horiz. figure to 1920 and change pixel aspect ratio from "HD Anamorphic 1080 (1.33)" to "Square Pixels (1.0)", right?

P.S. Playback is very smooth on two stream lap dissolve. This dual core 840EE machine with system and video on a single RAID5 volume of 4 SATAII discs is just loafing so far. I'm using a Parhelia APVe and two 21" Gateway FPD2185W panels (1050x1680) connected DVI with second screen as an HDTV monitor while doing PremPro/Aspect work. Otherwise I use them as a huge two screen desktop.

[David Newman]

Don, you've got it. Very cool setup BTW.

[Kevin Shaw]

Originally Posted by Don Blish

If I want to export HDV to (soon to be) Blu-ray 1080i ATSC (1920x1080)....I guess what you were referring to is in the Export Move/settings/Video panel: I change the 1440 horiz. figure to 1920 and change pixel aspect ratio from "HD Anamorphic 1080 (1.33)" to "Square Pixels (1.0)", right?

As I understand it, blu-ray discs will support standard HDV files with an anamorphic format of 1440x1080 pixels, but I don't know if they'll support full 1920x1080 resolution. So you shouldn't have to change anything to do your export, and changing the pixel count and pixel aspect ratio might be counter-productive in terms of playback compatibility. If someone knows otherwise please enlighten us...

[David Newman]

I have been told a little of the opposite, there may not be a pixel aspect ratio issue (as 1440x1080 is common in MPEG), but the HDV transport streams are not compatible. We will have to wait and see.

[Pierre Barberis]

You can easily encode 1440*1080 or 1920*1080 at 9.5Mbps in WMV codec without loosing any significant definition from your AspectHD AVI output..
This will fit on a STANDARD DVD and can be played by more and more boxes (and of course most computers.)
Other codecs ( Divx, H264 from Ateme and others) will soon be avail to encode with this High Def pixel count...
So, apart Sony and the hardware manufacturers , WHO REALLY NEED BLU-RAY or HD-DVD ???

All this is pure consumer manipulation !!!

[Kevin Shaw]

Originally Posted by David Newman

I have been told a little of the opposite, there may not be a pixel aspect ratio issue (as 1440x1080 is common in MPEG), but the HDV transport streams are not compatible. We will have to wait and see.

But one way or another, it sounds like we're both expecting that 1440x1080 would be the standard pixel count for HD MPEG2 video. So the question about encoding to 1920x1080 wouldn't apply to typical MPEG2 delivery, right?

[Kevin Shaw]

Originally Posted by Pierre Barberis

You can easily encode 1440*1080 or 1920*1080 at 9.5Mbps in WMV codec without loosing any significant definition from your AspectHD AVI output...So, apart Sony and the hardware manufacturers , WHO REALLY NEED BLU-RAY or HD-DVD ???

Well, at 9.5 Mbps you can only fit a little over an hour of video on a standard 4.7 GB DVD, and that's not enough for many projects. Plus encoding to compressed formats like WMV or H.264 is very time-consuming even on today's fastest computers, but encoding to HD MPEG2 can be done in close to real time with the right hardware and software. So if you wanted to make a 90-minute HD DVD and you wanted to do it as quickly as possible, having at least 15 GB of capacity is a useful thing. Or if you want to compress to low bit rates and fit a whole lot of video on one disc, same thing.

So no, we don't necessarily need blue-laser discs or players at this point, but they'll be useful if/when they become commonplace. We'll see how soon there's any hope of that happening.

[Pierre Barberis]

Originally Posted by Kevin Shaw

Well, at 9.5 Mbps you can only fit a little over an hour of video on a standard 4.7 GB DVD, and that's not enough for many projects. Plus encoding to compressed formats like WMV or H.264 is very time-consuming even on today's fastest computers, but encoding to HD MPEG2 can be done in close to real time with the right hardware and software. So if you wanted to make a 90-minute HD DVD and you wanted to do it as quickly as possible, having at least 15 GB of capacity is a useful thing.

Agree, but when you take a Month (or a year) to edit 2 hours of video, what does another six or ten hours of encoding mean ?? Notwithstanding that as soon as some algorithm stabilizes we will see ICs doing the job much faster...

Originally Posted by Kevin Shaw

they'll be useful if/when they become commonplace. We'll see how soon there's any hope of that happening.

Agree. And if the blank discs are under 50 cents , too..

[Don Blish]

In the posts above, I was reassured that PPro+AspectHD would be able to produce a Blu-Ray disc. David’s post of Dec 2nd says I should be able to export to 1920 across. Well, I laid out a grand for PPro1.5.1+AspectHD3.4 and have built an HDV (1440x1080) project. When I try to export to 1920 across, I get an error message saying that the horizontal must be 720 to 1440.

No display on the market advertises support for a digital frame size of 1440x1080, and analog/component HD just masks the issue. I saw a Blu-Ray spec page (that I can no longer find) that said players must support only 720x1280 or 1080x1920 for Mpeg2. That page did indicate VC1 would support 1080x1440. However all the validation discs Sony sent out were Mpeg2. I have little confidence that VC1, as a new codec (in hardware anyway), will have wide compatibility. I can’t see that Encore 2.x is going to scale and transcode up to 1920... and the Encore 2.0 promos are entirely silent on HD matters. So is AspectHD4 going to allow 1920 across?

I would have thought that Adobe, as Blu-Ray Disc Assn member, and Cineform as a partner would have made the path clearer given that the first burner (Pioneer BDR-101A) is a few weeks away and the PS3 (as a player) a few weeks after that.

[Steven White]

I get an error message saying that the horizontal must be 720 to 1440.

Last I checked, the export options from AspectHD to the Cineform Codec are restricted to 1440x1080 (i/p) and 1280x720p. If you want to render to 1920x1080 (which you'd only want to do on your final render anyway, and avoid if at all possible to maintain data integrity) you can do that, but only to a different codec (i.e., WMV, uncompressed etc.)

-Steve

[Pete Bauer]

Don, I suspect that any error you are receiving on export (BTW, what format and codec, using what settings?) is a result of an improper setting in the export.

As have many here, I've exported 1920x1080p24 and 1920x1080i60 WMV, MPEG2, and AVI files with no difficulty at all using the same software on what is no longer a muscular P4 3.00GHz system. True, if you're putting out to a Cineform AVI from Aspect/PPro, you're going to be maxxed out at 1440x1080...it is intended as an intermediate workflow codec, and is even named as such; Cineform advertises that very clearly. To export to 1920x1080 in a Cineform AVI, you'll need Prospect Edit HD, which is about $2000.

As far as what codec to use for Blu-Ray...about the best one can say at present, since we don't have Blu-Ray or HD-DVD burners available yet to know specifically what settings should be used.

Try some different settings on your 1920x1080 exports. If you keep getting errors, then I'd say check for system conflicts.

[Don Blish]

In ExportMovie I gave the file a .mpg extension
In MovieExport/Filetype I had been trying CineformHD export ..
and gotten the error The filetype pulldown in MovieExport/General contains
WindowsBitmap, Filmstrip, AnimatedGIF, QuickTime,Targa and TIFF
all of the above being still image or non-mpg, and......
Microsoft AVI
Microsoft DV AVI
Windows Waveform (presumably audio only?)
Cineform M2T (hmmmm)
Cineform HD Export (gives error on trying 1920 across)
Cineform HDV AVI (presumably the same error)

With CineformHDExport, the MovieExport/Video/Compressor, I used CineFormHDCodec since the other two choices are NTSC and PAL related and presumably standard definition related.

The only other likely FileType choice is CineformM2T, which I had dismissed as only for export to tape. With this select, I a can pick Cineform M2T-1080i-29.97 and can pick pixels as HDanamorphic1080(1.33) [1920/1440]. I guess since no suitable high capacity disc has been available, export to the camera was all that was on people's minds. I never would have gotten to these settings reading the FAQs as they stand. Adding to the FAQ is in order and so would a manual in printed or .pdf form.

On PowerDVD6, the renamed file (.mpg) played with sound but jumpy pans and zoom. On WindowsMediaPlayer10 video was perfect, but no sound at all. This on a muscular system [dualcore 840EE, RAID5]. Oh well - they are just peeks.