1080i HDV to Standard DVD conversion with the help of CineForm

[Kamran Sekha]

Hello Everyone,

I shall be very grateful if someone can provide me with advice on the ideal step-by-step workflow involved from getting 1080i footage converted to standard DVD format using CineForm Prospect HD.

I have over 9 hours of footage which I took using my Sony HDR-HC1 (NTSC) HDV camcorder. At that time, I knew nothing about video capture, editing and conversion, so I provided my DV tapes to a third party for capturing into a format which I could then edit after I had learnt Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0.

This third party has an identical camcorder to mine. I was then provided several files with the extension .tp covering this 9 hour footage. I was never given any AVI files.

I was unable to view the files, so I was then asked to rename the .tp files as .m2t files. I changed the extension from .tp to .m2t using MS DOS commands.

I have no idea how the .tp files were captured, but I am 100% sure that CineForm software was not used.

With the m2t files now at my disposal, I then imported them into Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0 and edited them into a final 2 hour footage. I then exported this 2 hour edited movie from Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0 using their Media Encoder with the best quality settings. The result was a 2 hour .m2t file (21GB in size).

I was unaware of CineForm, so I used Canopus Procoder 2.0 and TMPG software to end up with m2v and wav files which I then imported into Adobe Encore DVD 2.0 and authored it before burning it into a DVD.

Sadly, the quality of the DVD was not acceptable as it was much inferior to the usual Hollywood movie DVDs that one can buy or rent from Blockbuster. The picture quality is not sharp, and there is quite noticeable jerkiness when the picture moves from one side to another.

I used a bit rate setting of 4.0 in order to fit the 2 hour movie into one single layer DVD. I have learnt that my bit rate setting was OK.

I am now facing two options:

1. Convert the edited m2t file to CineForm AVI and then compress it into DVD (MPEG) format.

2. Capture the whole 9 hour footage again using CineForm Prospect HD, and then edit the AVI files in Premiere Pro and then compress these AVI files into DVD (MPEG) format.

Option 1 is by far easier and much less tedious, but I did experiment with this option and the quality of my DVD did not improve at all. Please advise me what to do.

I can start all over again and take the Option 2 route.

Thanks,

Kamran

[David Taylor]

Kamran,

Take a look at this Tech Note from our site: http://www.cineform.com/products/Tec...Export2DVD.htm. This gives you some strategy ideas for maintaining best image quality when exporting to DVD using CS2.

[Kamran Sekha]

David,

It's great to hear from you.

Thank you for providing me with the link to the Tech Note from the CineForm website. I will study it carefully.

Given my peculiar circumstances, do you think I can take a major shortcut and convert my m2t files into Cineform AVI files, or should I start afresh and capture everything again using CineForm?

Regards,

Kamran

[David Newman]

note: Those instructions are for interlaced DVD production.

[Kamran Sekha]

Originally Posted by David Taylor

Kamran,

Take a look at this Tech Note from our site: http://www.cineform.com/products/Tec...Export2DVD.htm. This gives you some strategy ideas for maintaining best image quality when exporting to DVD using CS2.

Hello David,

The link is great. Thanks. The step by step workflow is very helpful but it does not take account of any interlacing / de-interlacing.

I captured my footage in NTSC 1080i, so if I follow the step by step workflow, then I will end up with a DVD that has those horrible horizontal lines going across the screen.

At what stage should I de-interlace my footage and how?

Regards,

Kamran

[David Newman]

What "horizontal lines?" You should contact support (via www.cineform.com/support) and file a trouble ticket, if there image data that shouldn't be there. If you can just talking interlacing vs progressive, you will need to experiment for you own output look. There are too many combinations from interlace to progressive workflow to say one it better than any other. You could deinterlace on capture, editing progressively, or deinterlace on export. Totally up to you.

[Kamran Sekha]

Originally Posted by David Newman

....If you can just talking interlacing vs progressive, you will need to experiment for you own output look. There are too many combinations from interlace to progressive workflow to say one it better than any other. You could deinterlace on capture, editing progressively, or deinterlace on export. Totally up to you.

David,

Thank you for the lightning fast reply. You guys are just wonderful.

All I am talking is interlacing vs progressive. I chose not to deinterlace on capture, so this narrows down the combinations. Therefore please now kindly provide me with a few combinations such that I end up with final progressive output on DVD.

I am now left with options as to whether deinterlace during editing or on export. Only through experimenting will I then be able to see which combination appears best.

Please remember that I have 1080i NTSC footage which I am trying to convert to both NTSC and PAL DVD formats.

Thanks,

Kamran

[David Newman]

Personally I avoid interlaced, so my suggestions will be limited. Others can chime in.

Try this :

Complete a 1080i60 export from Premiere. Load that new 60i AVI in HDLink and set the perferrences to High (at least), Progressive, Remove 3-2 pulldown, Deinterlace and scale to NTSC 16x9. The resulting conversion will be 720x486 16x9 progressive 23.976p -- load that in EncoreDVD (or similar) for NTSC master. For PAL DVD use High (at least), Progressive, Remove 3-2 pulldown, Deinterlace and scale to PAL 16x9 and add Rate Change "23.976p to 25p (+4.1%)" and check "Maintain audio pitch." This will produce a 720x576 16x9 25p output.

[Jim Gunn]

Easiest thing for me is to deinterlace all 1080i hdv footage on capture, then edit and encode as progressive.

[Stephen Armour]

Originally Posted by Jim Gunn

Easiest thing for me is to deinterlace all 1080i hdv footage on capture, then edit and encode as progressive.

Ditto for us. We have been getting pretty good results just outputting our 1920 CF'ed material directly. We rescaled for 16x9 DVD quality in TMPGEnc 4.0 XPress (it reads the HD but only outputs to 1440) and output for Encore CS3.

We've even done some direct export verification stuff to Encore from PP CS3 and gotten very nice results. That's very different from the past.

The downscaled 1920 CF'ed video looked very very nice indeed, including many AE and DigitalJuice things we had CF'ed and brought in.