Some questions about Aspect HD

[Mark Leonard]

so if I capture and let hdlink convert to cineform avi and put a checkmark in the "deinterlace" setting. when I start a new project in pp2 should I use the aspect 1440x1080 60i preset? but if hdlink is deinterlacing the footage is it still 60i? If I'm wrong which preset should I be using?

[David Newman]

For you are deinterlacing 60i you get 30p. And you should use a 30p preset, although the 60i preset will still work.

[Juan Oropeza]

David,

Concerning HDLink's new ability to upscale DV/HDV, do you have any information as to how it compares with upscaling in avisynth or VDub? I know this might be too general of a question, but I'm hoping I can get you to shed some light on what might produce the best results given the willingness to involve many more applications and make things a bit more complicated.

Thanks again,
Juan

[David Newman]

Try it, it is very good quality scaling. Based on an interlaced award Lanczos scaler that work in the source and destination YUV 4:2:2 format (no colorspace errors.) Plus it is much faster than avisynth or VDub.

[Gildo Houtekamer]

Just installed the new trialversion but converting m2t files in HDlink don't take place. [Error message]
Tried installing on another machine and upscaling an avifile. Another error message.
Previous trialversion worked fine, so installed 4.1 again.
Works oké with the next 15 days trial.
Too bad, new version of HDlink promises a lot of good and interesting possibilities.
Could it be systemrelated, or are there other people having this problems?

[David Newman]

There was an installer problem on some systems that has been fixed and 4.2.1 will be available today.

[Gildo Houtekamer]

Much obliged!

[Morten Gjerstad]

I've just finished a half hour actionsport video that I intend to project digitally on a 2K projector. When I talked to the person in charge of the projection I was told that they would need the video on HDCAM tape to load on to their servers. Does anyone have experience with converting Aspect HD files to HDCAM or any other format for digital projection?

[David Newman]

HDCAM can't be converted directly as it is not a file format. You will need to play out the sequence via HDSDI to a HDCAM recording deck. Deck rental for a recorder is between $500+ per day. So you will need someone with Prospect HD (with an AJA card) and a HDCAM deck (if we had a deck I would have offered you the service.) Alternatively you can export to an uncompressed QT/AVI file and find someone with a uncompressed HD system and rent the deck again (120-180MB/s totally 300GBytes for your half hour production.) Tape delivery of HDCAM or D5 are common deliverables for HD productions. There are likely post facilities that take uncompressed AVI/QT files to output to tape for you, but I don't know the costs for that service.

[Richard Seccombe]

Hi Eveyone,

I am in the process of reasearching the components for a new computer but in the mean time I am using a Pent 4 3.6 HT, 2.5 gig RAM, with a separate system drive and video drive (both SATA 7200 rpm), a Matrox APVe card, and Aspect HD ver. 4.22. The camera is a Canon H1, and PP 2 for editing. The monitor is a Sony 36" CRT High Def using component out on the Matrox.

Here's what I did for comparison. I captured the same clip in both Adobe Native and Aspect using HD Link. When capturing the clip in HD Link, I used the large file size. I brought the clip up in the Program window of Premier and brought the Adobe Native clip up in the Source window. The playback settings on Aspect were set at De-interlace Video While Scrubbing unchecked, and the Disable Preview Mode Playback was also unchecked. You don't really even need the Sony CRT to see it, but the Adobe Native image was noticably cleaner when comparing the clip on the Source and Program screens of Premier...especially if you use the View Zoom Level settings.

At this point, I'm happy with Aspect HD because it's the only way to view the clips smoothly. Even though my current system exceeds Adobe's minimum requirements, I get studdering video playback, but even studdering, It's closer to playing back the tape right off of the camera and into the CRT, than Aspect is.

Am I asking too much, and it's just the nature of the beast, or are there other things that I can try to get a cleaner picture through Aspect? Lastly, if anyone out there might know where the bottleneck is in my current system with respect to studdering video on Adobe Native, I'd sure like to know. The drive will capture all day long without a dropped frame, but playback jumps.

Thanks very much,
Richard

[Graham Hickling]

Just to clarify...when you say "cleaner" are you meaning pixellation-type artifacts? Rather than, say, a change in black levels or a color cast or similar?

[Richard Seccombe]

Hi Graham,

By "Cleaner" I mean more detail in the picture. I can't see any differences in Black Levels or Color Casts. The clip I used was of a home on a shore while I passed by it on a boat. The home had quite a bit of rock work done on the lower foundation. The Adobe Native clip showed deatail in the rock work while the Aspect HD clip showed the rocks more like blobs. In addition, you could see more detail in the landscaping plants whereas the Aspect clip lost detail in the individual branches.

Hope that helps and thanks,
Richard

[Steven Gotz]

The source window will look better 99% of the time. Reverse the two.

The bottleneck is poor programming on Adobe's part regarding HDV.

[Tim Bucklin]

Richard,
You say that you have "Disable preview mode playback" unchecked.
Preview mode playback displays the image at half-resolution. That's why you're seeing less detail.
You should be seeing no difference in quality between the source M2T and the resulting CineForm AVI at full resolution -- we pride ourselves in that.

[Marty Baggen]

Is there a means of downloading previous versions of Aspect?

Marty
OnQ Film