PROBLEMS CONVERTING HDV 1080/30i TO DVD 720 x 480. INTERLACING PROBLEMS

[Joel Corral]

hi,

i previuosly was impressed how Cineform's Aspect HD handled downconversion to DVD in a progressive format. but now i have crashed into a ton of bricks when i try to convert 1080/30i (1080/60i) to 480i (29.97) DVD. i tried upper field first, then lower filed first. and i get horrible interlacing line around edges of the subjects lips, eyes and the play back is flickery.

has any one had great results downcoverting 1080i to 480i DVD? if so what settings, steps and mpeg encoder are you using.

and for the record the i am going HDV to mpeg. instead of HDV to DV to mpeg to preserve color.

joel

[David Newman]

Aspect HD 3.2, and now 3.3, where upgraded to greatly enhance interlaced SD exports -- so make sure you software is up to date. Aspect HD works perfectly for DVD creation, unfortunately the Adobe Media Encoder (AME) is a bit buggy and that might be causing your problems (it swaps the field dominance when scaling HD to SD during transitions.) So to bypass the AME bug, export you sequence using "Export Movie" and the "CineForm HD Export" option (not the CineForm HDV, which is the freebee 1.5.1 verison.) Then set your video up as 720x480 16x9 Lower field first and create the AVI master for your DVD sequence. This can be run thru the AME or Import directly into Encore or another DVD authoring tool.

[Joel Corral]

ok,

i'll try it. but that makes a extra step. :(

in the future will cineform users be able to straight to SD DVD without that extra encodeing step?

joel

[David Newman]

The is a problem for all Adobe users, when they fix this we will all benefit. The only one step solution for DVD burning for HD from Premiere is to de-interlace when converting to MPEG (this is what the 1.5.1 does all the time), but that doesn't give smooth motion.

[Joel Corral]

well at least the deinterlaced video looks great!

[Randy Donato]

Joe, Procoder doesn't have the problem and if you don't have it you can get procoder express that plugs into ppro for 70 bucks and it is a much better encoder than the adobe one(lots of parameter control)....the only draw back is it doesn't do ac3 but I let encore do that anyway. Don't hold your breath waiting on Adobe...my experiance is bug/fixes are called upgrades:)

[Matteo Ricchetti]

My way of solving the problem is to save as HD cineform movie reimport in premiere in standars definition, rescale it... the interlace and quality is perfect. Matteo

[Randy Donato]

With Procoder Express you can skip the save as a Cineform movie step and do it right off the TL.....and it is a better encoder IMHO(I just can't believe the parameter limitations the AME has). I checked and it is 60 bucks not 70 like I said above.

[David Newman]

Randy, that seems like a good way to go. One of these days I should try Procoder. See if you can have Canopus to send me a sample. ;)

[Randy Donato]

If you will get your fellows to let my Nx card take the overlay from Ppro in an HDV Preset so I can get video out I will buy you the full version. I tried talking Canopus into writing a plugin that would do it but for some strange reason they don't seem interested:) I will say CFHD monitor out of the Nx in AE(they do have a plugin for AE) full res looks good.

[Joel Corral]

Originally Posted by Randy Donato

Joe, Procoder doesn't have the problem and if you don't have it you can get procoder express that plugs into ppro for 70 bucks and it is a much better encoder than the adobe one(lots of parameter control)....the only draw back is it doesn't do ac3 but I let encore do that anyway. Don't hold your breath waiting on Adobe...my experiance is bug/fixes are called upgrades:)

randy,

i do have procoder. i dont get very good results in procoder either.

what settings are you using?

please let me know.

thanks

joel

[Randy Donato]

I have the full version of Procoder and as far as the render engine goes procoder express is the same. The differences basically are no master quality and filters in PCE. The problem the adobe encoder has is during transitions it screws up the fields in the transition rendering from the TL. The workaround is to render the TL to a single file. Procoder does not have this problem exporting from a Ppro timeline so you can save the render to one file step...I have checked this twice. Not sure what problem you are having and if it is related to the fields screw up or not. One thing you might check is to make sure Procoder is seeing the source file as upper fields....I know sometimes it gets it wrong and you have to select upper fields. As far as settings go it depends on length, for an hour or less I just use 2 pass 7500(for video) CBR....For more than an hour, again depending on length, I will use 2 pass VBR and vary the max and target bitrates but rarely go less than 6k max for video. Procoder shines at low bitrates and others get great resuts at 4-5k but for what I do timewise I can usually stay over 6.


Stick with it Joe because I am getting super results both from Edius and Ppro making DVD Mpegs from both HQ and CFHD...IMHO they are so good it makes buying the Cam worth it just for the quality boost making SD DVDs