Scaling UP from SD to HDV
 

Almost all the talk on forums these days are scaling DOWN from HDV (720p or 1080i) to SD (PAL or NTSC).

I need a software solution to allow me to scale from SD (PAL - 720x576) upwards to HD (720p or 1080i) with as little artifacts as possible.

It can work with either Adobe After Effects or Edius 4.54 or even a standalone package (Windows platform).

Currently, I use Adobe AE to scale - but, I can see some artifacts due to scaling and also, it is not fast.

Anybody is aware of a good software to do that? Thanks.

I have heard good things of Magic Bullet's Instant HD software, a plugin for Premiere, might work with AE, too.

But keep in mind, this is a process of creating info where there once was none, and upscaling artifacts are to be expected, to an extent. Just the name of the game!

Carl

I'm experimenting with this now with some footage.....

As you know you can scale in After Effects or Premiere, there maybe others but thats my setup....

Instant HD isn't bad, but it does not support CS3 yet....

Another option, is to use Cineform... it seems to work pretty good but
I have not put it to the test on a big screen yet....

also, its best when scaling to convert the footage to progressive first...

You can use free video application VirtualDub with rescalling filters. Some of them rescale even better than say Photosop's image rescalling alghorithm...

I use VirtualDub for a very good deinterlacing, deshaking and smoothing the video, it's really really great open/free application with its wonderful filters (and since both are Adobe's application then I doubt AE is any better than Photoshop in up-sampling images/video).

See VirtualDub's page: http://www.virtualdub.org/index.html

And "Smart Resize Filter for VirtualDub": http://neuron2.net/resize.html

See also "warp resize": http://www.virtualdub.org/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=79

I was using Resizer by Digital Anarchy after a local person tested it against Instant HD and found it to be somewhat better.

The best type of SD material to use these on is true progressive rather than interlaced. It also helps if the camera can shoot native widescreen ( I was using it on XL-2 footage).

What it does is allow SD to hold its own when blown up. It won't look like the razor sharp detail of true HD, but it won't look like it has been run through a meat grinder either.

-gb-

Another vote for VirtualDub (free). Canopus Procoder also does a decent job ($500).

Cineform does resizing ?
 

Can someone confirm if Cineform does resizing ? though it was only a codec and a capture utility.

from Cineforms web site...

Spatial rescaling from various SD or HD resolutions to HD: 1280x720p, 1440x1080i/p, 1920x1080i/p (Prospect HD), or SD: 480i/p, 486i/p, 576i/p


and here is the web site... Cineform does alot more...

http://cineform.com/products/TechNot...ink/HDLink.htm

With this you can shoot 720p60 with the Sony EX1/EX3 and intermix the footage
with 1080i60. First use Cineform to convert the 1080i to 1080p then scale the 760p60
to 1080p and drop on the same time line.... the p60 is for smooth slow mo work.....

The new Cineform Prospect 4K takes it even further....

I tried doing an HD project (1080x1440 30i) in PPro2/Cineform Aspect HD 3.3 that had some consumer camera/standard definition material in it. The project looked OK in HD/BluRay, but on discs scaled back to SD for friends, the SD material looked worse than the same project redone as SD throughout.

Cineform vs Instant HD or Resizer
 

Any idea how well Cineform stacks up vs the competition for resizing ?

The "Instant HD Pro" is due out any day now, so that would be a good one to compare to...

from my understanding it will be for Adobe AE...

several years have passed since the last entry, and i wanted to request any updates on converting 4:3 SD upscaling to 16:9 hdv that uses algorithms that might create improved sharpness retention, minimize artifacts etc. thankyou in advance. bill

I've tried various "super-resolution" upscaling software tools, and generally never found anything to be notably superior to upscaling with VirtualDub, using Lanczos resizing.

There are some fairly sophisticated algorithms out there (that require lots and lots of calculations - very taxing on CPUs), and some of them (not all) can perform upscaling of images sometimes slightly better than using less computationally intensive techniques, but there's simply no magic way to create more real detail (out of thin air) than is actually there in the data representing an image to start with - you just can't resolve 1080 lines of detail, when you only recorded 480.

Actually, there are ways of going about using sequences of images to create three dimensional representations of the objects originally shot by the camera, to create the two dimensional images making up a motion picture stream, as well as the lighting that illuminated those objects, and using that information effectively to enhance detail, but using that sort of methodology (with enough precision to make it notably effective) pretty much just blows way beyond realistic mainstream desktop computing capabilities.

Bottom line is, Lanczos resizing works very close to as well as the fancy stuff out there (that is also pretty dang slow - and often quite expensive), and is widely available with VirtualDub, AVISynth, and other freeware out there.

Robert,

seems like you experiment a lot, and use VDub quite a bit... I use it too occasionally for downsizing. So I was wondering... have you used it for cleaning up old VHS video?

If so, what filters have you found most effective?

Thanks,

I haven't touched analog video in years now, but you might try this out:

Filters for VirtualDub -- flaXen's Filters

For general purpose denoising, both spatial and temporal, this is downright excellent:

MSU Denoiser Filter

thankyou robert for your input. i shot all the footage on a canon gl1 which i guess is analogue...i am going to copy all the footage from that and the canon xha1 hi def through cineform to a hard drive..then work with the intermediate codec from there. this is the first time for me to edit...thus my question..is it worthwhile to change some of the excellent wildlife footage i have to 16:9, and will virtualdub make a fairly decent digital form? bill

No, of course it isn't. It's DV. The D in DV is digital. It's all digital. It's just not HD.

As mentioned, by Adam in the previous post, the footage from a GL1 is digital.

Whether or not it is worthwhile to change some of your footage (presumably shot as 4:3 footage with the GL1?) to 16:9 depends on the footage and your purpose in doing so. I don't know what you mean by "will virtualdub make a fairly decent digital form?"

well excuse my lack of knowledge as i thought the camera shot digital..but then somewhere in one of the posts i read'analogue' . i have some interesting wildife shots in Glacier bay and denali witht he kids and would like to convert some of this for hd viewing on a big screen. maybe i am stuck with allowing the black pillars on each side of the image in a 16:9 format. i am just beginning to transfer 8 years of images in cineform neoscene to store, and begin to edit..possibly with vegas 9. i am looking for simplicity, but good capture.

Generally, I'd suggest keeping it as 4:3 with pillars. Cropping to 16:9 and then upscaling can get pretty rough. You essentially wind up with 360 horizontal lines of detail when you crop 4:3 DV to 16:9. Upscaling that to HD is never going to look real hot.

Are you shooting interlaced or progressive video with the H1? If you are shooting 1080i60 with the H1 and want to cut that together with footage from the GL1, what could potentially work quite well, would be to deinterlace everything to 60p using YADIF (deinterlacing filter), and then scale it all to 1280x720 using Lanczos resizing - yielding 720p60. That does get a bit involved though, to do it well. A good tool for doing that would be Avidemux (freeware, that includes YADIF and Lanczos resizing filters).

How many hours of footage do you have total? What CPU do you have in your computer?

well i have a basic computer to begin the transfer of about40 hours of good sd from the gl1, and i was simply going to use neoscene to get into a lossless codec on two lacie 1.5 terabyte external drives. i have another 40 hours of hdv 16:9. i am saving for a computer that will facilitate editing, and as yet hadnt quite decided on vegas 9. i had looked at speededit and opted not to go that route because of their poor support. so basically i am looking to cut and delete a lot of footage first, then edit with a program that is as simple as possilbe..looking for transistions, some anti shake (sea otters whales videoed from kayaks up close) and family. bill

There's really no point in transcoding the GL1 footage to Cineform's codec, before you do something with it. Simply capture it as DV and save the files, as is, until you want to work with the footage. 40 hours of DV should take up about 500GB of hard drive space. 40 hours of HDV will take up almost exactly the same amount of hard drive space. HDV transcoded with Cineform's codec will take up something like 4 times as much HDD space. I'd suggest you simply capture the HDV and save it (as is) also. Btw, Cineform's codec is not lossless, although it is known as a "visually lossless" codec - essentially meaning that the compression quality is very high, enough so that the images look essentially the same, visually, after compression.

What kind of CPU do you have in your current computer? It doesn't take a boatload of CPU power (by today's standards) to edit HDV, especially if you transcode it using Cineform's codec. Standard definition DV (from the GL1) doesn't take much CPU power at all to edit either. If you do need a new computer for editing, you don't need to spend a fortune on it.

I'd suggest downloading a trial copy of Edius Neo 2. It's lesser known than some of the others, but a very nice and solid NLE for basic editing, and about as about as stable as it gets for an NLE on a PC. The trial version is fully functional for 30 days - not missing anything or anything disabled, like trial versions of other NLEs.

Has anybody tried this one?

Topaz Enhance - Video Quality Enhancement Plug-in

I wondering how good this is?

Probably one of those people that take free Avisyth or Virtualdub filters and turn them into for-profit commercial products... they can't even design a decent website... look at the navigation icons spilled all over the screen in IE.

It looks perfectly fine on Firefox. Maybe it is M$ IE that is breaking the rules.

... and that's a perfectly BAD idea to only make it compatible with FF when 67.27% of the world is on IE... as of December 2009.

See Web Browser Market Share

robert...do i lose any info transfering the tapes to dv...and what do i use to do that? simply transfer the files in windows? my apologies upfront but i am just starting the editing info gathering. bill

well i will be a little more specific. i have the firewire ability to transfer dv from the canon xha1 directly to a lacie d2 quad hard drive, and i am hoping i can download WinDV to the external hard drive to transfer files without loss of info. my pc does not have a firewire connection, only a usb connection. will that work? bill

You can't connect the camera directly to the hard drive. You need to get a firewire adapter for you computer. You can get them at newegg.com pretty cheap.