Premier-Poor Quality Downconverting from HD

[Craig Terott]

Here's the article:

http://www.eventdv.net/Articles/Read...rticleID=10446


They rated NLE's for performance/quality of downcoversions from HD to SD and Premier was by far the worst. In fact, the results were so poor in their tests that they contacted Adobe to get more info but it still hasn't been resolved. Thier recommendation was to "use caution when using Premier to downconvert from HD." But how the heck do you "use caution"? How 'bout this statement instead... don't use Premier to downconvert to SD.

[David Newman]

The default scaling in Premiere's version 1.5.1 is pretty limited. However for HDV most users upgrade to Aspect HD (free trail at www.cineform.com) which greatly enhances the scaling algorithms (amougnst a large range of enhancements) particularly for SD downconvertion. Pity the article didn't also test Aspect HD.

[Craig Terott]

Dave - there's no disputing the value of your product but any Premier user should question the value of his/her NLE, which in late 2005 can't produce a satisfactory result with such a fundamental HD task.

[John Poore]

Thanks for the link. The tests are most interesting, I have been waiting to see how different NLE's downconvert HDV. The mighty FCP is still top dog, and I am a little surprised by Premiere, which is usually very good. It's a pity they didnt test Canopus with it's procoder tools, I would interested to see how that performs.

[Ron Evans]

I shot a dance performance this summer with just the FX1. One performance was for closeups, one full stage and the other a mix of full stage and following the action. It was a test to see if it was viable to use just one camera instead of my usually two. My intention was to crop a SD image from the HDV to produce a master DV tape record. I have Vegas 6, Premiere Pro 1.5.1 and Edius Pro3. I found the following:- For cropping and panning an image Vegas is far superior to the other two. You can see what is happening from the source image and keyframe control is very easy and complete. I created a whole mix from the one full stage camera that from an editing point of view was straight forward. I had the Aspect HD 3.3 trial and attempted to do the same with Premiere Pro. The user interface frustrated me too much and I gave up though the preview was much smoother and faster than Vegas. Edius Pro 3 has much the same frustration in that there are no keyframes so only fixed camera views can be used( no pan or zoom). Video quality was another issue. I substituted the m2t to compare the rendered SD output ( only possible in Vegas and Edius as Premiere does not support m2t ) for both Vegas and Edius the SD output was much sharper with the m2t file than either the CFHD for Vegas or HQ intermediate for Edius( the intermediates were both at their default rather than largest file format). IN the end I captured a DV stream from the camera which in my opinion is even sharper, and edited most in DV, substituting pieces from the Vegas m2t output.
I also learned that focus was super critical. I had spent a great deal of time to focus for the full stage shoot but it was still not good enough in my opinion and this clearly effected the results I got when zooming in post.
I will go back to using two cameras and Edius Pro 3 but I will use HDV for the full stage as this gives the option of cropping for that missed shot from the main camera and will also provide a very good DV full stage camera shot anyway. Will now need to save for an external recorder as 63 mins per tape isn't enough for theatre.
Why the three NLE's
Vegas has the best audio, keyframe control
Premiere has the best file export( Smart render) for fast changes, besides I started NLE on Premiere!!!
Edius Pro3 is the fastest for straight DV editing by a long way

Ron Evans

[David Moody]

I use Aspect with Premiere and feel that the down converted video is better than the in camera down conversion, which is pretty good.

I cannot see using Premiere without Aspect if you are serious about HDV.

I wonder how native editing quality holds up with multiple layers of video with effects and color correction.

[Ron Evans]

For pure HDV Aspect HD with Premiere seems smooth and fast but not noticably faster than Edius HQ and the choice is personal preference really. I found the capture /convert times are very similar and also the output quality. However with two HDV cameras creating a SD DVD I would now downconvert in camera and just edit the DV in Edius Pro 3 much faster work flow. An option is to use the DV as a proxy to be able to produce a HDV version if needed later. Having got used to realtime output of DV with the Canopus products I have little patience for rendering!!! When systems are available to get realtime HDV just like DV and HD delivery on Blu-Ray etc is available I will change, until then I will stay with DV processing for most, though as I said in my previous post will certainly use HDV for at least the full stage fixed camera ( when I get a second HDV camera I will shoot HDV but likely edit 16x9 DV mostly).


Ron Evans