Comparison of NLE HD to SD downconversion quality

[Luis de la Cerda]

It's a shame NewTek hasn't gotten the trial version of speededit out. I know I must sound like a broken record, but for the same $500 you pay for an intermediate you get a full blown NLE that's really faster than anything else, a great intermediate codec with alpha support (speedHQ), realtime firewire hdv previews, etc...

[Brad Tyrrell]

Originally Posted by Luis de la Cerda

It's a shame NewTek hasn't gotten the trial version of speededit out...

Yeah, well sometimes timing is everything. Unfortunately, the solution window for many of us is NOW.

[Michael Barrette]

Great thread, couple question re. after effects import resize and export.

I am trying the AE Huffy HDV - SD method. Here's my questions:

1) Can I import an uncompressed premiere pro sequence to comp 1 timeline and use that or do I need to first export an AVI or other out of premiere pro before importing into AE?

2) For some reason when I drag my HDV clips into the timeline in AE, AE is treating them like they are 1440 by 1080 rather than 1920, any idea why and how I can get AE to assume the clips / sequences are wide screen HDV when I drag them to timeline rather than non widescreen. (I have set the comp settings to widescreen). Also, why when I set comp to "DV widescreen" does it keep width at 720 and not make it go widescreen???)

3) So the process is I drag the corners to fit the SD composition size? How can I resize the sequence / clip using controls to make sure I get the exact dimension rather than guessing / getting close by dragging corners?

4) When I export using the HUFFY codec, what exactly do I click to make this happen? Ie. Do I export it as an Adobe Premiere Pro Project or straight as a Huffy project or what exactly? and I am having trouble finding where this HUFFY thing is located (I just installed it).

Thanks for helping this AE newbie!!!!!

[Maksim Yankovskiy]

I've had some very good results shooting in HDV, placing captured HDV clip on PP2 timeline (SD, 16:9), applying Sharpen filter (at 30 to 40), and rendering it out as MPEG2-DVD 2pass VBR (at 9Mbs top, 7Mbs target). The source looks clean and sharp, very little to none "stairs" (30 sharpen is good in most cases). The only problem is rendering time....

Originally Posted by Jason Livingston

4.5/10: Camera downconvert to DV on PP2 DV timeline, export via AME. As with Edius, chroma resolution is only 180x240. Contrast and saturation have decreased somewhat and there is a very slight green tinge, apparently this is caused by the Adobe Media Encoder's MPEG2 codec and not by Premiere itself.

2/10: HDV Clip on PP2 HDV or SD timeline, export via AME for DVD. With PP2 there seems to be no difference between starting with an HD or SD timeline when downsizing for DVD. The image has become extremely soft, looking almost out of focus. The camera downconvert version looks significantly sharper, except maybe for chroma subsampling due to DV compression. It is also slightly darker and with less color saturation and a slight green tinge.

2/10: HDV Clip on PP2 HDV or SD timeline, export to uncompressed 720x480. I did this test to determine if the bad image quality above was caused by PP2 itself or by AME. I exported to uncompressed 720x480, thus using PP2's resampling algorithms but bypassing any effects caused by AME. The image was just as soft as in the above test, indicating that the softness problem is caused by PP2 and not by AME. The loss of contrast and saturation was not apparent, so those seem to be caused by AME.

Those using Premiere Pro 2 are less fortunate. PP2's resampling algorithm results in an image so soft it looks more like out-of-focus DV, whether your timeline is HD or SD. Also the Adobe Media Encoder is not very good at all, as it noticably lowers the contrast and saturation, and introduces a slight green tinge.

[Sergey Pikulev]

Originally Posted by Jason Livingston

My friend with Vegas (6.0c I think) ran the same test and I checked the output files for their quality relative to my tests above.

9/10: HDV clip on Vegas HD timeline, output direct to MPEG-2 for DVD, rendering quality "best." Looks nearly identical to the Virtualdub/Tmpgenc output, except for thin vertical black bars on each side, and very slightly more moire/aliasing effect, but you'd probably never notice this in real footage.

Conclusion: Vegas users who want the best DVD output possible should edit HDV/Cineform on an HD timeline and need to use "best" for the rendering quality. Done this way, the results are good enough that the extra step of using Virtualdub/Tmpgenc is probably not worth it. Edius and (especially) Premiere users should still consider the Virtualdub method because the quality is much better than what you can achieve straight from the NLE.

Thanks, Jason.

Do I understand correct, that Vegas 8 Pro is what I need for best downconverting from HDV to DVD?

Presently, I'm using Premiere Pro 2.0 - but my tests with HDV material (downconverted to DVD) do not satisfy. I haven't used your Virtual Dub method, because I'm new to editing and have no idea of some things you are saying. Can you please describe your method in more detail, step-by-step, please. Or, maybe there is a detailed guide somewhere?

Thanks a lot.

Regards,
Sergey

[Brad Tyrrell]

Originally Posted by Sergey Pikulev

Thanks, Jason.

Do I understand correct, that Vegas 8 Pro is what I need for best downconverting from HDV to DVD?

Presently, I'm using Premiere Pro 2.0 - but my tests with HDV material (downconverted to DVD) do not satisfy. I haven't used your Virtual Dub method, because I'm new to editing and have no idea of some things you are saying. Can you please describe your method in more detail, step-by-step, please. Or, maybe there is a detailed guide somewhere?

Thanks a lot.

Regards,
Sergey

I shoot with an XH A1 in HDV and deliver in standard DVD. I got very good results from DebugMode frameserver (Free) to TMPGEnc 4 Express ($99) letting the TMPGEnc resize with the lancosz3 filter when I was using PP2. I tried Cineform in PP2 but PP2 didn't like it much on my machine.

Now I'm using CS3. The included media encoder in CS3 is better than in PP2 but not as good as DebugMode -> TMPGenc. (The CS3 encoder gives a "faded" and unsaturated look.) I've also started using Cineform (Aspect HD $500) again. It makes the picture not quite as sharp but eliminates a lot of artifacts and makes CS3 much happier. I really only notice the "not-as-sharp" in a side by side frame enlargement though, so it's not a problem.

Brad

[Ervin Farkas]

Originally Posted by Sergey Pikulev

I haven't used your Virtual Dub method, because I'm new to editing and have no idea of some things you are saying. Can you please describe your method in more detail, step-by-step, please. Or, maybe there is a detailed guide somewhere? Thanks a lot. Regards, Sergey

Sergey, there are tons of good tutorials on the web for VirtualDub, from pure text to video tutorials on YouToube. For smaller projects simply resize to 720x576 (you're in PAL land, right?... or is Russia still on SECAM?) export uncompressed to a file on your hard drive, then take that file and encode it to MPEG. For larger projects use the frame server. VirtualDub also has a fairly good help file. Feel free to PM me if you still need help.

Good luck,

[Sergey Pikulev]

Originally Posted by Brad Tyrrell

I got very good results from DebugMode frameserver (Free) to TMPGEnc 4 Express ($99) letting the TMPGEnc resize with the lancosz3 filter when I was using PP2.

Brad, I got Premiere CS3 and DebugMode and TMGEnc 4.0 XPress. Is this all I need for decent quality downsampling? Is it OK to capture with CS3 or should I use some other program? Do you use Cineform in THIS chain or not?

Thanx,
Sergey

[Sergey Pikulev]

Originally Posted by Ervin Farkas

Sergey, there are tons of good tutorials on the web for VirtualDub, from pure text to video tutorials on YouToube. For smaller projects simply resize to 720x576 (you're in PAL land, right?... or is Russia still on SECAM?) export uncompressed to a file on your hard drive, then take that file and encode it to MPEG. For larger projects use the frame server. VirtualDub also has a fairly good help file. Feel free to PM me if you still need help.

Good luck,

Thanks, Ervin. Russia's TV is on SECAM, but satellite TV and video - PAL. RE your simple method - I tried it before and I did not like it, or maybe I did something wrong (but the resulting DVD was worse than DVD produced from SD DV). I understand, that downconverting (which is elimination of detail) must happen in a smart way, not just by way of simple resize.

I read somewhere that Sony Vegas Pro gives good result. But I would like to stay with Premiere Pro (just used to it). Maybe I should use Vegas for capture, instead of PP2 or CS3? It is made by Sony for Sony after all.

Is it a good idea at all - to capture with Vegas, then to edit in Premiere CS3, and the resulting video to pass back to Vegas for downconverting for DVD?

Thanks

[Brad Tyrrell]

Originally Posted by Sergey Pikulev

Brad, I got Premiere CS3 and DebugMode and TMGEnc 4.0 XPress. Is this all I need for decent quality downsampling? Is it OK to capture with CS3 or should I use some other program? Do you use Cineform in THIS chain or not?

Thanx,
Sergey

I use Cineform primarily because Premiere handles much better with it. There's a slight drop in resolution, but just slight. On the positive side many of the HDV artifacts are removed. It's a little like using a touch of a good Noise Reduction filter.

I capture to disk on a laptop with OnLocation (included with CS3). I also record tape as a back up. Then I transcode to Cineform using HDlink to an external 500gig disk, edit in CS3, frameserve with Debugmode to TMPGEnc 4 Express. I resize in TMPGEnc to SD using the Lancosz3 filter, output separate audio & video files for Encore, import into Encore and create an IMG file. Then I use a Primera Duplicator to create 20 to 50 SD DVDs from the IMG.

I don't capture directly to Cineform because my laptop isn't fast enough. Also I kind of like the tools OnLocation gives you. Forget about using the laptop as a monitor with OnLocation though, - latency. I use a 20" flat panel fed from my XH-A1.

I was really hoping that upgrading to CS3 from PP2 would give a good quality resize to SD from HDV, but I was still unhappy with the bundled media encoder. I'm back to frameserving to TMPGenc now and am happy.

Encore CS3 (also bundled with Premiere CS3) has the ability to output BlueRay. None of my customers have those players so far, but it'll be interesting to see what happens in the coming year. Nice to be able just in case.

Brad

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

Can anyone chime in on the Apple-side of these things?

[Carl Middleton]

On the spirit of this thread, I ran into an issue with Encore CS2 yesterday, and had to burn the air copy DVD for the art department using different software...

I used Nero. Dropped the m2t file of the program directly into the DVD creator.

The quality of this downconversion was FAR superior to Encore or Premiere, and honestly to any other methods I've tried (Cineform included).

I was blown away! The cheapo consumer DVD burning software put out a stunningly good copy for DVD. As well, it worked. =D

I watched the DVD back on a 42# LCD HDTV through an upconverting Component DVD player. It was far, far superior to network TV using HDMI from a cable box, and on par with HD remastered DVD content from the major players in film. Freaky!

Carl

[Ervin Farkas]

Originally Posted by Sergey Pikulev

RE your simple method - I tried it before and I did not like it, or maybe I did something wrong (but the resulting DVD was worse than DVD produced from SD DV). I understand, that downconverting (which is elimination of detail) must happen in a smart way, not just by way of simple resize.

I'm not sure what might have happened in your case - I am happy with the quality of resizing in VDub. See attached sample from a quick test with no other filtering than the resize. It gets a lot better with sharpening, which I did not do on this sample.

[Ken Jarstad]

I used Nero. Dropped the m2t file of the program directly into the DVD creator.

The quality of this downconversion was FAR superior to Encore or Premiere, and honestly to any other methods I've tried (Cineform included).

I was blown away! The cheapo consumer DVD burning software put out a stunningly good copy for DVD. As well, it worked. =D

I watched the DVD back on a 42# LCD HDTV through an upconverting Component DVD player. It was far, far superior to network TV using HDMI from a cable box, and on par with HD remastered DVD content from the major players in film. Freaky!

So, has anyone else found the standard DVD quality from Nero to be as good as Carl has?

Carl, are you claiming that using Nero produces a DVD that rates a 10 on the scale the OP listed in his first post?

I am a retiree on limited income and volunteer edit for a local communnity access cable TV show, so low-bucks solutions are desirable and necessary. Yet I would buy a retail copy of Nero if I were totally convinced of the final quality.

I have tried repeatedly to get an .m2t file to load in VirtualDub v1.7.5 and VirtualDubMod v1.5.10.2 and all I get is an error pop-up saying 'Cannot detect file type of filename.m2t'.

[Graham Hickling]

Ken, The reason Virtualdubmod won't open your file is that it's a transport stream not a program stream.

It is straightforward and fast to losslessly convert a ts to a ps. Various applications do it, the one I use is remuxts.exe available here: http://www.yamabe.org/softbody.html

The steps with remuxts are as follows:
1) Load the .m2t file into the "Input filename" box.
2) Click 'Get PID'
3) Click 'Add'
4) Click 'Start'

By default a new version of your file will be sent to your c:/ directory (although you can change the folder if you wish).

This new version is a program stream that Vdubmod will open happily. To do so, either change its extension to .mpg or use the "all files" option in the Vdubmod input window.

Hope that helps!