Downconverting HD footage at DVinfo.net

Steven Garay · January 1st, 2008, 11:10 PM

Greetings, this is my first post and thanks in advance to whom ever responds. My question is this: How do I get the best quality downconvert from Sony Vegas 7? I have searched these forums and tried various methods but after a while everything looks the same to me. So I was wondering; When downconversion is going to be the final result, should I pump up the detail level on the cam when shooting (because I notice the picture looses a lot of detail on the downconvert)? Or should I pump up the sharpness before the downconvert (which I notice also preserves some detail). I compare the downconverted footage to regular dv footage shot on a DVX100 and they look too similar for my taste. The HD downconvert should look somewhat better, so how do I accomplish this. I am currently downconverting as a Windows Widescreen avi, best quality, 24p, 2:3:3:2 pulldown. Thanks again

Mark Silva · January 2nd, 2008, 12:55 PM

I don't have an answer as I use mac compressor to do this.

But you should not need to change your camera settings at all to
get the best down conversion.

You might look into using something like, Canopus ProCoder to do
this for you making sure the resizing filters are set to absolute
highest quality.

Relying on Vegas to do the down conversion is probably not
a good idea.

Bill Ravens · January 2nd, 2008, 01:02 PM

I routinely downconvert within vegas and it works very well. Make sure you stay in the native format for all your cuts, CCing, FX. Then downconvert to widescreen DV as the last step.Make sure to uncheck the "simulate device aspect ratio" button.

Ben Lynn · January 2nd, 2008, 03:39 PM

I don't know that you're going to see a major difference. If you had a 1080i image and downcoverted from that, there would be a major difference between the hd and dvx material. Going from a 720, 24p image to a sd, 24p image I doubt you'll see a big difference because the frame rates are matched and because the dvx has such a clean image anyway. That's just a testemant to the quality of the dvx sd image. A progressive/interlaced chage would create a more noticable difference with the dvx camera. I know that has nothing to do with actual resolution and sharpness, but the "feel" of the image does play a part in how crisp you percive it to be.

In addition, I don't think that the jvc has the sharpest image out there anyway. It's hd, but it doesn't seem to have the crisp sharpness you get from a 1080i camera.

What's worked for me is to add a sharpness filter to the jvc footage in the timeline. I run it low to medium depending on the amount of sharpening I want. Render that out as a avi/mpeg file and it should look more crisp along the edges than the normal footage.

Hope that helps some.

Ben

Brian Luce · January 2nd, 2008, 11:47 PM

Do you have the best possible post workflow? The conventional wisdom is that the best SD results come from originating in HD and downconverting as late as possible in your workflow. I'm not sure I understand your question but it seems like you're trying to get the best results from camera settings rather that post workflow.

January 1st, 2008, 11:10 PM	#1
Steven Garay New Boot Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: New York Posts: 18	Downconverting HD footage Greetings, this is my first post and thanks in advance to whom ever responds. My question is this: How do I get the best quality downconvert from Sony Vegas 7? I have searched these forums and tried various methods but after a while everything looks the same to me. So I was wondering; When downconversion is going to be the final result, should I pump up the detail level on the cam when shooting (because I notice the picture looses a lot of detail on the downconvert)? Or should I pump up the sharpness before the downconvert (which I notice also preserves some detail). I compare the downconverted footage to regular dv footage shot on a DVX100 and they look too similar for my taste. The HD downconvert should look somewhat better, so how do I accomplish this. I am currently downconverting as a Windows Widescreen avi, best quality, 24p, 2:3:3:2 pulldown. Thanks again

January 2nd, 2008, 12:55 PM	#2
Mark Silva Major Player Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Pacific NW Posts: 431	I don't have an answer as I use mac compressor to do this. But you should not need to change your camera settings at all to get the best down conversion. You might look into using something like, Canopus ProCoder to do this for you making sure the resizing filters are set to absolute highest quality. Relying on Vegas to do the down conversion is probably not a good idea.

January 2nd, 2008, 01:02 PM	#3
Bill Ravens Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: santa fe, nm Posts: 3,264 Images: 10	I routinely downconvert within vegas and it works very well. Make sure you stay in the native format for all your cuts, CCing, FX. Then downconvert to widescreen DV as the last step.Make sure to uncheck the "simulate device aspect ratio" button.

January 2nd, 2008, 03:39 PM	#4
Ben Lynn Major Player Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Bloomington, IL Posts: 636	I don't know that you're going to see a major difference. If you had a 1080i image and downcoverted from that, there would be a major difference between the hd and dvx material. Going from a 720, 24p image to a sd, 24p image I doubt you'll see a big difference because the frame rates are matched and because the dvx has such a clean image anyway. That's just a testemant to the quality of the dvx sd image. A progressive/interlaced chage would create a more noticable difference with the dvx camera. I know that has nothing to do with actual resolution and sharpness, but the "feel" of the image does play a part in how crisp you percive it to be. In addition, I don't think that the jvc has the sharpest image out there anyway. It's hd, but it doesn't seem to have the crisp sharpness you get from a 1080i camera. What's worked for me is to add a sharpness filter to the jvc footage in the timeline. I run it low to medium depending on the amount of sharpening I want. Render that out as a avi/mpeg file and it should look more crisp along the edges than the normal footage. Hope that helps some. Ben

January 2nd, 2008, 11:47 PM	#5
Brian Luce Inner Circle Join Date: Jan 2006 Posts: 2,290	Do you have the best possible post workflow? The conventional wisdom is that the best SD results come from originating in HD and downconverting as late as possible in your workflow. I'm not sure I understand your question but it seems like you're trying to get the best results from camera settings rather that post workflow.