problem when down convert

[Joel Klein]

Finely got my EX1 from B&H s/n 0100882

After couple days testing I’m crazy about it. So I went to school and shoot little kids eating lunch, image was great
(the engineer designed the auto focus, lacks a cup of coffee…)

I’m using final cut studio 6.2 working in HD and using compressor’s
‘SD DVD 90 min. best quality template’ to down convert.
But the footage looks like trash!
Is it any special way to do it?

I try to work in final cut on a SD sequence, and scale it my self, and while editing it looks even worse! Is it just me? Or maybe after HD my eye’s simply cant take SD any More?!..

Any one with experience? Thanks a’ million…

Joel Klein

[Brent Ethington]

Hi Joel,

Here's a little trick I learned that will help give you the quality you're looking for...

- create a new sequence and open and select it
- go to the Sequence-> Settings dialog and load the appropriate DV settings preset (e.g., DV NTSC 48kHz Anamorphic)
- in the Sequence Settings dialog, click on the Video Processing tab and change the Motion Filtering Quality to Fastest, then click OK
- Now, drag the HD you want to downconvert to the new sequence (e.g., this could be the original clip, or another sequence, etc.)

Couple of things:
- The trick is that you MUST set the sequence settings BEFORE importing the HD media - if you try to change the settings in an already created sequence, it won't (it should work, but won't)
- if you don't change the Motion Filtering Quality to Fastest, you'll find that you end up with doubled lines in the SD video - this is why the video looks awful
- before spending a lot of time converting the full sequence, set a narrower in/out range to export first to test with - this will help to make sure you've got the right settings

This should do the trick for you... :-)

Good Luck!

Brent

[Evan Donn]

Brent's suggestion is good, I'd just add one more thing - don't use a DV preset, use DV50 instead. You'll preserve a lot more color information and you won't end up with 4:1:0 color on your final DVD.

[Joel Klein]

wow! before I set it to BEST..... i going to try your ramedy right now
but how about doing the edit in HD and let compressor do the job? this way I can next year create a new blueray from the same master?

thanks!

[Brent Ethington]

Evan - interesting... never tried that before. will check it out. thanks.

[Brent Ethington]

Originally Posted by Joel Klein

wow! before I set it to BEST..... i going to try your ramedy right now
but how about doing the edit in HD and let compressor do the job? this way I can next year create a new blueray from the same master?

thanks!

Joel - Yes, that's the way I do it. Do all of your edits from the source, then export to Compressor for DVD (from an SD sequence) or blu-ray (from the HD sequence) and save an HD edited export version for future use.

Brent

[Joel Klein]

aquare pixel or should I use the ccir 601 ?

[Brent Ethington]

Originally Posted by Joel Klein

aquare pixel or should I use the ccir 601 ?

for the dv sequence? should be 1.2 for widescreen. the presets should be correct

[Joel Klein]

so dear Brent, whats your opinon on working in final cut HD and let compressor do the job, whats the magic seting in compressor?

thanks

[Brent Ethington]

Originally Posted by Joel Klein

so dear Brent, whats your opinon on working in final cut HD and let compressor do the job, whats the magic seting in compressor?

thanks

magic setting for exporting to which format?

there are some good ones as presets to start with (at least for DVD) as part of the latest compressor. I set up my own from earlier versions of Compressor, but don't know how they differ from the presets. for HD, I think I had to create my own 1920x1080 MPEG-2 preset - you can start with the HD DVD presets and force the settings as you see need them

one thing to watch out for is to make sure the Field Dominance is Bottom First for DVDs, and Top First for HD - sometimes Compressor may show the opposite value and you have to set it correctly

[Joel Klein]

Well, I have the new compressor, with great temples organized by groups! Apple did a fantastic job.

So there is a template called: 90 min best quality. It’s a vbr. but for some heck reason i like to use CBR 7.5 -or 8.0 (depends on my master size)

Other then that I don’t touch it.

Originally Posted by Brent Ethington

one thing to watch out for is to make sure the Field Dominance is Bottom First for DVDs, and Top First for HD - sometimes Compressor may show the opposite value and you have to set it correctly

if my source is 30P dose it make any differenc?

[Joel Klein]

I Just did not make my self clear in my first post;

My footage looks crazy good on screen, and when I burn a HD-DVD, my problem was getting it down to SD.

That trick of yours really worked! Thanks!

Can any one compare the footage from the ex1 after down convert, vs. the footage from a SD camera like the PD170 –DVX-100 or maybe the DSR-450, is the EX1 SD footage better or worse?

Good night see ya all after tomorrow
(it seems to be I have same problem as the EX1 battery, when I’m up and not working my brain will drain... joke)

[Leonard Levy]

Maybe this is elementary question, but what are the methods for downconverting from the Ex.
Must it be done in post.?
You can't record downconverted to the card right?
Can you send downconvert out from the camera somehow in real time or when playing back?

Thanks

[Steve Mullen]

Originally Posted by Brent Ethington

one thing to watch out for is to make sure the Field Dominance is Bottom First for DVDs

Is this true for HD DVDs and BD?

I note that Compressor is preset to AUTOMATIC for all DVDs.

I set it to TOP because that was what my INPUT file is. And, the docs say to set it based upon source. Using TOP looks great!

There appears to be NO setting for the output -- so how do you set it to LOW as you would recommend. Perhaps you are using DV where the input should be set to LOW?

[Brent Ethington]

Originally Posted by Steve Mullen

Is this true for HD DVDs and BD?

I note that Compressor is preset to AUTOMATIC for all DVDs.

I set it to TOP because that was what my INPUT file is. And, the docs say to set it based upon source. Using TOP looks great!

There appears to be NO setting for the output -- so how do you set it to LOW as you would recommend. Perhaps you are using DV where the input should be set to LOW?

Hi Steve,

SD DVDs should be bottom first, but HD should be top first - so, HD DVD and Blu-ray files should all be top first. Sometimes I've found that compressor sets my HD content to be bottom first, but this my just be from one of the presets on my system - I always double-check this as the output will be wrong if the setting is wrong.

when you refer to 'LOW' are you responding to my post? Not sure what you mean here - unless you're referring to 'bottom-first'. This, of course, is not valid if you are outputting progressive content - but, SD DVDs should be interlaced frames (at least that's my understanding).

Brent