sd dvd from ex1 : horrible

Adam Forgione · March 9th, 2008, 10:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Keith Malone

Adam,

Have you tried what it suggested here:
http://dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=116485

i will try it tomorrow when i have cam in hand but if find it redicualous that we have to set the cam up a certain way so our sd dvd's look good. we shouldnt have to adjust the cam. the problem here is that your saying its good enough, most people say, pretty good, okay, not bad, good enough, does anyone out there say great or better than originally shot sd? i let you know what i think, thnks

Adam Forgione · March 9th, 2008, 10:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phil Bloom

I have shot loads of EX1 stuff that has been downconverted to DV for tx and after that has been burned onto DVD and it looks great.

how was it downconverted do you know, im hoping someone has a recipe that "really" works.

Adam Forgione · March 9th, 2008, 12:15 PM

update :

i just compressed basic default dvd 90 setting in compressor to make an m2v and burned it in toast as opposed to dvdsp and it looks awesome, im running more dvdsp tests, there might be something wrong with my dvdsp, hopefully. this makes me happy, ill keep you posted

Grigory Volovich · March 9th, 2008, 12:30 PM

Screens from Liquid 7.2 and EYEON Fusion HD to SD (PAL)
In Liquid usable unsharp mask also
Render to Uncompress and export to m2v
Most important thing - selection resize filter and matrix for filtration

http://www.dvcampro.ru/video/LiquidD...vert2_copy.jpg
http://www.dvcampro.ru/video/LiquidDownconvert_copy.jpg
http://www.dvcampro.ru/video/DFdownconvert_copy.jpg

Adam Forgione · March 9th, 2008, 12:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Grigory Volovich

Screens from Liquid 7.2 and EYEON Fusion HD to SD (PAL)
In Liquid usable unsharp mask also
Render to Uncompress and export to m2v
Most important thing - selection resize filter and matrix for filtration

http://www.dvcampro.ru/video/LiquidD...vert2_copy.jpg
http://www.dvcampro.ru/video/LiquidDownconvert_copy.jpg
http://www.dvcampro.ru/video/DFdownconvert_copy.jpg

man i wish i could implement this but im on fcp on mac, the settings are nothing like this.

Tim Polster · March 9th, 2008, 12:44 PM

I wonder why this topic has not come up before?

I am reading a lot about this on the Canopus forums as well.

HDV cameras have been out for a few years now and the general concensus was that SD DVDs looked better shot on HD sources.

Why the change?

Christopher Ruffell · March 9th, 2008, 12:55 PM

The change is become someone 'noticed', and then others looked for it saw it too. It's apparent in most HD (or HDV) footage downressed to SD at some point, with some shots.

This is a problem only if you make it a problem.

This is one of those things no one saw before because they weren't looking for it. Like, vignetting wasn't noticed till it was pointed out, or Chromatic Aberration, or 1440 vs 1920 resolution, or going back far enough, 4:2:0 vs 4:2:2. Now that people can afford near 1000 lines of resolution, now they're seeing something the pro-pros have seen for years.

I'm surprised that the EX1's holy grail of resolution seems to be being treated as a fault!

This all said, shooting interlaced with a camera with this kind of resolution and then wishing to output SD is asking for trouble, IMO. I'd shoot progressive.

Graeme Fullick · March 10th, 2008, 02:37 AM

Grigory,

I too am getting very good results using Liquid 7.2. In fact I didn't even know there was an issue with downconvert until I read this thread. Liquid is a very nice editor - a shame that it is poorly supported by Avid.

Steve Mullen · March 10th, 2008, 04:18 AM

Also shooting 1920x1080 -- not EX1 -- and the key to avoiding aliasing (and line-twitter) is to filter the HD to match the bandwidth of SD.

Alas, each NLE has a different set of filters that could be used. And, there are dozens of math that can be used to implement any single filter.

With Apple products you have access to a FILTER in the QT dialog box. I use BLUR = 2 or = 3, and it works. But, this is a crude way of softening edges.

Adding to the problem -- interlace inherently has line twitter. And, Sony in the past has under low-pass filtered it's CCD output so as to increase rez. measures. This, of course, allows aliasing to appear in HD recordings. So you can see aliasing in HD. And, it gets passed down to SD. Which adds it own. (Then one plays back SD DVDs on an HDTV it can look bad.)

The reason high-end HD cameras cost so much is because they have far more sophisticated amplifiers and filters. So, one expects them to record a very clean image.

Craig Seeman · March 10th, 2008, 09:14 AM

He's using Unsharp Mask. Of course that'll fix it and the cost of blurring the lines. You can certainly duplicate your sequence and apply a very slight blur in one direction. Compressor doesn't seem to have an equivalent filter.

The concern people have is that they DO NOT want to lose resolution to solve the issue which I'm not sure Grigory's workflow is really a fix. It seem more of a band aid that we are trying to avoid.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Adam Forgione

man i wish i could implement this but im on fcp on mac, the settings are nothing like this.

Adam Forgione · March 10th, 2008, 10:48 AM

okay im starting to get the down convert to look acceptable on tube tvs (not as good as my sony dsr390 sd dvcam) but on lcd hdtv, especially the bigger ones, man sd still looks like crap, tube sd blows the doors of sd on hdtv, am i missing something or are we just screwed till all our clients have bluray players?

my dsr390 on lcd looks better than my ex1 or fx1 downconvrt sd on lcd

these are the screens ive tested.

sony bravia 40" 1080p HDTV
Westinghouse 32" 720p HDTV
LG 20" 720p HDTV

the picture on all tests looks the best on the LG ($400 tv) - the bravia surprisingly looked the worse (and yes i have the settings on the dvd player and tv set optimal - actually spent 8 hrs tweaking settings to make sure).
i guess the big tvs will never play sd well (except for hollywood movies). does anyone have 30 second m2v's they could link (if happy with your encodes on lcd) so i can burn and see for myself?

Jon Carlson · March 10th, 2008, 02:03 PM

I'm uploading some files to a web server for people to play around with.

One is a .m2t file, set up as a 23.976P 16x9 SD MPEG2 render from original 1920x1080 footage. I'm also including a .jpg screen grab showing the settings I used in Premiere Pro. Another is an H.264 Blu-Ray file @ 1920x1080, so you can see how the original HD looks.

The third is the same footage, except instead of being rendered in Premiere Pro, I took into After Effects, scaled it, and then created my MPEG file. I also experimented with After Effects color space conversions, but didn't notice a difference using that. This render has no effects applied, just scaling.

The footage from multiple sources: After Effects compositions (created from a client-supplied PDF file with vector graphics), EX1 video, and even two 8MP stills shot on a Canon Digital Rebel XT. The reason I sent you mixed footage is so you can see the issues of resolution and scaling aren't EX1 issues, they're issues inherent to the limited resolution of SD.

You'll see that the SD down-res looks like... well... SD. When you're taking a 720x480px image and spreading it across 42" or more of LCD screen, it's not going to look like HD. My clients have been happy with the output of our EX1 so far.

Just for comparison's sake, the results I'm getting from my MPEG2 renders are almost identical to results achieved using the hardware scaler built into my Matrxo Axio system.

After Effects scaling does seem to create better results (marginally) than Adobe Media Encoder. I'm not sure if the additional hassle and rendering time is worth it for most projects.

I haven't shot a whole lot of stuff interlaced. Maybe someone else can upload some of that.

Footage can be downloaded from:

http://www.actvonline.com/HD_SD_Test_Files.zip

I don't know how long I can leave the footage up. If it starts getting a lot of hits and eating into our bandwidth (the file is 214MB), I'll have to take it down.

Please let everyone know how these compare to your own renders. Any chance you can post some files from your workflow for people to look at?

Dennis Schmitz · March 10th, 2008, 03:19 PM

@Jon
I think the AfterEffects Resize looks much worse than the one made with your hardware.

But the hardware resize has the wrong aspect ratio and doesn't use the full resolution.
It would look even better if it has the right A/R.

The HD-source (which I had to remux to an avi to work with) looks stunning :)

Edit: compared them again.
The hardware encoded one has the right A/R (but black boarder on the sides) and has many artifacts...

regards Dennis

Dennis Schmitz · March 10th, 2008, 04:17 PM

@Jon:

I did a convertion myself.
It looks incredible good!

I used Virtualdubs' smart resizer with avisynth and Hcenc for M2V encoding.

I will upload the resulting file (with proper pulldown) in a few minutes.
If anyone is interested then I will do a howto.

regards Dennis

Jon Carlson · March 10th, 2008, 04:24 PM

I'm curious to see how it compares to Premiere Pro or After Effects.

Looking forward to it!

March 9th, 2008, 12:30 PM	#19
Grigory Volovich New Boot Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Moscow Russia Posts: 15	HD to SD PAL Liquid or Fusion Screens from Liquid 7.2 and EYEON Fusion HD to SD (PAL) In Liquid usable unsharp mask also Render to Uncompress and export to m2v Most important thing - selection resize filter and matrix for filtration http://www.dvcampro.ru/video/LiquidD...vert2_copy.jpg http://www.dvcampro.ru/video/LiquidDownconvert_copy.jpg http://www.dvcampro.ru/video/DFdownconvert_copy.jpg __________________ www.dvcampro.ru www.videokgb.ru http://videoprowedding.ru http://provideokids.ru

March 10th, 2008, 02:37 AM	#23
Graeme Fullick Major Player Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Newcastle, Australia Posts: 337	Grigory, I too am getting very good results using Liquid 7.2. In fact I didn't even know there was an issue with downconvert until I read this thread. Liquid is a very nice editor - a shame that it is poorly supported by Avid. __________________ Graeme

March 10th, 2008, 04:18 AM	#24
Steve Mullen HDV Cinema Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Las Vegas Posts: 4,007	Also shooting 1920x1080 -- not EX1 -- and the key to avoiding aliasing (and line-twitter) is to filter the HD to match the bandwidth of SD. Alas, each NLE has a different set of filters that could be used. And, there are dozens of math that can be used to implement any single filter. With Apple products you have access to a FILTER in the QT dialog box. I use BLUR = 2 or = 3, and it works. But, this is a crude way of softening edges. Adding to the problem -- interlace inherently has line twitter. And, Sony in the past has under low-pass filtered it's CCD output so as to increase rez. measures. This, of course, allows aliasing to appear in HD recordings. So you can see aliasing in HD. And, it gets passed down to SD. Which adds it own. (Then one plays back SD DVDs on an HDTV it can look bad.) The reason high-end HD cameras cost so much is because they have far more sophisticated amplifiers and filters. So, one expects them to record a very clean image. __________________ Switcher's Quick Guide to the Avid Media Composer >>> http://home.mindspring.com/~d-v-c

March 10th, 2008, 03:19 PM	#28
Dennis Schmitz Regular Crew Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Viersen, Germany Posts: 120	@Jon I think the AfterEffects Resize looks much worse than the one made with your hardware. But the hardware resize has the wrong aspect ratio and doesn't use the full resolution. It would look even better if it has the right A/R. The HD-source (which I had to remux to an avi to work with) looks stunning :) Edit: compared them again. The hardware encoded one has the right A/R (but black boarder on the sides) and has many artifacts... regards Dennis Last edited by Dennis Schmitz; March 10th, 2008 at 04:24 PM.

March 9th, 2008, 12:15 PM	#18
Adam Forgione Regular Crew Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: New York Posts: 48	update : i just compressed basic default dvd 90 setting in compressor to make an m2v and burned it in toast as opposed to dvdsp and it looks awesome, im running more dvdsp tests, there might be something wrong with my dvdsp, hopefully. this makes me happy, ill keep you posted

March 9th, 2008, 12:44 PM	#21
Tim Polster Inner Circle Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Arlington, TX Posts: 2,231	I wonder why this topic has not come up before? I am reading a lot about this on the Canopus forums as well. HDV cameras have been out for a few years now and the general concensus was that SD DVDs looked better shot on HD sources. Why the change?

March 9th, 2008, 12:55 PM	#22
Christopher Ruffell Major Player Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Victoria, BC Posts: 202	The change is become someone 'noticed', and then others looked for it saw it too. It's apparent in most HD (or HDV) footage downressed to SD at some point, with some shots. This is a problem only if you make it a problem. This is one of those things no one saw before because they weren't looking for it. Like, vignetting wasn't noticed till it was pointed out, or Chromatic Aberration, or 1440 vs 1920 resolution, or going back far enough, 4:2:0 vs 4:2:2. Now that people can afford near 1000 lines of resolution, now they're seeing something the pro-pros have seen for years. I'm surprised that the EX1's holy grail of resolution seems to be being treated as a fault! This all said, shooting interlaced with a camera with this kind of resolution and then wishing to output SD is asking for trouble, IMO. I'd shoot progressive.

March 10th, 2008, 10:48 AM	#26
Adam Forgione Regular Crew Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: New York Posts: 48	okay im starting to get the down convert to look acceptable on tube tvs (not as good as my sony dsr390 sd dvcam) but on lcd hdtv, especially the bigger ones, man sd still looks like crap, tube sd blows the doors of sd on hdtv, am i missing something or are we just screwed till all our clients have bluray players? my dsr390 on lcd looks better than my ex1 or fx1 downconvrt sd on lcd these are the screens ive tested. sony bravia 40" 1080p HDTV Westinghouse 32" 720p HDTV LG 20" 720p HDTV the picture on all tests looks the best on the LG ($400 tv) - the bravia surprisingly looked the worse (and yes i have the settings on the dvd player and tv set optimal - actually spent 8 hrs tweaking settings to make sure). i guess the big tvs will never play sd well (except for hollywood movies). does anyone have 30 second m2v's they could link (if happy with your encodes on lcd) so i can burn and see for myself?

March 10th, 2008, 02:03 PM	#27
Jon Carlson Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Reading, PA USA Posts: 61	I'm uploading some files to a web server for people to play around with. One is a .m2t file, set up as a 23.976P 16x9 SD MPEG2 render from original 1920x1080 footage. I'm also including a .jpg screen grab showing the settings I used in Premiere Pro. Another is an H.264 Blu-Ray file @ 1920x1080, so you can see how the original HD looks. The third is the same footage, except instead of being rendered in Premiere Pro, I took into After Effects, scaled it, and then created my MPEG file. I also experimented with After Effects color space conversions, but didn't notice a difference using that. This render has no effects applied, just scaling. The footage from multiple sources: After Effects compositions (created from a client-supplied PDF file with vector graphics), EX1 video, and even two 8MP stills shot on a Canon Digital Rebel XT. The reason I sent you mixed footage is so you can see the issues of resolution and scaling aren't EX1 issues, they're issues inherent to the limited resolution of SD. You'll see that the SD down-res looks like... well... SD. When you're taking a 720x480px image and spreading it across 42" or more of LCD screen, it's not going to look like HD. My clients have been happy with the output of our EX1 so far. Just for comparison's sake, the results I'm getting from my MPEG2 renders are almost identical to results achieved using the hardware scaler built into my Matrxo Axio system. After Effects scaling does seem to create better results (marginally) than Adobe Media Encoder. I'm not sure if the additional hassle and rendering time is worth it for most projects. I haven't shot a whole lot of stuff interlaced. Maybe someone else can upload some of that. Footage can be downloaded from: http://www.actvonline.com/HD_SD_Test_Files.zip I don't know how long I can leave the footage up. If it starts getting a lot of hits and eating into our bandwidth (the file is 214MB), I'll have to take it down. Please let everyone know how these compare to your own renders. Any chance you can post some files from your workflow for people to look at?

March 10th, 2008, 04:17 PM	#29
Dennis Schmitz Regular Crew Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Viersen, Germany Posts: 120	@Jon: I did a convertion myself. It looks incredible good! I used Virtualdubs' smart resizer with avisynth and Hcenc for M2V encoding. I will upload the resulting file (with proper pulldown) in a few minutes. If anyone is interested then I will do a howto. regards Dennis

March 10th, 2008, 04:24 PM	#30
Jon Carlson Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Reading, PA USA Posts: 61	I'm curious to see how it compares to Premiere Pro or After Effects. Looking forward to it!