ClipBrowser does superb HD-->SD Downconvert

[Peter Rixner]

Hey Steve,

what a great opportunity to learn some XDCAM EX special german vocabulary :)

like:

drecksqualität beim runterrechnen = very bad quality when downconverting

or

ist das normal, daß die Tasten abbröseln = is it normal that the buttons get rubbed off

or

wer baut eigentlich den Griff so blöd an die Kamera hin, daß man nicht richtig an die anschlüsse rankommt ?
=
wo makes the handle to close to the camerabody, that you cannot get easily to the interface plugs ?

hmmm .. maybe the english isn't perfect :)

We can learn so much from each other ...

Peter

[Ted OMalley]

Two years of High School German is slapping me in the face right now - reminding how little German I actually ever learned and how much I forgot. I'm such a loser.

Thanks for the memories.

(See, this is why we stick to English - it's for us unilingual people.)

[Peter Rixner]

Really ? You can attend german courses in high school ?

I thought english / spanish mayyyyyyyyybe french ... but german ...

So, if finally Steve agrees, we can switch totally to german in this forum :)

BTW: As this is still a HD > SD thread:

I tried that idea of blurring vertically in HD BEFORE downscaling ... that's also nice.
And the explanation with Nyquist is probably the most adequate.

Peter

[Ted OMalley]

Grew up in the "bible belt" of the US - Ohio/Indiana - lot's of German influence.

Oh, yeah, and HD to SD something or other.

[Dominik Seibold]

Originally Posted by Peter Rixner

I am completely stunned how well and much better the clipbrowser does that downconvert compared to Aftereffects, which is absolutely the 2nd best.

Was stört dich am Ergebnis von AFX? Dessen Verkleinerungsalgorithmus funktioniert doch einwandfrei. Falls es auf Röhrenmonitoren zu sehr flimmert (wovon bei ex1-Material auszugehen ist) muss man halt noch einen vertikalen Weichzeichner dazu geben, was ja in AFX sehr leicht geht.
(I asked him why he doesn't like AFXs results ;))

[Peter Rixner]

Das ist schon ok, ich hatte nur den Eindruck ... äh sorry, we wanted to keep it english :)

AE does a very good downscaling and adding blur will of course help. However adding the blur BEFORE downscaling does meanwhile the best results to me.

By comparing the plain downconversion of AE with Clipbrowser, the Clipsbrowser does a better job to me. Probably they are adding some kind of vertical blur also.

I also found that for cinematic work is can be a good thing to add grain after blurring. .... sometimes :)

Peter

[Dominik Seibold]

Originally Posted by Peter Rixner

However adding the blur BEFORE downscaling does meanwhile the best results to me.

Yes, with adding blur after downscaling, you certainly reduce flickering, but with bluring before you're ultimately avoiding any aliasing, because AEs downscaler is good, but not perfect in terms of cutting off frequencies higher than the nyquist-limit becore downscaling.
But fortunately it's an easy task, because effects in AE always get applied to the nativly sized footage before any scale/rotation-operations. :)

[Kevin Wayne Jones]

We use a pretty down and dirty method in creating SD DVDs of HD material.
Shoot XDCAM EX-1 1080i. Edit with Final Cut Studio 2.
Drop footage into a DV timeline.
Edit and render as usual.
Pipe the finished project out through firewire to our Sony RDR-GX7 desktop DVD recorder.
Record in HQ (60 minutes) or HSP (90 Minutes) modes for best quality.
No fancy menus, but looks great.
Better than I been able to do with Compresser and DVD Studio.

Kevin Jones

[Peter Kraft]

Let add again for completeness's sake
MPEGStreamClip, which does downscales to SD
not only very fast but also with outstanding quality.

Would like to mention also that de-interlacing with
something like DVMaker or Fieldskit improves SD
picture quality visibly. No prior vertical blurring
nessecary, imo, however don't have a clue why.

[Mark Krichever]

I do not understand why one should use Sony browser for down conversion while you can export your final sequence from FCP (for instance) in any format? My TV studio clients asking me for .avi.
I shoot in 1920x1080 p24 or 1080 p24. Then using export as AVI and DV/DVCPRO compressor (with interlacing) I am receiving excellent quality AVI that plays exceptionally well with VLC player. Do not use Microsoft media Player - it is nothing more than garbage.
If I export my FCP clip to .mov format with H.264 compressor output clip looks even better. In the matter of fact it looks almost as good as original clip.
The same goes for down conversion using DVCPRO HD 720p30.
The worst resolution .mov I got with 720x480 with H264 compressor. But even that one is not too bad.
So, pardon my ignorance, why should we use Sony browser? Unless you working on PC that I do not know too well.

[Erik Phairas]

time to feel dumb, but I didn't see a way to downconvert in the clip browser.

[Joachim Hoge]

We also edit in a hd timeline, copy everything and paste it into a dv or other timeline and render (fcp). We have great results this way. It looked good when broadcasted, even on my 42" hd tv
But I'm happy to try something new as it might produce even better results

[Peter Rixner]

Peter: If you deinterlace you actually do blur the image vertically, by throwing away information and interpolating or blending with the other field. That's probably the reason.
But that might not be a solution when someone would wand to keep the interlacing.

Mark: If you use any mediaplayer to watch your results on the computerscreen you cannot see the problem. Flickering of course only happens on a external monitor that uses a interlaced technique like all broadcast monitors and Home TVs.

After all it also depends on the content of the movie (fine structures or not) and of course on personal judgment.
I've seen clients that where happy with other's productions that flicker or even had the wrong fieldorder(!!!), wrong aspect ratio an so on.
And some of them even judge footage from viewing a DVD on their notebook.

Peter

[Kenny Cowburn]

Originally Posted by Erik Phairas

time to feel dumb, but I didn't see a way to downconvert in the clip browser.

Erik, no need to feel dumb.

are you using Clip Browser 1.1?
if so, there is no way of down-converting in there.

here a link for version 2:

Sony | Micro Site - XDCAM EX

when you hit the export option, you can export as AVI DV, amoungst others...

[Erik Phairas]

Originally Posted by Kenny Cowburn

Erik, no need to feel dumb.

are you using Clip Browser 1.1?
if so, there is no way of down-converting in there.

here a link for version 2:

Sony | Micro Site - XDCAM EX

when you hit the export option, you can export as AVI DV, amoungst others...

Hey thanks, I'll check it out!

EDIT: HA that is so much easier to use. Now I know what all you guys were talking about when you just select the containing folder.. I just clicked on the drive the files were in and all the thumbnails showed up. SO much better than digging them out one by one with the old browser...

Hell you just saved me 30 minutes off the start of each new project.