Upconverting PAL SD to HD 720p at DVinfo.net

Doug Turner · June 8th, 2004, 12:06 AM

Our 'Marla' friend's JustFacts pdf mentions that they 'upconverted the whole movie to HD 720p (1280x720), applied some smoothing and then went back to PAL SD (720x576). This made the picture look softer, aliasing problems were gone, a step closer to filmlook.'

This sounds v. interesting to me, can anyone confirm this is a reasonable workflow? And if so, what's the best way to upconvert (I have Vegas5, PPro and AE6)?

This is of interest as not only would I like the most filmic PAL SD image possible from my limited set-up (3 CCD miniDV camera), but would be keen to have a version at HD 720p (having used Magic Bullet HD etc) and to convert to film at some point.

Dietmar Zonewicz · June 8th, 2004, 01:06 AM

have a look @ http://www.algolith.com/products/ and expecially their CAS plug-in.

dietmar

Doug Turner · June 8th, 2004, 07:14 AM

Just found this plug-in too:

http://www.digitalanarchy.com/toolbox/toolbox_resizer.html

But I'm hoping to do it with no plug-ins - I know I can render out of Vegas to a HD 720p avi as a WMV9 file... this sound like the right kinda direction?

I wanna go up to HD as soon as possible in the workflow, and edit/process/grade/etc all at HD, so in case (!) I'm lucky enough to blow up to 35mm I'm in a good state.

Doug Turner · June 16th, 2004, 12:19 AM

Maybe I was being a bit hasty about going up to HD 720p to edit...

...a rethink has me planning to do an offline/online edit workflow (how retro!)

- offline being the basic editing of the PAL SD footage.

- online bit being upres/upconverting the PAL SD footage to HD (not everything, just the footage used in the final edit), deinterlacing/24p'ing, colour correcting, Magic Bullet filtering (all in HD, remember) and then replacing the SD footage in my NLE with the HD footage, and performing a final render.

I'm then left with an HD 720p film, ready for the 35mm transfer (when I win the Lotto) and ready to downcovert/down-res back to PAL SD to dump onto VHS and DVD.

Anyone have any comments/experience?

Dennis Hingsberg · July 27th, 2004, 01:10 PM

Hey Doug, I'm looking for the same process as you going from PAL SD to HD and then back to PAL SD and found this thread in the forum: http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...threadid=29557

There is mention there of some plugins and other programs that can do it, I'm still waiting to see if anyone can tell me how to do it in After Effects and if a specific filter/effect is needed or not.

From what I understand uprezzing DV works mostly because the chroma channel is poorly sampled so its given a 'blur' so to speak when uprezzed and some of that detail enhancement is preserved with going to DVD (but not back to DV obviously).

Graeme Nattress explains this really well on his site; http://www.nattress.com/filmEffectsGNicerTests.htm. He sells plugins for FCP that will do this - I'm still looking for the FREE way in After Effects if even possible.

Dennis Hingsberg · July 27th, 2004, 01:11 PM

It's also talked about here : http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...ight=uprezzing

Doug Turner · July 29th, 2004, 12:06 AM

It's great to know I'm not deluded, and there are other people out there thinking the same way I am.

Free methods - check out Virtual Dub... I think there are some decent filters that use the funky B-Spline, Bicubic or Lanzcos (sp?!) methods. I'll check around once I've had time...

On thing to remember though, that if you're uprezzing interlaced footage to deinterlace it first... otherwise methinks you'll get some very odd stuff happening indeed, as the upper and lower fields will be taken into consideration. (I'd use Magic Bullet, Realviz Retimer or just the After Effects film look method - look on this website)

I've checked out S-Spline Pro (or PhotoZoom as they've renamed it) - and the S-Spline method appears to be the worst of the lot (it was suggested by another post)... B-Spline method gave a nicer, slightly softer image.

Get S-Spline Pro from www.download.com. (I think there's a plug-in too)

Here's a problem I'm having with some DV footage, see the diagonal black lines - the edge of the shelf and by the mirror... highly contrasting with the white. NASTY stepping!

http://users.bigpond.net.au/spoonyau/original%20sink.bmp

I resized using MS Paint (!) to emphasize this effect (most likely Bilinear - I dunno) - this is now 1080 x 720 (ignoring the letterboxing):

http://users.bigpond.net.au/spoonyau/sink%20resized%20using%20paint.bmp

Then resized using B-Spline default in S-Spline Pro - kinda nicely smooths it out:

http://users.bigpond.net.au/spoonyau/sink%20resized%20using%20BSpline.bmp

Check out the actress' face - actually smooths it a bit without losing too much detail.

This is the sort of thing we're up against... problems in SD footage are just made more obvious! Maybe it's worth waiting until HDV cameras are cheaper ?! :)

Dennis Hingsberg · July 29th, 2004, 08:19 AM

What DV cam did you shoot this with? I can't understand the amount of jaggies on the diagonal. Have you turned the sharpness down in the camera settings by 3 or 4 steps? Also, has the frame you posted been deinterlaced or is that the interlaced version? It looks deinterlaced to me and I would suspect the jaggies are coming from the method of deinterlacing you used (if in fact you deinterlaced it). Some deinterlacers are better than others.

Let me know, I'm curious about that frame.

On my website if you click the large pictures you will start a slideshow and all these images were taken directly from DV to the PC and then exported to BMP and deinterlaced in Photoshop (which is not the greatest deinterlace method around) and I haven't experienced jaggies like yours? I'm baffled.

Giroud Francois · July 29th, 2004, 01:15 PM

if you post a 5 sec DV video, we could compare methods.

Doug Turner · July 29th, 2004, 03:16 PM

I was quite a newbie with my camera at the time of shooting... so detail and res were default for my JVC GY DV301E.

Since shooting I have learnt that I can switch to Max resolution, which would've helped.

In these examples I used Magic Bullet to deinterlace (detail set to 1, as the default of 4 makes jagged edges even worse).

I'll shoot some more this weekend, to see if I can reproduce it - part of the problem I think is that it's a HIGH contrast as you can get... these were v. bright white surfaces with a black diagonal edge.

Doug Turner · July 29th, 2004, 03:19 PM

It's also worth checking out Digital Anarchy Toolbox - the Resizer plug-in for After Effects looks great... I'll post some results this weekend.

June 8th, 2004, 12:06 AM	#1
Doug Turner Regular Crew Join Date: May 2004 Location: Sydney, Australia. Posts: 43	Upconverting PAL SD to HD 720p Our 'Marla' friend's JustFacts pdf mentions that they 'upconverted the whole movie to HD 720p (1280x720), applied some smoothing and then went back to PAL SD (720x576). This made the picture look softer, aliasing problems were gone, a step closer to filmlook.' This sounds v. interesting to me, can anyone confirm this is a reasonable workflow? And if so, what's the best way to upconvert (I have Vegas5, PPro and AE6)? This is of interest as not only would I like the most filmic PAL SD image possible from my limited set-up (3 CCD miniDV camera), but would be keen to have a version at HD 720p (having used Magic Bullet HD etc) and to convert to film at some point.

July 27th, 2004, 01:10 PM	#5
Dennis Hingsberg Trustee Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: Toronto, Canada Posts: 1,055	Hey Doug, I'm looking for the same process as you going from PAL SD to HD and then back to PAL SD and found this thread in the forum: http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...threadid=29557 There is mention there of some plugins and other programs that can do it, I'm still waiting to see if anyone can tell me how to do it in After Effects and if a specific filter/effect is needed or not. From what I understand uprezzing DV works mostly because the chroma channel is poorly sampled so its given a 'blur' so to speak when uprezzed and some of that detail enhancement is preserved with going to DVD (but not back to DV obviously). Graeme Nattress explains this really well on his site; http://www.nattress.com/filmEffectsGNicerTests.htm. He sells plugins for FCP that will do this - I'm still looking for the FREE way in After Effects if even possible. __________________ Blog: www.hingsberg.com Ultimate Exposure Guides for FS5/F7S/F5/F55

July 27th, 2004, 01:11 PM	#6
Dennis Hingsberg Trustee Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: Toronto, Canada Posts: 1,055	It's also talked about here : http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...ight=uprezzing __________________ Blog: www.hingsberg.com Ultimate Exposure Guides for FS5/F7S/F5/F55

July 29th, 2004, 08:19 AM	#8
Dennis Hingsberg Trustee Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: Toronto, Canada Posts: 1,055	What DV cam did you shoot this with? I can't understand the amount of jaggies on the diagonal. Have you turned the sharpness down in the camera settings by 3 or 4 steps? Also, has the frame you posted been deinterlaced or is that the interlaced version? It looks deinterlaced to me and I would suspect the jaggies are coming from the method of deinterlacing you used (if in fact you deinterlaced it). Some deinterlacers are better than others. Let me know, I'm curious about that frame. On my website if you click the large pictures you will start a slideshow and all these images were taken directly from DV to the PC and then exported to BMP and deinterlaced in Photoshop (which is not the greatest deinterlace method around) and I haven't experienced jaggies like yours? I'm baffled. __________________ Blog: www.hingsberg.com Ultimate Exposure Guides for FS5/F7S/F5/F55

June 8th, 2004, 01:06 AM	#2
Dietmar Zonewicz Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Esslingen & Frankfurt, Germany Posts: 47	have a look @ http://www.algolith.com/products/ and expecially their CAS plug-in. dietmar

June 8th, 2004, 07:14 AM	#3
Doug Turner Regular Crew Join Date: May 2004 Location: Sydney, Australia. Posts: 43	Just found this plug-in too: http://www.digitalanarchy.com/toolbox/toolbox_resizer.html But I'm hoping to do it with no plug-ins - I know I can render out of Vegas to a HD 720p avi as a WMV9 file... this sound like the right kinda direction? I wanna go up to HD as soon as possible in the workflow, and edit/process/grade/etc all at HD, so in case (!) I'm lucky enough to blow up to 35mm I'm in a good state.

June 16th, 2004, 12:19 AM	#4
Doug Turner Regular Crew Join Date: May 2004 Location: Sydney, Australia. Posts: 43	Maybe I was being a bit hasty about going up to HD 720p to edit... ...a rethink has me planning to do an offline/online edit workflow (how retro!) - offline being the basic editing of the PAL SD footage. - online bit being upres/upconverting the PAL SD footage to HD (not everything, just the footage used in the final edit), deinterlacing/24p'ing, colour correcting, Magic Bullet filtering (all in HD, remember) and then replacing the SD footage in my NLE with the HD footage, and performing a final render. I'm then left with an HD 720p film, ready for the 35mm transfer (when I win the Lotto) and ready to downcovert/down-res back to PAL SD to dump onto VHS and DVD. Anyone have any comments/experience?

July 29th, 2004, 12:06 AM	#7
Doug Turner Regular Crew Join Date: May 2004 Location: Sydney, Australia. Posts: 43	It's great to know I'm not deluded, and there are other people out there thinking the same way I am. Free methods - check out Virtual Dub... I think there are some decent filters that use the funky B-Spline, Bicubic or Lanzcos (sp?!) methods. I'll check around once I've had time... On thing to remember though, that if you're uprezzing interlaced footage to deinterlace it first... otherwise methinks you'll get some very odd stuff happening indeed, as the upper and lower fields will be taken into consideration. (I'd use Magic Bullet, Realviz Retimer or just the After Effects film look method - look on this website) I've checked out S-Spline Pro (or PhotoZoom as they've renamed it) - and the S-Spline method appears to be the worst of the lot (it was suggested by another post)... B-Spline method gave a nicer, slightly softer image. Get S-Spline Pro from www.download.com. (I think there's a plug-in too) Here's a problem I'm having with some DV footage, see the diagonal black lines - the edge of the shelf and by the mirror... highly contrasting with the white. NASTY stepping! http://users.bigpond.net.au/spoonyau/original%20sink.bmp I resized using MS Paint (!) to emphasize this effect (most likely Bilinear - I dunno) - this is now 1080 x 720 (ignoring the letterboxing): http://users.bigpond.net.au/spoonyau/sink%20resized%20using%20paint.bmp Then resized using B-Spline default in S-Spline Pro - kinda nicely smooths it out: http://users.bigpond.net.au/spoonyau/sink%20resized%20using%20BSpline.bmp Check out the actress' face - actually smooths it a bit without losing too much detail. This is the sort of thing we're up against... problems in SD footage are just made more obvious! Maybe it's worth waiting until HDV cameras are cheaper ?! :)

July 29th, 2004, 01:15 PM	#9
Giroud Francois Inner Circle Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: switzerland Posts: 2,133	if you post a 5 sec DV video, we could compare methods.

July 29th, 2004, 03:16 PM	#10
Doug Turner Regular Crew Join Date: May 2004 Location: Sydney, Australia. Posts: 43	I was quite a newbie with my camera at the time of shooting... so detail and res were default for my JVC GY DV301E. Since shooting I have learnt that I can switch to Max resolution, which would've helped. In these examples I used Magic Bullet to deinterlace (detail set to 1, as the default of 4 makes jagged edges even worse). I'll shoot some more this weekend, to see if I can reproduce it - part of the problem I think is that it's a HIGH contrast as you can get... these were v. bright white surfaces with a black diagonal edge.

July 29th, 2004, 03:19 PM	#11
Doug Turner Regular Crew Join Date: May 2004 Location: Sydney, Australia. Posts: 43	It's also worth checking out Digital Anarchy Toolbox - the Resizer plug-in for After Effects looks great... I'll post some results this weekend.