Rendered HDV Picture Quality

[Matthew Amirkhani]

Hi All,

As always I need all experts help with my question and issue!

I always film in HDV 60i. Edit in HDV 60i on the Timeline, then render the project as MPEG 2, DVDA Widescreen.

But I don't see the HDV quality once I burn the DVD it always looks like a SD footage looks flat it is not as sharp as I want it to be.

Please guide me as what I need to do? I use Vegas 7d and use Canon XHA1.


Thanks in advance
Matthew

[Stefan Scherperel]

When downsampling HD footage I always apply a slight sharpening filter, this will give you the look you are wanting. Basically just apply the "sony sharpen" filter with a setting of 0, when you downsample the footage edges that are supposed to be sharp are, and it does not affect noise or other nasties in the same way it will do by simply just sharpening SD footage.

[Seth Bloombaum]

This is one of those occasions that it's a good idea to hit the custom settings and select "best" as the video rendering quality on the project tab of the custom rendering settings.

Usually, you only benefit from this when rescaling (changing the size of) the video. But that's what an HDV -> MPEG SD conversion is doing, rescaling.

You'll take a hit in rendering time, but I think you'll like the results. Do a short test, see how it is.

[Gian Pablo Villamil]

Also, in the Project properties dialog, try changing the deinterlace method to "Interpolate" instead of "Blend"

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

Be cautious about adding sharpness to the downconvert without testing.
If you hit high-contrast content, you'll potentially induce aliasing.

[Phil Hamilton]

I am using the 1080 HDV 24p timeline to for an animation I am doing. I will try the sharpen mask as mentioned.

But in general, I am using 960x540 image jpegs brought in as a sequence. I am going to the DVDA 24p widescreen preset and yet it just doesn't look as sharp as other DVDs I play at 480p upconverted to 720p on my 62" DLP.

Is there a rule of thumb on how many pixels I should make these images be? I don't want to overkill the render from VUE that doesn't produce better results. I've tried changing the height to 720 and things do look better but the renders out of VUE are killing me....

I'm just looking for the sharpest image possible with DVDA and authoring from Vegas.

Suggestions? Thoughts? Comments? tks!!

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

Well...starting with lower resolution, of *course* it's going to be softer. You're upsampling by a factor of 2. Are you using a DVCPro HD output from your animation software? If so, you'd be much better off with a larger format output.
Render time on one side or the other is going to go up, but for BEST picture quality, you'll want to use a larger frame.

[Phil Hamilton]

Originally Posted by Douglas Spotted Eagle

Well...starting with lower resolution, of *course* it's going to be softer. You're upsampling by a factor of 2. Are you using a DVCPro HD output from your animation software? If so, you'd be much better off with a larger format output.
Render time on one side or the other is going to go up, but for BEST picture quality, you'll want to use a larger frame.

I am outputting to images directly from VUE. So let me ask this too - does it make any difference in outputting to JPG format vs. PNG from a sharpness/detail standpoint? The jpg is about 360K vs 1.5M for the PNG. Samee picture but more data in PNG I presume due to no jpg compression. Would this affect how Vegas handles the render quality??

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

yes, you'll do better with PNGs, but outputting a higher resolution frame will also make a tremendous difference. If I recall correctly, VUE Studio and above output 1920 x 1080 frames, yeah?

[Phil Hamilton]

Oh yeah!! BUT the rendering - well - I might as well take a vacation! So I'm trying to find out what the maximum level I need to go to for decent results.

Remember, that this will be either a .wmv file for web publishing which shouldn't need a lot of pixels -or - putting on a DVD likely to be played at 480P.

What I am noticing though is that even at 960x540 (540 being more than 480) it's just not as crisp as let's say - Shrek. But then again maybe they are using something like 2850x1600 or greater before they compress to MPG. the 960x540 takes 4 minutes per frame. You can do the math.

Thanks for getting back to me.

[Seun Osewa]

- Use the highest quality settings when compressing and scaling;
- process your video as progressive throughout (not interlaced).
- Show us what your original JPEG image looks like. Is it soft; grainy?

[William Boehm]

i am about to purchase vegas 8, and shoot hdv withthe canon xha1. i am completely new to videoediting. my question along this line in the thread is basic, but is this a good match, even with the cineform 2.8 included? i shoot all 60i wildlife and landscape, and want to do simple dissolves, time lapse import of stills, audio? what problems will i encounter? thanks in advance

bill
bothell wa

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

Doing what you're doing, you should expect no problems. In fact, any HDV footage you don't touch ie; color correct, etc, will not be recompressed. This one feature alone is worth the cost of admission to Vegas 8, IMO.
One potential hiccup, related to the format, not the NLE, is be sure you're recording strong audio, as HDV doesn't do well with constant, quiet audio.