SD DVD from 1080i footage - blurred etc.

[Jeff Harper]

Is it possible you could convert the original footage using a demo of a Cineform product and see if that solves your problem?

[Rob Croll]

Hi Reg

I'm also a PAL user but have you tried Rendering as "Video for Windows (*.avi)" with the "NTSC DV Widescreen" template. I've been getting good SD reproduction using the PAL equivalent

[Reg Gothard]

Thanks for the additional input guys!

Eugene: I tried both interlaced and progressive. The progressive looks great on a digital connection, and not so good on analogue. (This is based on connecting a regular DVD player to my LCD TV via S-video.) Interlaced looked OK on an analogue connection and quite poor on digital. I didn't do additional tests to try and determine why (time and energy both ran out).
For the interlaced render, I used the standard "NTSC DVD Architect Widescreen" template with the same bitrate modifications that I did for my other tests. On balance, I felt that the (Progressive) artifacts on the analogue connection were less unacceptable than the (interlaced) artifacts on the digital connection.

Jeff: I hadn't thought of that option. I should give that a try (probably won't be until Thursday though - a (technical writing) contract has got me tied up Tuesday and Wednesday.)

Rob: I haven't tried that option yet - another option for Thursday I guess! I did try the AVI route but with a different template. It's definitely worth another stab.

I still have the TMPGenc option to explore, and the FrameServer/AVISynth option. However this latter option looks to be more than I can get my addled brain around in the time available, so will probably get the best result I can from the suggestions received, and attempt to understand Frameserver/AVISynth later.

I do have one more question (which format should I shoot in with the EX1 to down-rez EASILY to SD?) but I'll open a new thread for that one.

Once again - thanks.

[Eugene Kosarovich]

Originally Posted by Reg Gothard

Eugene: I tried both interlaced and progressive. The progressive looks great on a digital connection, and not so good on analogue. (This is based on connecting a regular DVD player to my LCD TV via S-video.) Interlaced looked OK on an analogue connection and quite poor on digital. I didn't do additional tests to try and determine why (time and energy both ran out).
For the interlaced render, I used the standard "NTSC DVD Architect Widescreen" template with the same bitrate modifications that I did for my other tests. On balance, I felt that the (Progressive) artifacts on the analogue connection were less unacceptable than the (interlaced) artifacts on the digital connection.

Unfortunately, I don't think you will ever get them looking equally good on LCD and a CRT, that's not really possible.

It's just like why it is with good reason that many reviews and users will point out that SD NEVER looks as good on a HD LCD monitor as it does on a SD LCD monitor.

It depends upon the quality of the LCD monitor's hardware deinterlacer and scaler to determine the final quality of any interlaced sources.

For instance, I've watched some HD interlaced downscaled to SD interlaced jobs of mine on a good CRT, and they look fine. I've then watched them on a videographer friend of mine's 46" Sony Bravia, which has a very good deinterlacer and scaler in it. I was disturbed by all the stairstepping I saw on diagonal lines, especially for certain colors. My friend works for our local NBC affiliate, and is very picky on his video quality, so I pointed it out to him. He told me that's to be expected on any SD played on a HD monitor, especially with interlaced footage, and people don't even notice it. And remember, that's how 100% of broadcast SD is.

I also did some projects in 30p. They look perfect on my computer's LCD screens in playback, but there is some noticable judder when I play them on a CRT TV.

These are just the nature and limitations of working in different playback monitor types.

Contrary to what some may recommend, unless I have a real reason to shoot a project in HD, if my only delivery medium is planned to be SD, I'm going to be shooting and editing in SD. One of the other reasons being one normally turns the sharpness up a bit in SD and down in HD, and when you downconvert HD to SD, you're not going to be getting that extra sharpness of SD you may expect and want.

[Reg Gothard]

Originally Posted by Eugene Kosarovich

Unfortunately, I don't think you will ever get them looking equally good on LCD and a CRT, that's not really possible.

It's just like why it is with good reason that many reviews and users will point out that SD NEVER looks as good on a HD LCD monitor as it does on a SD LCD monitor.

It depends upon the quality of the LCD monitor's hardware deinterlacer and scaler to determine the final quality of any interlaced sources.

Thanks for this Eugene. That has been my personal observation, and I thought that might be the case generally (I try not to read many reviews at the moment, because they usually make me want to spend more money!), but thought I could get it better than it is.
I have no contacts in TV or big production houses, so I have to rely on my local videographers association and these forums for knowledge exchange.

I've shown the video to a number of people (the kind of people who will buy these videos), and they don't spot the fault until I point it out to them, and then they say "don't worry Reg..."

When it comes to wedding season, I'll make sure I ask the bride and groom what kind of TV system they want their video optimized for (I'll use more B&G-friendly language of course!) and shoot and edit accordingly.

I think my marketing pitch is going to include some "TV technology is in a period of transition" type blurb in the future...
Once more, thank you.

[Ron Evans]

With all the discussion here and also a post on the Canopus Forum that was similar I set about looking at what I have done too. I have a scene in one of my videos that comes from an FX1 in HDV slow zoom in where the floor is large tiles at a diagonal to the camera so the edges are at about 45degrees. In the HD version the edges remain smooth during the zoom, in the downconvert they shimmer while zooming but have no jaggies when zooming stops. It doesn't matter which method I use to downconvert these artifacts are there. So I then went to the tape and played back directly to my i'Art CRT so the camera did the downconvert to composite. The same artifacts were there!!!! I tried converting to Cineform and no change.
I then looked at a hockey game I had just shot of my grandson with my SR11, lots of diagonal lines on the ice and lots of waving hockey stick( kids are only 5 and 6 years old),lots of pans and zooms. I felt sure this would have the same artifacts. Converted with Cineform and then downconverted with Edius to SD DV file and played back through my Sony HC96 to the i'ART. To my surprise there were no artifacts and the video looked really good. There were also no artifacts when played from the camera either. I will now try and do a side by side of the FX1 and SR11 to see if there is a real difference between downconverting HDV and 1920x1080 AVCHD. Will report back in a few days.
I also agree that until these artifacts are pointed out most people will not see them especially if they have a HD set and normally watch SD programming!!!

Ron Evans

[Leif Skoglund]

My experience here is that using SD player and SD-TV with downconverted amterials , no problem. The same when playing downconverted materials from computer to HD TV.

But in some cases there'll be a problem with downconverted materials when using SD DVD-player on a HD-TV. You should try a regular SD DVD bought in a DVD-shop. Play it on your SD player and view it on your HD TV. I did it, and the picture was really bad.

I used the whole Christmas time and new year time a few monts ago to solve this problem. I didn't come any way. The final results wasn't any better than when I started. A few weeks ago I bought a Sony S350 Blu-Ray player. I hoped this would solve the problem, It didn't.

My opinion is that there is no way around this problem. Some SD DVD players with some HD TV's would have problems to play downconverted materials in a good quality.

[Gints Klimanis]

Originally Posted by John Peterson

Try shooting in 720p 60?
John

This is another problem. When you render to 720p30 for MP4 files, the motion is quite blurred. If you switch the clip Properties to turn off Resampling, there is no motion blur. I haven't tried rendering 720p60to 480i60, though.

[Ron Evans]

I have done some more tests with the FX1 and the SR11. Tried with several high contrast diagonal lines. I didn't get the shimmer I have on the video I mentioned in my previous post but the SR11 did produce a smoother downconvert. Still can't understand why though.

Ron Evans