up resing

[Donald McPherson]

Beck then VHS and DV was watched on mainly 20, 27inch if you were lucky TV's most now are 40+ so qualty will show through.

[Boyd Ostroff]

I agree that a big screen will "make quality show through", but I'm not sure that is relevant in the context of this discussion. We are starting with legacy 720x480 DV footage. The question is whether the TV's built-in scaling will be any worse that the software you use to scale the image yourself.

I think you can do a better job of deinterlacing in software as opposed to the TV doing it in realtime. I also think there's a value to converting to a better format than DV if you're using color correction and effects. But I'm not convinced that merely up-resing will give any better results than the TV can do in realtime.

[Adam Stanislav]

Originally Posted by Boyd Ostroff

The question is whether the TV's built-in scaling will be any worse that the software you use to scale the image yourself.

I think the thing to consider is that not all TVs will scale equally and you have no control over them. Scaling it in the software will produce a result that all those TVs will show more-or-less equally (more or less because most people do not know how to set up the colors on their TVs properly, but that is a different issue).

More importantly, doing it in the software results in something you can control because you can still work on it (e.g., color grade it) after you have scaled it up.

[Boyd Ostroff]

Very good points, and this has been part of my thought process as well.

But another thing I'm pondering is whether converting it to HD creates an expectation of quality that just isn't there in an up-res'ed image. I have been spending a lot of time staring at different approaches to this on different monitors, tv's and even my phone.

With some footage (like the opera example I posted), seeing it in HD makes it look "out of focus" since you expect more detail in real HD footage. OTOH, if the TV scales it and it looks a little more rough, then your expectation is lowered and you realize that it's just standard definition.

One reason I up-res'd this opera footage is that I am rendering English subtitles into the video. With 720p the text is sharper and more readable with a small font, which means I don't have to cover up as much of the image with the subtitle. The downside is that the sharp text seems to increase the perception that the actual footage is out of focus.

I agree with converting the original footage to something better than DV to work with it. For another project I recently finished, I rendered it as uncompressed standard definition. That gave me a file over 100gb for a one hour standard definition film. I am now using ProRes 422 though, since it's the native format for Final Cut Pro X and should result in smaller file sizes.

For rendering the final movie, I am using HandBrake. For the two minute video I posted before, HandBrake with Super HQ 720p30 settings produced excellent results that looked the same as Apple Compressor but the file was only half as large.

[Renton Maclachlan]

Just picked up this revived thread...

I'm now editing episode 11 of 13 so I'm nearing the end!!!

Anyways...I realised in re reading the thread that it is not so much upresing that I want to do, but specifically improving/smoothing edges...sharpening the image. I've filmed in front of green screen and used zoom in post to create movement. This reduces the resolution as I zoom in and introduces a certain amount of blockiness.

The issue is in talking head sequences where there is a blockiness at my shoulders. I would like to smooth this blockiness away...if at all possible...

Renton

[Boyd Ostroff]

Assuming that you shot interlaced video, try deinterlacing it. Not familiar with your Windows software, but you want a "smart" deinterlace function that treats moving parts of the image differently from static parts. This might be called adaptive deinterlacing, or motion compensated deinterlacing.

The good software will have various additional settings to smooth jagged edges, in Apple Compressor the best quality is called anti-aliased. Anti-aliasing will smooth jagged edges in lines that are slightly angled. But you will always be up against the fact that there are only 480 horizontal lines in SD video. If you smooth them too much, everything will look out of focus. Since you zoomed in on the image, there will be even fewer horizontal lines so it may be hard to improve that.

If you use Handbrake to compress the final video, it has some pretty nice deinterlacing capabilities you can choose in the video settings, try the Yadif setting for example.

[Boyd Ostroff]

Here's another example of up-resing. I just put this little video online today, no great art but it's a nice memory for the people who were there. It was shot on my Sony VX-2000 in 2002 and I converted the 480i60 to 720p30. But I didn't want it pillarboxed in a 16:9 frame, so I kept the 4:3 aspect ratio and exported it as 960x720. The audio is a mess but I did all I could...

I think this worked out pretty well in terms of quality. The VX-2000 really was a nice camera for its day and the larger chips give a nicer image than the little ones in the PDX-10 examples I posted earlier.

Opera Scene Change at the Academy of Music on April 1, 2002 on Vimeo

[Cary Knoop]

How did you deinterlace the footage?
It seems like a single field deinterlace, also notice the edges having black lines.

I would recommend to deinterlace with a motion compensation algorithm and always to frame double.

Also if you upscale it would help to change the video from Rec.601 to Rec.709.

Here is an example of an old NTSC source deinterlaced with motion compensation and frame doubled and updated to Rec.709:

Stevie Wonder - Yester-Me, Yester-You, Yesterday [Restored] - YouTube

[Boyd Ostroff]

I used Apple Compressor (newest version) with the highest quality scaling and deinterlacing settings (antialiased/motion compensated/adaptive details). Definitey not a single field deinterlace. Will have to check the rec 709 setting next time, thanks.

I don't know, I've looked at the original footage on my Sony LMD2110W monitor and compared it to the version here and I'm not sure I could do much better, will have another look.There are some black edges in the original video due to the harsh lighting conditions.

The example you posted is very nice, but I think it was shot with a much more expensive camera under lighting conditions designed for video. That is a bit different from a prosumer camcorder under available light. :)

I posted some stills on the previous page showing an example of original and deinterlaced still frames. This is and original 480i60 frame:

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/attachme...ing-480i60.jpg


and this is a 720p30 frame processed as described above with Apple Compressor

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/attachme...esing-720p.jpg

[Cary Knoop]

The blacks in your video may be caused by the 'black sun' effect of the sensor. Should be easy to fix in a good NLE.

If you have a second or 30 of the original source for upload I can take a look at it.