Resizing in NeoHD
 

I currently use Neoscene and am considering upgrading to NeoHD to take advantage of its additional features. One of those features is resizing. I noticed that NeoHD uses the Lanczos 3 resizing algorithm. My current HD to SD resizing work flow is: Edit Cineform Neoscene HD in Vegas Pro 8; final edited output is Neoscene files; Load the edited Cineform files into TMPGEnc Express 4.0 and resize / export MPG-2 SD files which I then author in either DVD Lab Pro or DVD Architect. I use TMPGEnc because it uses Lanczos 3 which does a better job at resizing than Vegas / Main Concepts does.

Would there be any advantage to resizing the Cineform files in Vegas to SD before outputting SD MPEG files from Vegas instead of TMPEnc? My objective is the most efficient and simple work flow while maintaining the best resizing and MPEG-2 encoding.

Hi Jim,

The fewer transcodes the better once you're out of our format, but I'm not sure if you'd see much of a difference in final quality due to the scaling in the two workflows you've outlined.

Because of some less-than-desirable scaling done by some NLEs and DVD creation software, we have recommended that users do the scale using the HDLink utility in the Neo/Prospect family prior to creating DVDs.

However, if your MPEG exporter is already using the same scaling algorithm, there may not be a quality benefit, but it sounds like an interesting test. You can trial Neo HD if you want and see for yourself. Your Neo Scene activation will be preserved so you won't need to re-activate or anything.

Another advantage is if you're editing interlaced content and wishing to export a progressive DVD, we can do the deinterlace during the conversion and scale to preserve the most quality.

Thanks Tim, I will give it a try to see how it works out. It will certainly be a more convenient work flow if I can downsize Cineform files from HD to SD while in Vegas to take advantage of its Lanczos 3 resizing. The last step after the resize would be an MPEG-2 SD render.

I really appreciate Cineform's active participation in this forum. I wish other software companies would follow your example.

How do you downsize Cineform files from HD to SD in Vegas? Also, in Vegas is there a way to render directly to a Cineform avi?

Thanks.

Jan, I just downloaded the trial version of Neo HD and it appears that resizing can only be done in the HDLink utility. As for your second question, you can render Cineform files if your have a Cineform encoder installed.

Jim, I have using Neo HD which works wonderfully in Vegas 9 giving me full frame rate playback. I'm still not clear though on how to do the down convert from HD to SD. Do you use one of the scripts in the utilities.

Regarding rendering to Cineform avis I don't see an option other than rendering to a conventional avi file and then if I want to put that back on the timeline and have a full frame rate playback I'd have to convert it again to a Cineform intermedieate with HD Link. Is there a better way to do that?

Jan, I was hoping that it would be possible to resize in Vegas using Cineform. Unfortunately it isn't possible. Resizing can be accomplished using HDLink but not on the timeline.

There is an extensive thread about various ways to resize from HD to SD here http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/what-hap...d-quality.html

Am I missing something, guys?

Can't you just 'render as' using custom settings? In fact, I just that tried it and it works.

In the Render As settings (video tab), choose CineForm HD Codec for the Video Format, Make the Framesize NTSC DV (720x480). Framerate and field order should match your source footage/timeline. And for pixel aspect ratio, choose 1.2121.

That will give you a SD sized widescreen CineForm file.

Does that not work for you? or are you trying to crop it to 4:3?

Let me know more details and i'll try to help.

Edit: Thanks Jake. I took another look and found that it is possible to resize from HD to SD within Vegas using the Cineform codec. Great! I am going to do some testing to compare the results with other methods that were discussed in the thread that I referenced above.

Thanks Jake and Jim.

For rendering something that will go back on the timeline, i.e. stills that stutter with pan/crop on them, rendering to a Cinefor avi seems the way to go for smooth playback. Yes?

Jim, I'll be interested in the results of your resizing in Vegas. Thanks too for the link to the HD to SD discussion. I slogged through the whole thing and will study it more after I try a few of the suggestions. It was very informative; thanks to all who posted there.

I'm still a little unclear about the work flow though. What have you found to work best? Rendering in Vegas to a full size i.e. 1920x1080p avi file (my source footage is 30p and converted to Cineform) using Cineform, Lagarith or uncompressed for the avi file?

I will resize in Virutal Dub and that is the next thing I have to learn about. But before starting there I want to make sure that I am taking the right thing in.

Thanks.