HDV-SD 576p50 upres for hi-def sports?

[Steve Gibby]

The HD100 doesn't record to tape or HDD in 720p60, but will only output uncompressed 720p60 via analog component output. High-framerate progressive is desireable for fast motion subjects (sports, reality, etc.), which is a significant portion of my television production. When I recieve my HD100, I think I'll experiment with shooting my fast-motion productions in 576/50p. For programs created in post, I'm interested in the possibilities for Firewiring the 576/p50 footage in to Final Cut Pro and upresing and re-coding it as 720p60. Or at least shooting 576p50 and upresing to 720p60 the fast moving and to be edited as slo-mo portions of the program The edited program would be delivered to networks that broadcast 720p60, or recoded to 1080i for networks that broadcast in 1080i. I've never shot or used 576p50 footage, so I'm looking for input on this. It seems there shouldn't be a huge visual difference between 576p50 and 720p60 footage. I would be using a good lens, the new Fujinon 13x on the HD100 to acquire the footage.

I'm curious whether the Nattress plugin would handle this workflow re-coding. Or internally with FCP?

I realize that when the HVX200 ships that 720p60, overcranked, would be an easier workflow, but I have some fast-motion content to shoot before the HVX ships.

Barry, Graeme, Chris, or others, how about some input on this...

[Barry Green]

It seems there shouldn't be a huge visual difference between 576p50 and 720p60 footage.

I'd suggest 480p60 instead -- my guess is that the temporal resampling from 50p to 60p will do more damage to the clarity of the footage than the extra 96 pixels would bring to its benefit.

480p60 to 720p60 is a 2.2:1 size increase. So it is a big visual difference. But I think it's something that could be handled by a great resizing program. I think your method could work. On The DVX DVD, I did a resizing to compare JVC HD1 720p footage against resized DVX 480P footage, and the results were surprisingly competitive with the 720p resolution. I mean surprisingly so. With a great resizing algorithm (and not just resizing in an NLE, but a custom stretching program like PhotoZoom Pro or a whiz-bang program from Graeme) you may indeed end up with a usable 720p simulation.

I didn't have much luck with pushing 480p up to 1080p -- that was an increase of about 5 times, and just too far to push it. But 480p up-rezzed to 720p looked pretty darn good. Definitely worth trying!