XDCam HD to Standard DVD
 

What workflow have you guys found to be the best when making Standard def DVDs off of XDCam HD masters? We've played a lot with Compressor and DVD Studio Pro to get to a point where we are reasonably happy but are always looking for that extra edge to clean things up even more.

Compressor has extra scaling and frame rate algorithms not included in the standard issue Quicktime conversions. Given the right settings, Compressor can do a much better job.

The Compressor presets are always a good starting point, but the frame rate on some presets is specified in the preset, and on some it's passed from the source. So check that, and make sure frame rate is set to "Current".

Also, when downconverting HD, you generally want to add a little bit of "Sharpen" filter. You can find this in the filters secion of the Compressor preset inspection window. I find a number of 3 or 4 is a very mild look, but keeps things from looking soft. Downconverting without sharpening means that the in-camera detail enhancement gets lost in the math...higher end downconversion hardware does this for you automatically and gives you settings to tweak.

Good point about sharpening. I have noticed the down-convert looking a bit on the soft side.

On another note- I've heard Pioneer and others have high end DVD Recorders with SDI inputs. I'm wondering what a DVD would look like down-converted from the F70 deck directly to one of these devices? Anyone done it? How does it compare to the software down-convert/burns?

Is there a way to master your HD edit back to XDCAM and then
have the 330/350 send it out SD via firewire?

You can edit your project with FCP and export the finished edit back to the camera as a HD MXF file and then play it back from the camera using the downconvert feature of the camera. Or you could export the project as an SD MXF, again back to the camera.

Avid are working hard on XDCAM HD import and export which will be available for Media Composer at all bit rates by the end of the year. There is a plug-in from mainconcept for premiere pro that will allow XDCAM import but this is pretty buggy.

Alister,

In regards to your last sentence above, when I export a sequence from FCP back to camera using EXPORT--> Sony XDCAM, I don't get a choice of what format I want. In fact, the camera is supposed to be set-up to match your sequence settings in terms of mode, frame rate, and quality. Unless I've missed something.

-gb-

FCP will not automatically communicate that to the XDCAM, you must set the camera or deck to match what you're exporting.

Today I experimented with Nate Weaver's sharpening method
in Compressor. It did help.

The XDCAM does do a beautiful downconversion to SD.

So, the question is:
Does someone know the best method to mimic this using more specific settings in Compressor from 1080p?

This topic needs to stay in the XDCAM section
on this discussion board.

How about the sharpest downconversion from
1080p to a web video size (280x158 pixels)?

Stick with 16:9
 

If I export and XDCAM HD (108060i) sequence to the camera and convert it to DV (selecting DVCAM in the XDCAM exporter) upon export, is there a method to keep the picture at 16:9?

In other words, can the camera add crop bars similiar to how Final Cut Pro does when dropping an HD sequence into an SD timeline?