DVD Upconversion Methods...
 

So I finally bought a 26" LCD HDTV. Previously I have owned a 57" rear projection HDTV. Going through my DVD archive I'm a little perturbed.

My downconverted 24p projects from the EX1 look awesome. I'd say they look indistinguishable from HD. I'm using a Toshiba HD-DVD player which is known for top-notch upconversion. HOWEVER, my 60i projects look worse than MiniDV!

This is frustrating because on my older set this footage looks fine upconverted. I *believe* it's a native interlaced display. So my question is do these players handle upconverting progressive sourced footage(even though it's converted to 60i for the DVD standard) better than interlaced-sourced material or am I doing something wrong?

Does anyone have luck with upconverted interlaced footage looking good on an LCD HDTV? Does using Black Magic Design/similar hardware offer better quality downconverting? I ask because I am about to start a major project and planned to shoot 1080/60i but now I am second guessing my decision because of this. And if the footage looks this poor on my 26" display I can only imagine now crappy it looks on a 65".

60i HD footage with the EX1 hooked to this TV looks great. Even in SP mode. So I'm thinking maybe it's the player's inability to upconvert interlaced footage well?

I found an old test DVD and sure enough proper progressive scan converted footage (even though DVD spec is interlaced I figure a flag is set for progressive that the player reads) and some reverse pulldown is going on.

I like the look of 60i. I don't like the resolution loss of 720/60p. So I think what I may do is shoot 60i and hire a conversion company with a Snell & Wilcox machine to give me a standard def master. Software conversion isn't cutting it and I've definitely seen better commercially released 60i DVDs on this TV than what I can get with my own tools.

Man does that 24p footage look good though! Jeez...

By the way I forgot to mention that 30p is not an option for me as the project may be sold internationally and from what I've read 30p to PAL is a no-go.

Adam,

I don't know your particular HDTV model, etc. - what I know for sure though is this:

- with the awesome EX imaging, forget about interlaced, and stick with progressive (24p in your case, 25p in mine)...

Piotr

Shoot in 30p, PAL TV and DVD players have no problem playing "NTSC", but NTSC TVs can't handle PAL.

I have just released my latest DVD "a guide to digital printing & scanning" this was all shot in NTSC and had no complaints from here in the UK - so far over 45,000 copies have been distributed and sold.

Try this software. Iam using it frequently.
Red Giant Software: Magic Bullet Instant HD Advanced 1.0