720p HD from 50i SD - examples...
 

Thought this would be a good place to post a couple of snaps from the project I'm working on. These are original HD size but web compressed. Original frames are 2,2MB.

Shot using PD150 and an Optex 16x9. I've posted stills before but not original size and aspect ratio.

http://www.campslaughter.com/double16x9.html

Very stylised look there!!

I like it, they are very soft in nature, and look like you purposely had some kind of diffuse on there to bloom out some of the highlights, which i thought looked cool.

My only concern is that they look soft because of manipulation, like very soft, rather than original footage, but i could be wrong.

Zac

Huh? Did I miss something? How did you get 720P out of a PD150?

Zac: These are color corrected and graded images as you will see them on sceen. There are a lot of filtering going on. They are also interolated fields and you are watching the whole frame (p).

Alex: By 2x compression on the 4x3 image. This is done by switching camera to 16x9 AND using a 16x9 optic adapter at the same time. It's by no means ideal but it's one way of not having to crop anything when going up to HD. The final image master is 1280x576 (this has to be done in PAL).

Oh. So your still recording 720x480 (or whatever it is in PAL) to tape, and then blowing it up in post?

Yes. 720x576. I put up three more snaps in the same URL.

A regular blow up is just zooming into the pixels. This way you only zoom the horizontal. Not the vertical. Something like 33% less image loss.

Interesting. I tried this in Vegas just with some footage from my 1CCD camera (no 16x9 adapter or even 16x9 mode) but it works pretty good, and I blew it up from 720x480 to 1280x720. You have to sit back about 3FT from the monitor to not see the "artifacts" though.

Sit back from your monitor when looking at these, or else they are ugly. :D Remember, they are from a low end 1CCD camera.

http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2003-...04/Image94.jpg

http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2003-...04/Image91.jpg

Yes, that shows that you can blow up SD to HD with an OK result. If you step up to 1080p you will have even more loss. You'll every bit of those lost 33% res.

There is another bonus to the double16x9 method. When composed on SD the image has to be squeezed to letterbox (720x340 approx). This produces a higher source line density and a sharper image than if it would be displayed in just regular SD since you are pushing 576 lines into 340.

Did you use Magic Bullet with this project?

Yes. The deinterlacer and to some extent the look suite.

ok, looks good! How long did it take you to render out your full project with Magic Bullet? And what was the final length anyway?

The estimate is 7 hours per 1 minute. The total length is 94 minutes.

Man! That is a lllllooonnnggg time.