1080i in a widescreen SD sequence

[Robert Bobson]

I have a sequence with using both widescreen SD footage, and 1080i footage that I'm zooming in on - up to 100%.

but when playing back on DVD, the SD footage looks sharp, but the 1080i footage looks a bit ragged.

is there some way I can handle the 1080 differently that will help?

for instance, would doing the slow zoom / resize in After Effects help? or is there a particular codec that can optimize the quality?

thanks

[Bart Walczak]

The chances are your SD footage is less compressed from the start, so comparing them at 100% might show better quality for SD. Also, 1080i footage most likely gets deinterlaced, and loses resolution in the process.

You also need to make sure that Maximum Render Quality is on to get the best resize. If you're on CS5.5, there might also be an issue of buggy export straight to MPEG-2 DVD if the fields are mixed in the timeline. Try exporting to uncompressed first, and then convert to MPEG-2.

[Robert Bobson]

thanks - I'll check that stuff out.

[Robert Bobson]

I checked the Maximum Render Quality and it made a huge difference! WHY wouldn't "ON" be the default setting, and allow a lesser quality if desired????

Thanks for the tip ~

[Jeff Pulera]

Max Render helps with scaling, but takes longer to render, therefore optional.

Regarding the original issue, using HD clips in SD sequence - do you have "Scale To Frame Size" enabled in Prefs? That is fine for using HD clips in SD sequence, UNLESS you want to use Motion effect to "zoom in" on the clip at all. In that case, right-click the HD clip and make sure that "Scale to Frame" is NOT checked. Then the HD clip will appear as actual pixels and you can scale from there as needed. If auto scale is on, clip is already reduced to SD, then blowing up from there if using Scale in Motion effect, better to start with original HD resolution for zooming/panning work.

Thanks