Is there a standalone software product that offers upconversion from existing DV material to HDV as, say, a DV100 data file for importation into an HD NLE system.

-or-

Do the existing HD NLE systems offer this anyway as a standard function?

Thanks,
George

Is there a standalone software product that offers upconversion from existing DV material to HDV as, say, a DV100 data file for importation into an HD NLE system.

I'm using the Canopus Edius Pro 3 software, which lets you mix footage of pretty much any type and resolution on one timeline, and then scales everything for editing and output depending on what sort of project settings you have. In other words, you don't convert anything before you import it into an editing project, and the software takes care of the rest.

Kevin:

Can you elaborate on the results you're getting?

1) How does DV25 look when scaled up to HD resolution... does it stand out like a sore thumb from the HD original?

2) How does it resize the DV25 to 16x9 (bars on the side or tops/bottoms
clipped?

3) What is your HD format (720P or 1080I)?

Thanks,
George

George: I wouldn't recommend upsampling SD video to HD resolution in an HD project, but the reverse works nicely. In a recent mixed footage project I enlarged the SD footage to fill a widescreen frame, but I doubt I'll do that again because that doesn't look very good. Better to crop your HD footage on the sides to match the 4:3 footage, which means you need to shoot accordingly on the HD camera. Or if you have any kind of widescreen mode on your SD camera you may want to experiment with using that, but most SD cameras give up some image quality when doing that. Ultimately, once you have an HD/HDV camera you're going to want another one to make good two-camera footage, but cropping HD to 4:3 SD will work as a compromise solution.

In terms of HD source I'm using the Sony FX1, which is 1080i. Looks great when displayed directly on a 1080i HDTV.

I was afraid of that.

Thanks, Kevin.

George,
Graeme Nattress is working on a plugin for fcp that will uprez from dv to hd. Theres a thread at http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=29557

http://www.algolith.com/

Algolith is superb. I made *this* (http://www.simonwyndham.co.uk/algolith/algolith_comparison.htm) comparison between Vegas upconversion and Algolith.

I really pushed my footage which was was only a very quickly shot project under natural light to 1080p.

If you convert to 720p the results are absolutely superb, although bare in mind that my originating footage was 25p native 16:9 anamorphic.

I will also add that I made these upconversions without using Algoliths sharpening function. The plugin allows you to precisely introduce small amounts of sharpening after the upconversion. However for the purpose of these tests I left them without any additional sharpness.

hey simon, how did u get the MXF files into Vegas?

looking at ur pics thy look VERY similar in comparison, however i found that colur saturation in vegas is slight less profound as the other one.. however, the Algoth image seems a lil noisier or patchier in colour gradation than vegas..

very interesting results however... i gotta give this a shot :)

hey simon, how did u get the MXF files into Vegas?

:))

For that particular project I didn't. Taken through firewire.

Hadn't noticed a difference in colour graduation, but I'll take a closer look. The Algolith plugin is much better at fine detail such as hair where Vegas has some jaggies.

There's excellent hardware and software solutions that can help out and accomplish it, but you'll notice it looks a little less sharp. Graeme says he still has a way to go on his software solution.

heath