I edit in HD, then simply downconvert the final master edit ( without title tracks "on" ) ie: make a lossless file of the master cut, re-size in Virtualdub, change your project settings to your prefered SD format and drop the new file in - switch title track back on and voila, you have a clean, no twitter master suitable for output to tape or conversion to mpeg with the highest possible title quality - ie, not "resiszed"

I've done this with EX1 footage shot at 1920x1080 50i as well as 1440x1080 50i and it works very well indeed. All viewed on an HD Tube monitor.

Paul

what is this VIRTUALDUB, does it work for mac? how do i get it, id love to try it

So Paul by a lossless codec you mean something like, HuffyUV or QT Sheer Codec. The other codecs mentioned on this thread are lossy, i.e. visually lossless as mentioned in this thread: http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...less+rendering I would not be rendering more than 2 or 3 times so I don't think I necessarily need a lossless codec. Does any one how the Sony 10bit YUV compares to Cineform or other lossy codecs. I used to use Mainconcept's DVCPRO 50 Codec when rendering DV. Is this still a good option?

Is creating a HQ uncompressed, lossy or lossless intermediate file is the best / only method to go before Virtualdub resize. Can someone please confirm Virtualdubmod can not convert directly from EX1 raw files. If I didn't want to edit my footage but just convert to SD using Virtualdubmod do I have to render an intermediate avi file first?

Sorry to keep asking, and thanks for your great advice so far.

I actualy use Canopus Lossless, although uncompressed is ideal, but the file sizes become so huge, and to be honest, I can't see the difference in the end result anyway.

Virtualdub doesn't see EX1 raw files, or .mxf, which is why I prefer to edit with .mxf and then downconvert the final edit - all my tests point to a vastly superior final .avi and mpeg file for DVD using Virtualdub to do the resizing, then frame serve to Procoder or tmpeg.

There's some lively and informative banter on the Grass Valley Forum about this topic, related to HDV in general and particularly the EX1.

Paul

Thanks Paul, I'll have a look at the Grass Valley Forum about frameserving as I am not sure what this is and how to do this. I presume Canopus codec comes with Edius Broadcast and is it available to download or try on its own?

You can sure download here:

http://www.canopus.com/products/EDIU...cast/index.php

for a full 30 day trial which will give you the codecs to play with as well as direct import of EX1 files to the timeline - very fast indeed.

Virtualdub appears to be Windows only.

Paul

No need for intermediate renders. I use Debugmode Frameserver. Frameserve to avi from vegas, open that avi in Frameserver and use whatever resize filter settings you want. Frameserve from Virtualdub and and encode this avi from TMPG encoder. Voila!

Thank you Jacob, that will save me much time and especially hard drive space!

What settings would you recommend selecting in the frameserve settings. RGB24, RGB32 or YUY2? There are many complicated threads on this, epecially the vagas workflow thread: http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...s+colour+space

Does it matter what profile I choose in Vegas if frameserve does the rendering? What would be the cameras native colour space so that frameserve doesn't have to convert? If I choose RGB32 will that make a noticeable difference if I have asked Vegas to do colour correction on the timeline? I presume RGB32 produce longer rendering times?

I feel like my workflow is getting much better now. Thanks for all your advice so far.

I'm shooting 1080p30 and my conclusion isn't far away from yours. On a Mac I've tried various down converts in FCP, Compressor, Episode, playing with numerous settings. I tested all results on both an HDTV and CRT SD monitor.

Not all shots look bad but there is certainly a pattern to the "problem" shots. My own hunch is not that there's a problem with the Sony but rather the opposite. The resolution is extremely high and thin lines are challenging the downconvert software.

There's obviously a solution because we wouldn't see wonderful films on DVD and Red users may well be in a similar situation. I think part of the issue is that many of us EX1 users haven't dealt with this kind of resolution, which actually is higher than most HDV cameras.

MPEGStreamClip does the trick HD > SD
 

Craig, Adam, and all others on Macs and Windoze,
to downconvert use MPEGStreamClip which does a hell of a job.
Better then FCP and anything else myself and many others have ever used.

Download for free from: www.squared5.com

I use MPEGStreamClip for many things.

The Mac Sony Transfer Tool rewraps to .mov which is what Final Cut Pro works with.

Unfortunately I don't see .m2v as one of the options from .mov.
It can convert .mov to other formats but not .m2v.

MPEGStreamclip
Converter features:
– from MPEG, MPG, VOB, PS, M2P, MOD, VRO, DAT, DCM, VDR, PVR, TS, M2T, MTS, MMV, REC, VID, AUD, AVR, TP, TP0, TRP, TOD
to MPEG, TS, REC, VID, M2V, AIFF, M1A, AC3

i wont be able to try it till tomorrow but if what craig says is true than i guess it doesnt matter.

peter how do you use MPEGStreamClip to convert HDV to SD m2v file, sounds like it doesnt do that.

Workflow that works WELL for me
 

Although i havent compared results side by side by some of the virtualdub and mpegstream methods, i can confirm that my 1080p hq vegas 8 mpeg conversions that i burn to DVD are almost like watching the original on the timeline (almost). I must admit i had to play around with a lot of settings as at first i was getting washed out, soft and standard dv looking video.

I finally came up with a workflow and changed some settings, half of them i wasnt sure what they were doing but they seemed logical from reading the manual and now im very happy. I understand that 'reasonable' quality is going to be subjective and one mans 'good' is another mans 'blah' but honestly for me personally im very pleased with what im looking at and im usually very fussy.

Anyway, just in case anyone’s interested to give this a go, heres my workflow for PAL VIDEO, but obviously for NTSC just changed settings were applicable:

1.set my properties to 1080 50i, then changed the field order to none, set the project to 32 bit, change the compositing gamma to 2.222, set full resolution rendering to best and deinterlace method to none

2.set my scopes to show me studio rgb

3.complete my edit on the timeline along with multi layer colour grading

4.once my edit is completed I add a sharpen filter to the video track and set it to 200, or if i have multiple video layers acting as colour transfers etc i add 120 to each (i know the numbers dont add up but after many tests this is what looks best to me)

5.then I render to mpeg2 then choose the DVD Pal template then hit custom

6.once in custom on the project tab I make sure video rendering is on best

7.then on the video tab I set my aspect ratio accordingly and slide the quality slider to maximum

8.also in the video tab I set the ‘profile’ to HIGH and set the ‘level’ to HIGH

9.I set the I Frames to 15 (recommended for dvd) and make sure the field order is set to none.

10.lastly on the video tab I leave the variable bit rate at its default but I do check the two pass option

11.on the advanced video tab, I change the vbr buffer size to 1194 and sampling format to 4:2:2

12.in the dc coefficient I set the value to 10bit, or 11 bit if I don’t have much motion in my video

13.I leave the rest as it is, save the settings as a new template then hit render

14.voila, I now have a stunning looking mpeg

i have tested this method on all sorts of footage under different lighting conditions and shutter speeds and all produced nice results.

One thing to mention though is i usually apply a computer to studio rgb to my timeline which seems to give my images a lighter, more open look which is easier for me to grade however i notice if i do this then render out with my above procedure, it results in a nice image but slightly washed out in the colour and brightness so i stay away from it now if i know my output is for dvd and instead i just manipulate my black levels by starting with a reset to none 'levels' filter applied to individual clips.

Hope this helps someone out there, as if your like me you dont like the idea of using all sorts of third party plugins/programs for resizing etc.

Daniel.
I haven't done any of this and my dvd's still look good.
I'm going to try exactly your settings today,i'll let you know how my dvd's look.
Question, are you watching the finished dvd on CRT or LCD tv ?

I've tried setting the profile to high in the video tab,my finished dvd looked terrible.

Also if if i set my project preferences to field order to none,couldn't hardly edit with that,pciture very unsmooth,also the 32 bit just makes it worse aswell.
Render as DVD PAL,,, not widescreen ?
.

I'll try theses settings today and post my findings.

Paul.

You are absolutely correct. All I wanted to say was, use MPEGStreamClip to downsize from HD to SD. IMHO it does the best job of all apps I know.

I am downrezzing using the MotionJPEG B codec, 75% Quality.
Gives outstanding results. Interlaced material is de-interlaced with Maker
from www.dvfilm.com which yields wonderful motion blur, reducing interlace artefacts.

I have to encode to m2v then, which I do using the Main Concept' MPEG2 encoder. Goes for Mac as well as for Win ( www.mainconcept.com ). Sometimes I do opt for the Bitvice encoder instead ( www.innobits.se ). Download the free trial version. Many a DVD studio uses either one of these two encoders. For good reason, I think.

Hope this helps

Ok Dan,i tried your settings.

Picture is stunning,,,until pans start,then it looks terrible,all smoothness is gone,i've tried to correct this using different setting but my mpeg-2 picture goes back to how it was before,smooth with quite good quality.
I've tried different project preferences,these don't appear to affect the finished article.,so obviously this leaves the render template.
Any suggestions. ?

Thanks,Paul.

Hi Paul, glad you had some if little success with my workflow. Im not sure why the pans arent working out, however you could try lowering the dc coefficient setting and see how that works. Ive tested this method on slow/fast pans and hand held tracking shots and it seems to hold up however i believe i forgot to change my project settings 'deinterlace method' so during those particular tests i think i left my deinterlace method to 'blend fields', not sure if this would bare any result on the final render as like u said it seems to be overwritten on render. Im going to play around with it some more to see how it all holds up under extreme filming conditions and report back. You asked what im viewing my footage back on, as i always do i monitor first on my jvc broadcast crt then my regular crt television then my 30" consumer HDTV. I tend to feel i have it right when all 3 displays display a pleasing picture.

Oh and a side note, my editing in vegas since using 32bit has always been a hassle, it feels like vegas doesnt handle cpu's as well as it could and i never get real time playback, so i just leave it in 8bit until it comes time to adding colour etc which is still a pain.

MPEG Streamclip seems to offer an even better quality than virtualdubmods' smart resize filter!

Exporting to H264 Mov works nice, too :)


regards Dennis

Thanks Dan,i'll try that.
Bitten by the bug now !!! hehe
The pans look like 25p footage. Whenever i render footage it's got to be rendered upper field first to get good results. The vegas manual also confirms this,upper for tv,lower for dv,none for pc monitor.
Also,if i record in 720/50p or 1080/50i,the finshed SD DVD looks the same. I just find 720/50p easier to edit with,load smoother,especially with 2nd monitor on.

Thanks,Paul.

OK, so after more tests it seems everything looks real nice except for slow pans. Theres the odd occasion where a slow pan will look nice but after doing extensive tests it seems that most pans will look horrible. So Paul as you said, setting an interlaced method does solve this but on testing this with various sources of footage it brings me back to getting mixed results. So im off to do more shooting and encoding to see what i can come up with.

Dan.
After getting mixed results with your settings,i've gone back yo your original settings and the finished mpeg doesn't look as good now,strange,i've checked and rendered the same piece of footage 3 times.

Paul.

thats weird, that has happened to me quite a bit in the past and i never figured it out. Exact same render settings on the exact same footage can come out looking very different sometimes, However this only happens to me using vegas so im not quite sure what's going on there. At the moment tho im getting near enough the same sort of results, everything looks very good aslong as there are no tripod pans, and if there is then i compensate. I think i may give the other methods of downscaling a go aswell to see if theres a complete and easy way to get a nice looking mpeg2

I have downloaded some clips from here and within Liquid I have exported as SD DVD and I find the result outstanding. In contrary what I see from my own shootings from Z1 and HV20 and some clips from XHA1 to SD DVD, they look really poor compared to EX1 m2t>to DVD files. This is a fantastic camera.

Dennis can you frameserve to MPEG streamclip from your NLE? Can you expand on your workflow using this method. Did you export the "squared 5" MPEG streamclip straight to MPEG2 for a SD DVD or did you create an intermediate file or frameserve to another encoder?

Also did you use MPEG Streamclip beta version?

Is this is a quicker & higher quality method than your previous workflow? Is anyone able to test this with both interlaced & progessive footage? I wonder how this software manages with the detail set to 'on' in the camera settings. I presume it is still best to have this off?

I feel this thread is really progressing towards a manageable workflow that can produce great SD DVDs. Great work! (Sorry if I ask too many questions!)

Ok,i've tried different settings based around Craig's settings.
Project preferences make no difference at all to the finished article,
the finshed article being an actual DVD,not just an mpeg-2 render which i'm watching in VLC or windows media or whatever.
My finished mpeg-2's with my settings look crap on my pc,however when they're burnt to DVD and played back on a tv they look good.
Craig,your settings look very good on pc ,until shots start panning,then they loose all smoothness,it was this which i was trying to get rid whilst fiddling with your settings.

So i'm currently using Bill Raven's PP,with detail on,i don't add or take away any sharpening in post.
I render as MPEG-2 for DVD-A. I'm happy with the results. It makes no difference (to my eye) wether the original footage was shot in 720/50p or 1080/50i.

Paul.

FWIW, I have just rendered my EX1's 1080/25p HQ mxf into SD PAL DVD format, using Edius, and it looks SPLENDID, absolutely line-twitter free! And that's without ANY special treatment of the source, or output settings...In a 720x576 window, the rendered clip looks EXACTLY like the original on a full 1920x1080 screen - the same rich colours, no compression artefacting.

Sony, wake up!

Disclaimer: I am using the newest TBYB version downloadable since only recently from Canopus site (Broadcast 4.6)

Piotr.
Edius or Vegas ? which do you prefer ?
Also you've rendered to MPEG-2 obviously but have you actually burnt it to DVD and watched it on tv ?

Paul

Premature question, Paul :) I'll keep you posted.

Hmm.
How much is Edius gonna cost me ?

I have tried to frameserve to MPEG streamclip from Vegas but it produces black video. I tried this using debugmode frameserver. Can anyone confirm frameserving will definetely not work, I want to cut down on the use of intermediate files to save hard drive space! I like the method Jacob uses: It's a shame that this doesn't work with MPEG streamclip if the resizing conversion is even better than virtualdubs.

Have people found a 'best method' that works from this thread? I have noticed that comments have stopped recently. ATM I'll be using Jacob's method for large video footage. For small amounts of footage, rendering to a lossy avi, then to Mpeg Streamclip. If I buy the MPEG2 codec for Quicktime will Mpeg Streamclip export to DVD MPEG2 or will it still be better to export to export to another avi then use TMPGenc or similar to render to MPEG? As you can see there are too many stages!

Dennis, I would still like to know how you used MPEG streamclip in your workflow!?

Why can't NLE's have better conversion algorithms, it seems crazy to think that free third party software can do a better job!

Have you downloaded Debugmode's latest frameserver software?
I have and it works great with Sony Vegas 8.0B to Procoder 3.

Yes I have version 2.5. I can frameserve to virtualdub fine. I don't think it's a problem with Debugmode I just think Mpeg Streamclip doesn't support frameserving.

Is it just me or is there a bit of an elephant in the room here? Major studios and large production companies stopped shooting SD a while ago, even if their final output medium was still SD DVD or whatever.

Take, for example, The Office (US Version... my apologies to all the fans of the original). This is shot with an F900 in 60i. We know from Adam Wilt's comparison tests that the EX1, while not competitive with the F900 per se, generates roughly similar amounts of detail.

When it's scaled down to SD DVD release, it looks pretty freakin' good. Same original image size (1920 x 1080), same native chip resolution, similar detail levels. I find it hard to believe that the difference between 2/3" CCD sensors and a 1/2" CMOS sensors is to blame. Nor do I think it's the XDCAM EX codec.

That leaves post-production and processing as the source of the troubles.

So, what are larger studios and production companies using that we haven't discussed yet?

Sorry, my opinion was wrong about MPEG Streamclip.
It may be a bit sharper than VirtualDubs' Lanczos resize, but it produces some ugly color artifacts.

I will post a few stills tomorrow. ;)


regards Dennis

yes i agree, what are they using

I don't think that their scaler are any better than the ones used in virtualdub.
Virtualdub beats many very expensive programs in terms of picture quality...

And many commercial SD-DVDs are suffering from the low DVD-resolution and show the same artifacts of course.


regards Dennis

Apparently TMPGEnc 4 Express also has resize options such as the Lancosz3 filter so I presume this will be identical to using virtualdub? I have TMPGEnc 2.5 so I don't have this feature.

I don't know if the quality is really the same because avisynth has the same resize filters, too. But it introduces some very strange color fringing (don't know how to explain that phenomenon)...


regards Dennis

I, like many have been following this thread. It's now my turn to produce a good mpeg2 render from EX1's 1080p30. I've got debugmode installed and frameserving from Vegas 8, but what project settings in Vegas should I use? If I choose NTSC DV in Vegas, then the frameserved avi is 720x480. I assume to take advantage of the resizer in VirtualDubMod I need to start with a 1920x1080 file, so the only option available to me is to choose the HD 1920x1080 60i project preset. Is that right?

Also, once the debug frame serve file is in Vdubmod with the resize settings applied, how do I use HDEnc to encode that? It won't access Vdub's .vdr frameserve file. Niether will Cinema Craft, for that matter. What steps am I missing to get either of these mpeg2 compressors to work with the Vdub frameserver?

Just looking for some specific details on settings and configs, I've got 7 hours of HD to encode...

Well I've read various stories about the horrors of the EX1 - and the dreadful SD footage that people are getting, so I decided to do a test for myself before I get too far into my project.

I took some "iffy" clips and some really pin-sharp clips and whacked them onto a FCP timeline- about a minute or so in total.

I exported as QT movie, current settings, self contained.

I made sure DVDSP was fully set up for SD 16:9 in preferences, imported that (HD) QT into DVDSP and burned.

Then I watched on TV. . .

Superb SD footage.

Of course, the "iffy" (slightly out of focus) clips were slightly out of focus and the rest was first rate STANDARD DEFINITION.