Another SD downconversion question

[Mitchell Lewis]

That website you've created looks to be the start of a great resource!

But one small suggestion....

I would use color in your example files. The color red is especially troublesome when converting from HD progressive to SD interlaced (DV). You're just using black and white.

[Matt Davis]

Originally Posted by Mitchell Lewis

I would use color in your example files. The color red is especially troublesome when converting from HD progressive to SD interlaced (DV). You're just using black and white.

Black and white for clarity for now, but an excellent suggestion and will follow your advice. Thanks!

[Darren Ruddock]

Hi all,

I read this thread with great interest!

Maybe I'm a complete idiot but I seem to be getting great results by simply exporting through Compressor directly from the HD timeline. I tried the Ken Stone method but found that wasn't as good.

I shoot only progressive and mostly 720 25/50p and the down converts seem pretty damn good to me! No movement issues and hardly any jaggies.

Am I mad!???!?

[Duncan Craig]

Here's my workflow for 1080i50 to PAL DV, it's the same as Matt Davis outlines above.

After using log and transfer to import the files into FCP, I drop the quicktimes onto a droplet from Compressor.

It's the compressor preset for DV PAL Anamorphic, with the 'frame controls' cog enabled and output fields set to 'bottom first'. The droplet creates quicktimes in the same location as the original but with DV added to the title.

Results are great on my broadcast monitor. I laid the HD and SD clips on a DV timeline and cut between the two and there's no perceivable difference.

[Nick Wilson]

Matt

Your article and demo disc was very interesting - did you develop it further?

Cheers

N

[Matt Davis]

Originally Posted by Nick Wilson

Your article and demo disc was very interesting - did you develop it further?

I am going to develop it further, along with the ingest stuff, workflow bits and a whole lotta Compressor stuff regarding shooting for 4:3 SD.

It's just a case of finding the time. Am flat out right now, and in these recessionary times, paid work comes first.

But be in no doubt, *will* be developing this! Can't leave it as-is.

[Matt Davis]

Originally Posted by Darren Ruddock

I seem to be getting great results by simply exporting through Compressor directly from the HD timeline. I tried the Ken Stone method but found that wasn't as good.

The Ken Stone article is horribly out of date, and I have been petitioning to have it removed or updated for some time - to no avail, oddly.

As for your results? No madness. None at all. But...

Some of us have used the direct Export to Compressor route from FCP and have been bitten - hard, I may add, and on the bottom - by little bugs in FCP which lead to the brief flashes of red 'media not found' flash frames and sync issues. Others (me included) have found sync errors in this method - albeit some time ago in the 4.x or 5.x days.

These bite marks are long lasting and permanent, whilst the 'export to self contained movie' method has been full of warm and loving goodness, reliable, and it gives me something perfect to archive AND gives me my computer to use whilst the movie encodes.

There is one big hairy chested error that drives me nuts: if you batch export self-contained movies from FCP, it generates files that won't import into Episode or other encoding apps. I have to open each up in Movie Player and create pointer movies. This is a point I've sent into the Apple 'memory hole' bug reporting system for some time now, and nobody responds (quelle suprise). Maybe I shouldn't write in green crayon.

But I digress.

Originally Posted by Darren Ruddock

I shoot only progressive and mostly 720 25/50p and the down converts seem pretty damn good to me! No movement issues and hardly any jaggies.

AFAIK, 720 contains less detail than 1080, there's less of it to bunch up and cause jaggies at downconvert time. But the bandwidth is the same, so those pixels have more room to bounce around in (less motion artifacts for those who don't like Welsh lyricism). 720p rocks for SD IMHO. And there's some... who may point out amongst friends... that in most domestic and exhibition circumstances (prepares to duck and run) that 720p delivers all that a 1080 will deliver unless you're 'smelling the screen'.

I'm going to make an ISO of some 1080 and 720 footage for viewing on a BD player and let an ordinary human view it. At a comfortable distance. But the nurse says I must rest now.

[Simon Denny]

720/50p is great for down converting to SD DVD.
It just works better than anything else I have tried.

1080 i & p fails for SD at this time for me.

Simon

[Darren Ruddock]

Hi Matt,


This is probably the millionth time you have been asked this, but could you briefly run over your down conversion method?

I assume you edit in an HD timeline, export as a self contained movie then down convert in Compressor?

Just fill in the bits where I am wrong!

Interesting to see how a man of your experience is tackling the down conversion question.

Many thanks.

[Vincent Oliver]

I too have been experimenting with 720/50p for SD DVDs and am now getting the results I was hoping for from the beginning.

All I did was just output the Adobe Premiere 720/50p timeline to Encore CS3 and the results are spot on. No twitter, sharp images etc.

Previously I had been using the EX3 camera with 1440x1080 50i and tried most of the recommendations made on this forum. They all seem to involve such time consuming and complicated workarounds, and most of the results were disappointing.

Keep it simple

[Matt Davis]

Originally Posted by Darren Ruddock

Just fill in the bits where I am wrong!

Not wrong - just one crucial thing left out:

In Compressor, click on the Frame Controls tab, click the dark grey gear icon and select Frame Controls to 'On' in the pop-up. That's it. No need to change what's set already.

This enables the high quality scaling from Shake, and if you feed it 720p50, it will re-interlace it to 50i for you.

That's it. That's the magic sauce.

If you don't use Frame Controls, you're using the rather iffy scaling, and you'll get lumpy edges. As seen in the website.

BTW, I always export a self contained movie from FCP and compress from there. Lots of good reasons for this. I also tend to stick with the EX format from shoot to export, then compress or encode to the desired format. I've tried but not needed (yet) a ProRes workflow.

Originally Posted by Vincent Oliver

Keep it simple

Exactly. If you're mainly publishing for SD, with only a vain hope of lasting out to HD in the not so distant future, 720p is the way to go. And avoid that nasty interlace stuff!

[Vincent Oliver]

Originally Posted by Matt Daviss

, with only a vain hope of lasting out to HD in the not so distant future, 720p is the way to go. And avoid that nasty interlace stuff!

Not sure what you mean by "vain hope", but yes, I would love to produce everything in Full HD on Blu-Ray, but the market is not big enough for specialist DVDs using Blu-Ray.

Not by choice, I will still have to produce SD DVDs for the forseeable future.

[Matt Davis]

Originally Posted by Vincent Oliver

Not sure what you mean by "vain hope"

There's a couple of points to my vain hope of an HD future within European corporate video:

- Most UK punters are quite happy with DVD players that up-rez progressive material to HD screens

- When viewing HD at DOMESTIC viewing distances (had better preface that with European), BBC research demonstrated that most viewers with screens 42" and under are not going to fully benefit from 1080 and that 720 was sufficient.

- I've been creating video in 720p in WMV format for quite some time now, for use as a movie played back in PowerPoint and projected on high end equipment or displayed on good quality monitor panels. 1080 is still too much for most PCs.

- The price difference, non-rippability and smaller library of Blu-Ray over DVD isn't exactly helping the HD market. With my consumer hat on, and a few blu-ray titles on my shelf, I'm still liable to buy DVDs over BDs.

- In the UK, HD broadcasting does look better than Terrestrial Digital broadcasts, mainly because of the low bitrate and aggressive compression employed here in the UK. But DVD playback and upscaling of well compressed movies can fool most eyes.

- Most of my audience have DVD players in their PCs now (some corporate models are still hobbled). There is zero penetration of BD players. In event video, there's no desire to move up to HD.

So I will continue to shoot in 720p and deliver the occasional stunning WMV movie that makes people's jaws drop for a modest premium whilst accepting it's a SD world still (abeit 16:9). 1080 raw footage doesn't seem to downconvert as well or as quickly, and currently has very little to show it on. Nobody wants it, even at an SD price.

Hence the 'vain' hope of HD.

[John Peterson]

In Compressor, click on the Frame Controls tab, click the dark grey gear icon and select Frame Controls to 'On' in the pop-up. That's it. No need to change what's set already.

This enables the high quality scaling from Shake, and if you feed it 720p50, it will re-interlace it to 50i for you.

====================
Matt,

It seems safe to assume that here in NTSC land I would get the same results shooting in 720p/60 and downconverting to SD.

I use Vegas and not FCP, but I think you are saying one should render to 60i. Is that right?

John

[Darren Ruddock]

Hi again,

Regarding the Exporting as a Quicktime Self Contained movie, I can't seem to get the thing to export in 16:9! It only exports onto the desktop in 4:3.

If I open the self contained movie up in fcp it plays in 16:9. I remember having this problem before which is probably why I declined the self contained route!

Any ideas????