Up res without kona
by Amir Abed
on
Jun 29, 2009 at 5:41:13 pm
It seems like everyday I read something about using kona 3 to up rez SD to HD but I thought if you drop an SD clip into an HD timeline FCP automatically up rezes it. If this is true why use the kona 3?
Re: Up res without kona by Shane Ross on Jun 29, 2009 at 5:56:04 pm
It doesn't do nearly as good of a job. Hardware converters upscale much cleaner...less noise. Software conversions like what FCP does (AE does it better) just blows up the pixels, and whatever artifacting is there, gets made larger. Hardware scalers do a better job of extrapolating the information and filling in the blanks. Stand alone dubbing systems like Terranex and Snell Wilcox are better than even the Kona...but the Kona 3, or Matrox MXO2, are far better than software.
AE is better than FCP, but still not quite as good as a hardware scaler. Plus they take time. In a pinch if I had one or two small clips, I'd use it. But for mass amounts...can't go wrong with a good capture card. I now use the MXO2 and it does as good of a job as the Kona 3 from what I can tell. And the Kona LHi now does this too, as do the MXO2 mini and I/O Express.
Re: Up res without kona by Shane Ross on Jun 29, 2009 at 6:11:30 pm
My personal system has the MXO2...it is what I could afford. My work system has the Kona 3. See, I need Analog inputs as well as SDI, and also the ability to upconvert SD to HD. The Kona 3 only had SDI inputs...to get analog in I needed to spend $995 on a Component to SDI converter. Instead of doing that I bought the MXO2...because it did all that I needed...plus works on my laptop.
But now there are options...the Kona LHi has analog inputs (the LH series always has), but now it can upconvert SD to HD too..
Re: Up res without kona by walter biscardi on Jun 29, 2009 at 6:43:54 pm
[Shane Ross]"But now there are options...the Kona LHi has analog inputs (the LH series always has), but now it can upconvert SD to HD too.. "
Not to mention HD Cross Conversion too. (720 to 1080 or vice versa). Definitely a great option for the price. Basically does everything the Kona 3 does except for the very high end formats like 2k and Dual Link.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.
Re: Up res without kona by Shane Ross on Jun 29, 2009 at 8:11:37 pm
[walter biscardi]"Not to mention HD Cross Conversion too. (720 to 1080 or vice versa)... Basically does everything the Kona 3 does except for the very high end formats like 2k and Dual Link."
As does the MXO2. NIce to see these options in lower priced hardware. I never needed 2K support or Dual Link.
Re: Up res without kona by walter biscardi on Jun 29, 2009 at 8:27:37 pm
[Shane Ross]" NIce to see these options in lower priced hardware. "
Amen to that. I'm consulting with a local broadcaster converting them from SD to HD Post and we were going to purchase 8 of the Kona 3's but were able to change that out for the LHi's instead saving 50% on the order. Sweet!
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.
Re: Up res without kona by David Roth Weiss on Jun 29, 2009 at 5:56:11 pm
[Amir Abed]"I thought if you drop an SD clip into an HD timeline FCP automatically up rezes it. If this is true why use the kona 3?"
Hardware up-conversion on the Kona3 is realtime and it's generally better quality than most software up-conversions, including the built-in scaler in FCP.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW's Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.
Re: Up res without kona by Brent Streeper on Jun 30, 2009 at 9:22:55 pm
I am actually in the process of doing a comparison between software and hardware upresing.
So far I've been most impressed with Shake's upscaling abilities, but the Boris plug-in, UpRez does a really great job as well. When either of these are combined with a denoise filter, like RE:vision's DE:noise or the Foundry's denoiser in their Furnace bundle, the results are very good. There is definitely render time involved, but if you're willing to leave your machine rendering overnight and you're not in a huge time-crunch, it might not be a bad way to go.
I haven't run the hardware test yet, but as soon as I figure out a way to get the signal from my laptop into the Kona3 I'll let you know. :)
In fact, if anybody has a suggestion on how to do it, I'd be grateful. Right now my set-up is firewire out of the laptop, into an AJA IO. Component out from the IO into an SDI converter box. From there it's SDI into the back of the K3 breakout box. I think that should be right.
Re: Up res without kona by walter biscardi on Jun 30, 2009 at 10:01:56 pm
[Brent Streeper]"I haven't run the hardware test yet, but as soon as I figure out a way to get the signal from my laptop into the Kona3 I'll let you know. :) "
How are you looking at your HD test then? You need to view your tests on a proper broadcast HD monitor in order to do any real comparisons.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.
Re: Up res without kona by Guillem Ventura on Jul 1, 2009 at 5:12:16 pm
IMHO I guess the best place to test the Results is not only as a viewer in a broadcast monitor but in Shake or an alike where synthetic methods of comparing similar pitures can be done. Usually it would be substracting one image from the other and multiplying the result *50 to scale the difference...
On the naked eye some differences just can-t be told and most of the Color-grading monitors still exhibit some ghosting, so I wouldn-t just stuck to it (my thought)
