Increasing resolution by lateral thinking
by 1000dollarfilm
on
Sep 27, 2007 at 10:35:29 am
Hi,
We have an idea, but my technical knowledge isn't strong enough to figure out an effective post production workflow to pull it off.
The basic problem we set ourselves was to find a way of getting a better picture quality out of basic DV cameras. In fact, to increase the resolution and sharpness to the point where you could project the image successfully to cinema screen sizes without the image falling apart.
We decided that one way to do this would be to throw the camera through 90 degrees and shoot portrait... then form our 16:9 finished frame from Two rotated 4:3 images. So, if we had a dialogue sequences there would be two cameras each providing 50% of the image, but frame in frame (we're not going to try to merge the images from two camera, we're not completely insane! LOL)
Basically this would mean there were more pixels from the camera to fill the pixel spaces in the frame.
What we can't figure out is how to create a workflow in FCP that takes best advantage of this.
Any thoughts on how we can create a FCP workflow that takes best advantage of our acquisition plan. Or have we completely missed the point because of a faulty understanding of the issues?
Re: Increasing resolution by lateral thinking by Chris Poisson on Sep 27, 2007 at 12:28:59 pm
Well let's see, 480+480 = 960, so your odd frame size would be around 960x720. Unfortunately, because of pixel aspect ratios, the math isn't that simple, and then you have fields to consider, not to mention, a seam between your clips.
It is an interesting idea, perhaps it will work, you'd have to see what kind of distortions happen that may look cool, dunno.
There's also playback issues, it ain't gonna playback on a DV rig, you'll need some kind of HD card.
There's always uprezing a single DV image, but that take so much time, and there's so many decent HDV cameras, or an HVX200, why bother?
Re: Increasing resolution by lateral thinking by Herb Sevush on Sep 27, 2007 at 1:01:22 pm
The main limitations with projecting DV encoded video are not merely pixel count - they are the loss of detail in DV sampling, and the base problem of NTSC recording - interlacing. Neither of these problems would be addressed in your imaginative but cumbersome work flow. Any HD format would be superior, even HDV.
However, if you want to try it, just shoot as you suggested, import normally, then drop your video onto an HD Timeline. Rotate and position your 2 streams of video and be prepared to render away.
Re: Increasing resolution by lateral thinking by 1000dollarfilm on Sep 27, 2007 at 2:25:56 pm
Sincere and big thanks to both of you!
Interesting -- if we drop them onto a HDV timeline, will we need to resize/reshape the pixels?
Oh, and I apologise... I forgot to mention that we're shooting in PAL.
As to the reason we're even bothering, well, that's a slightly different story.
We're sort of obsessed with micro budget film making and although we can get access to any number of HDV and full HD cameras, were also interested in figuring out ways to make stuff of cinema quality regardless of what kit you've got to shoot on.
So, because we know that there is still more DV out there than HD, and DV camera prices are falling through the floor, we wanted to see whether creativity and lateral thinking could make up for anyone's short fall in budget.
Re: Increasing resolution by lateral thinking by Herb Sevush on Sep 27, 2007 at 2:37:11 pm
You can be as creative as you like but you still can't get there from here ... HD is more than just as increase in pixels.
Also you don't want to use an HDV timeline - create either an uncompressed 8 bit timeline, if you have the drive capacity and speed, or a DVCPRO HD timeline. HDV is a major headache and is best seen as an origination medium only - I wouldn't even put HDV originals on a HDV timeline. Don't worry about your pixel shape - FCP will take care of that for you when it renders your material to HD. FCP is fine with PAL. You will have to decide upon an HD frame size, 720 or 1080, and a frame rate, although 24P makes the most sense, since you're going to film.
Re: Increasing resolution by lateral thinking by PaulD on Sep 27, 2007 at 3:02:13 pm
Hi
Use a DVCPro HD camera - isn't that how that codec is derived - in effect using 4 DV encoder chips simultaneously to give DV quality at HD(ish) frame size (plus some extra colour resolution as a bonus)...
Re: Increasing resolution by lateral thinking by SmushMac on Sep 27, 2007 at 3:13:14 pm
heh... well I guess that's one way to go.
I think it's a great idea 1000dollarfilm. Especially for students who want to make their films look more professional and have no money whatsoever.
I understand where all these tech guys are coming from and it may be that just caving in and using an HD camera is the thing to do, but if you want to explore other avenues, I say more power to ya!
Re: Increasing resolution by lateral thinking by 1000dollarfilm on Sep 27, 2007 at 4:26:46 pm
Thanks Herb, I think we'll throw up a DVCProHD timeline and have a play.
Thanks to everyone else as well. We know you're right, it would be easier to shoot on Varicam... but, there's more to this project than simply finding the simplest route from point A to point B.
If anyone else has got any bright ideas about how we can get the most out of DV in post, regardless of how off beat, we'd be massively interested.
Re: Increasing resolution by lateral thinking by Wayne Carey on Sep 27, 2007 at 4:59:44 pm
Do you have access to a Mac with an AJA Kona 3 installed?
If so, just edit DV 16:9 and uprez it on output. It still won't have full HD quality but there are many people who do this all of the time. There are lots of small low budget features done like this.
_______________________________
Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
www.schazamproductions.com
http://blogs.creativecow.net/waynecarey
Re: Increasing resolution by lateral thinking by Borjis on Sep 28, 2007 at 3:27:50 am
[1000dollarfilm]"If anyone else has got any bright ideas about how we can get the most out of DV in post, regardless of how off beat, we'd be massively interested."
I have the definitive answer for you and it is your only best and practical option imo.
buy Stu Maschwitz "DV Rebel's Guide" book.
All of your answers and more are there. A highly recommended read for everyone here at the cow.
Re: Increasing resolution by lateral thinking by Uli Plank on Sep 28, 2007 at 5:58:42 am
Well, we have done this before cheap HD was all around with quite good success for a film trailer, using three images from rotated DV camcorders. The project was graphics heavy, so it was all done in After Effects instead of FCP. What we did:
- de-interlaced all footage with the help of FieldsKit ( www.revisionfx.com )
- smoothed chroma with Graeme Nattress' filter
The results didn't look like coming from video at all, but recently we did a similar project with a 900,- Euro camcorder from Canon (the HV 20), ingested via HDMI, and it looked as good and was far less hazzle
Re: Increasing resolution by lateral thinking by Jeff Carson on Sep 27, 2007 at 4:30:00 pm
Let's see, matching/aligning two DV cameras with two crappy lenses that each introduce distortion and color aberrations? Hhhhmmm, what else can go wrong? Vertical field artifacts could be rather interesting. Good luck.
Re: Increasing resolution by lateral thinking by mattjgerard on Sep 27, 2007 at 10:56:29 pm
Man, I wish I had the time to think about stuff like that. I have software that I don't use because i don't have the time to learn it (Color, LightWave). Deadlines are deadlines! I get paid pretty well for what I do, but how do you make any money working on Micro budget films?
Don't get me wrong, i am always looking for ways to do things faster/better/cheaper while keeping quality and creativity up. Good for you for brainstorming, its the way things get figured out.
Re: Increasing resolution by lateral thinking by 1000dollarfilm on Sep 28, 2007 at 9:04:06 am
Big thanks to all of you, we're going to look into everything.
We also apreciate everyone who took the time to challenge our basic premise... we do absolutely believe that micro-budget shouldn't mean a compromise in quality. In terms of our own project, we will shoot on the best format we can acquire.
However, we're also passionate about helping people make good movies even when they've got incredibly limited resources. An even deeper belief is that the quality of the story you tell, can overcome for the audience a less than perfect image (from a technical POV)... but, with that said we still think that it's important to be able to push the technical performance of whatever kit you've to the edge of its limitations.
