HD to SD
by Ryan Atkins
on
Jun 29, 2008 at 12:56:20 am
I wasn't real sure where this question belonged, but it was mostly a Final Cut question, more or less.
I'm going to be shooting a music video in HD. I'll be using the Sony HDR-FX1 which shoots in 1440x1080i. I've been playing around with different settings on Final Cut and Compressor on what will give the best quality video for DVD. What are the best settings for capture and timeline as well as Compressor settings? I've done everything from exporting with Quicktime Conversion and using H.264 to exporting to Compressor and using the DVD 90 min best quality.
This is a pretty detailed question, so if anyone knows of another section on Creative Cow or tutorial I can see I'm all for it. I've basically either gotten interlaced or kinda lower quality video. I'm just not real sure what works best. Obviously standard DVD will be degraded from HD, but I know it can be done.
Re: HD to SD by walter biscardi on Jun 29, 2008 at 12:43:17 pm
[Ryan Atkins]"I've done everything from exporting with Quicktime Conversion and using H.264 to exporting to Compressor and using the DVD 90 min best quality."
H.264 is for the Web and in some cases, BluRay disc. Never drop to H.264 before going to Compressor for DVD.
You capture / edit in HDV since that's what your camera shoots. If you have access to something like the AJA Kona boards, I high recommending converting to DVCPro HD or ProRes. Personally, we use DVCPro HD for all our HDV editing.
You export your HDV timeline to Compressor.
You make a 16:9 MPEG-2 with AC3 audio file for DVDSP
You create an SD 16:9 DVD in DVDSP that will play letterboxed on a standard 4:3 TV and full screen on a 16:9 widescreen TV.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.
Re: HD to SD by Ryan Atkins on Jun 29, 2008 at 3:37:12 pm
Would I then need to edit in HDV 1080i, or could I still use your mentioned format of DVCPro HD? I just don't remember if that format worked for me or not. I've been reading some about Deinterlacing and how it basically replaces the missing lines of resolution when you shoot in interlaced (such as my 1080i), which is what my camera does. My recent deinterlace project looked pretty good.
Re: HD to SD by walter biscardi on Jun 29, 2008 at 3:42:57 pm
[Ryan Atkins]"Would I then need to edit in HDV 1080i, or could I still use your mentioned format of DVCPro HD?"
You edit in 1080i no matter which of the formats you use. You only use DVCPro HD if you have hardware conversion to do this for you on the fly, like the AJA Kona boards do. If you don't have access to realtime hardware conversion, stay in HDV.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.
Re: HD to SD by Ryan Atkins on Jun 29, 2008 at 4:19:46 pm
Yeah definitely don't have the AJA, I'm editing on a MacBook Pro.
So let me get this right, basically capture in HDV 1080i, edit in HDV 1080i, and export to Compressor with a SD DVD setting (90, 120, 150) in 16:9, correct?
When I first started working with HD and interlaced video, I really saw the line breaks...does the output to Compressor and making it a DVD 90 min SD project automatically deinterlace it?
Whats your take on not getting the interlaced fields/deinterlacing?
Re: HD to SD by walter biscardi on Jun 29, 2008 at 9:54:58 pm
[Ryan Atkins]"So let me get this right, basically capture in HDV 1080i, edit in HDV 1080i, and export to Compressor with a SD DVD setting (90, 120, 150) in 16:9, correct?"
Yes.
[Ryan Atkins]"
When I first started working with HD and interlaced video, I really saw the line breaks...does the output to Compressor and making it a DVD 90 min SD project automatically deinterlace it?"
No, I never de-interlace video in compressor as this makes the video worse when you watch it on standard TV. Standard definition is an interlaced video format, compressor takes care of putting the fields in the correct order when you go from HD to SD.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.
Re: HD to SD by walter biscardi on Jun 30, 2008 at 2:12:41 am
[Ryan Atkins]"What about outputting in an HD file, like a QT H.264, or something? Not necessarily for Blu-Ray...mainly to be viewed on a computer, not web."
H.264 is just a codec. It can be SD, HD or just about anything else you want it to be. You just set the frame size, frame rate and data rate and encode. We use H.264's all the time for transcriptions and client reviews on the web.
It's a very compressed file so I would not use it to archive, but you can certainly use it to show back on a computer.
And FYI, we use MPEG-2 for all our BluRays.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.
Re: HD to SD by Ryan Atkins on Jun 30, 2008 at 2:14:03 am
I just tried the exact steps you mentioned, and I saw horizontal lines in my video. Am I doing something wrong, or is this normal for viewing on a standard def TV?
I have 2 links to pictures, to show you what I'm seeing.
Re: HD to SD by walter biscardi on Jun 30, 2008 at 12:34:09 pm
[Ryan Atkins]"I just tried the exact steps you mentioned, and I saw horizontal lines in my video. Am I doing something wrong, or is this normal for viewing on a standard def TV?"
Did you set Compressor to Lower Field First? NTSC Standard Def is lower field first.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.
Re: HD to SD by walter biscardi on Jun 30, 2008 at 1:08:08 pm
[Ryan Atkins]"I still see some horizontal lines - is this normal for the conversion. I set the fields to Lower and it seems I'm getting the same results."
Not sure what to tell you. As long as you have not altered the HDV 1080i timeline in any way or altered the Quicktime you sent to Compressor, you should get a good SD conversion. We do this all the time here from 1080i sources.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.
Re: HD to SD by Ryan Atkins on Jun 30, 2008 at 1:19:48 pm
Ok, for all I know something may have been altered. As you said, its can and has been done before. I'll just have to do a clean recording and edit and see what happens next time.
Re: HD to SD by Ryan Atkins on Jun 30, 2008 at 5:46:40 pm
Ok, maybe that was why Compressor had that field as a default, not sure. what i do know is that I could tell it was definitely interlaced viewing it on my monitor, haven't tried it on a TV yet. My timeline may have been altered, as Walter mentioned. I just know that the quality I saw was not even at the caliber of Standard Definition.
[Ryan Atkins]"what i do know is that I could tell it was definitely interlaced viewing it on my monitor, haven't tried it on a TV yet."
Ryan,
There are now seventeen posts in this thread, mine makes number eighteen, and in the whole time you've spent discussing interlace issues you never looked at your stuff on a TV or a real video monitor?
Computer monitors are not capable of displaying interlaced material properly without revealing the interlace. The better the monitor, the more your will see the interlace.
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: HD to SD by Chris Borjis on Jun 30, 2008 at 9:58:04 pm
[Ryan Atkins]"Ok, maybe that was why Compressor had that field as a default, not sure."
compressor in the presets I think defaults to "automatic" for field order interpretation. This is normally ok for compressing exports from final cut as self contained movies or directly from the timeline.
there is a bug in compressor though, where CAPTURED footage going straight to DVD will actually have incorrect field order jitter.
I have a special mpeg 2 dvd preset just for beta sp or digibeta captured only footage which forces upper field first or else I have problems.
Re: HD to SD by Jeremy Garchow on Jul 1, 2008 at 4:37:16 pm
[Chris Borjis]"I can confirm it by taking any footage from a pro deck and compressing it with ANY mpeg encoder out there mac or pc based. "
WIth other workflows and codecs, yes this may be true. It is codec/hardware dependent. In the Apple/FCP and all current and developing capture card companies world, captured SD 601 NTSC is lff, rendered as lff. What it does when it gets to tape can change, but in FCP, it's lff.
Re: HD to SD by Chris Borjis on Jul 1, 2008 at 5:19:18 pm
that is such an odd thing, must be a bug in quicktime, because if I don't force upper field first on pro deck captured material (no editing or going through final cut, just captured in final cut then compress the clips straight in compressor) I definitely have out of order jitter on playback. If I leave it set to auto interpret it also has the problem but only on captured clips.
Re: HD to SD by Jeremy Garchow on Jul 1, 2008 at 5:56:26 pm
[Chris Borjis]"If I leave it set to auto interpret it also has the problem but only on captured clips. "
Sometimes, Compressor will guess wrong. I constantly have to set it to lower field first on SD interlaced clips. Auto ain't auto enough, for me anyway.
