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Am I out of luck with HDTVs using miniDV footage?
Hi everyone,
We have footage shot and edited in 4:3. When this footage is played back on a widescreen TV, it looks pretty bad. Certain parts of the shot are glitchy. and before i just go and take all of my effects off in FCP to reduce this annoyance as much as possible, I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions? Is there a possible compression setting that I can change so the playback is clearer? We are nervous that anyone with an HDTV will not be able to enjoy our videos because of this annoyance. I’m sure it probably just has to do with the way we shot it, and there is no cure. Can someone confirm this? The thing is it looks fine with effects and all on an interlaced 4:3 TV, is there a balance that can be found in picture quality between a 4:3 and a widescreen tv for miniDV footage?Thanks,
-Mike
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30 Replies
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Mini DV footage looks pretty crappy on HDTV, especially if you let it stretch out. You should never do that, play it in 4:3 and it will look better. Not great, but better.
It’s 720×480 5:1 compressed material playing out on a very high resolution screen that picks up all the problems of any video.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”Read my blog! https://blogs.creativecow.net/WalterBiscardi
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Is there any compression that might clear it up even a little bit? Perhaps the ‘progressive’ field option in the Compressor inspector?
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I completely agree with Walter.
One thing you might try to minimize the damage is using FCP’s Color Smoothing 4:1:1 filter. It might help the video scale better.
Also, changing the codec of the timeline to a codec with a 4:2:2 color space (like DVCPRO50) might help your effects and titles. If you go this route, check out Natress’ Standards Converter. It has a DV 4:1:1 to 4:2:2 converter that you can use on your footage instead of FCP’s color smoothing filter.
-Russ
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[tyshpix] “s there any compression that might clear it up even a little bit? Perhaps the ‘progressive’ field option in the Compressor inspector?”
Nope. Even uncompressed standard definition does not look good on HDTV monitors. That’s the nature of these displays. They are incredibly high resolution so low resolution material looks really bad. That’s why we keep our Sony PVM CRT monitors around, SD looks fantastic on those.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”Read my blog! https://blogs.creativecow.net/WalterBiscardi
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It’s actually Film Effects that has the chroma upsampling. Try G Chroma Sharpen which can do wonders on SD scaled up to HD.
Graeme
– http://www.nattress.com – Film Effects and Standards Conversion for FCP
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Graeme I’ve been meaning to ask, will your filters work on FCP 6?
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This falls into the category of firing up the chain saw to cut some butter, but I thought I’d share anyway.
If you have to run DV footage on an HD monitor for a client screening, it might be worth while experimenting with one of the software scalers, like Instant HD or ReSizer.
https://redgiantsoftware.com/instanthd.html
https://www.digitalanarchy.com/resizer/resizer_main.html
And, extending the saw analogy even further, if you decide only the diamond tipped blade will do for your butter cutting, look into teranex mini converters.
https://teranexlive.dimentians.com/home/platforms/Mini.cfm
Be well.
Tom M
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Yes, they do work in FCP6.
Graeme
– http://www.nattress.com – Film Effects and Standards Conversion for FCP
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With an HDTV and correct viewing distance, nobody should be able to distinguish your DV from real HD. And after watching some pretty nasty broadcast HD, DV would be preferable. If what you’re seeing is not just the native quality of your video (have you tried piping the DV from the deck direct to the display), then something else could be amiss.
After all, our 23″ Apple displays are HD, and good DV, either progressive or correctly de-interlaced can look very good on them, and even web video downloads of ~SD rez, especially if they’re 16:9 don’t look too attrocious full screen, and from a slightly greater than normal viewing distance look absolutely fine.
The software out there that does a better uprez might be a cool idea, but get the demo and do a similar scale in FCP (high qaulity mode). You’ll probably find you’ll have a hard time eyeballing a difference under normal viewing. FCP is also much easier to use….
Graeme
– http://www.nattress.com – Film Effects and Standards Conversion for FCP
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[Graeme Nattress] ”
With an HDTV and correct viewing distance, nobody should be able to distinguish your DV from real HD.”Dude, there is no way DV is indistinguishable from HD no matter how far away you stand from my Panasonic Pro Plasmas and that includes feeding DV directly from the DV deck. Well I guess if you stand 50′ away from it, maybe, but from any normal viewing distance DV looks like DV (pretty crappy) on an HD Plasma screen.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”Read my blog! https://blogs.creativecow.net/WalterBiscardi
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