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Increasing resolution by lateral thinking
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?
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15 Replies
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Well let’s see, 480+480 = 960, so your odd frame size would be around 960×720. 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?
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Have a wonderful day.
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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.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions -
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.
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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.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions -
Time is money.
Better to just shoot it in HD and redirect your effort into making a great movie with a great story imo.
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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)… -
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!
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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.
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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.
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Hi
Well Michael Wadleigh’s “Woodstock” solved that problem in 1969, with 3 low-res 16mm movie images pip’d across the 70mm wide screen 😉
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