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Down convert HDV to SD in Compressor. Special Settings?
Hi. I’ve got some HDV 1080i60i that I would like to down convert to anamorphic DV NTSC. I’ve read that compressor is the best way of doing this as opposed to simply outputting the HDV footage in FCP as DV. Is this true?
This is my first encounter with Compressor, & it seems I’m doing something wrong because the converted footage looks terrible (that is worse than expected). I’m using the ‘anamorphic DV NTSC’ setting already prepared in Compressor.
I was wondering how can I get better results in compressor? Am I doing something wrong or are there some settings that I should custom tweek for the best results?
This is the first time I’ve used compressor & really want to understand how to use it properly. Any advice or knowledge is greatly appreciated.
Also on a side note the HDV is shot with the Z1U & I am splicing it with anamorphic DV footage from a DVX100 thats also 60i. I was wondering if anyone knows from experience if downconverted HDV can be made to look as good of quality as uncompressed footage from the DVX?
Thanks again!
Mike
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7 Replies
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make a copy of the apple preset your using.
enable the resize filter and put the setting at best quality.
that will make a BIG difference.
try the uncompressed 8-bit as well.
converting it to DV may make it look really bad. -
[Michael Garske] “uncompressed footage from the DVX” the DVX is not uncompressed footage, not sure what you mean here.
What are you viewing the footage on to evaluate it? Can you be more specific about footage looking terrible.
I don’t use HDV but a while back a friend of mine did a test of importing a clip into Compressor vs. sending the clip from a FCP timeline by Export to Compressor. The Export to compressor was much better.
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Oh. Sorry wrong terminology. I just meant raw footage from a DVX, if anyone happens to be familiar with the image that it produces at 60i. And to give you an idea of what I mean by terrible, after the HDV was converted it looked something like a YouTube video, lol. It was pretty pixalated & muddled looking. This was using the ‘anamorphic DV NTSC’ setting. I still haven’t had an opportunity to try enabling the resize filter though. That may solve the problem. Ultimately, I’m hoping that I can match the DVX footage as closly as possible. However, So far the conversion is far from looking even SD quality. I didn’t think that down converting 1080i to SD would look any worse than SD shot on a three chip camera such as the DVX, I was hoping it may even look slightly better if not the same. Does anyone have any insight on this? Thanks
Mike
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This is a response to my own post. After many many tests, I’ve decided to Down Convert within FCP from HDVi60 through down sizing into an uncompressed 8-bit timeline. After rendering it out, I open another timeline & print to a DV-CAM tape.
This, despite many recommendations to use Compressor for down conversion, seems to be the best way of doing it. I ran dozens of tests in compressor to see if it would provide better image quality, & from the tests I ran I see that it does not (not recognizably at any rate).
As for the practicality of down converting I would say it’s better to shoot SD if that’s your final output. The HDV footage was shot with a Z1U & the SD was shot using a DVX100 at 60i. The footage quality of the DVX100 is NOTICEABLY better than the down converted HDV shot with the Z1U. (That’s in every test both with Compressor & FCP)
Also the down converted footage doesn’t do well with quick camera movements or pans. There’s quite a bit of ghosting in the image during such instances.
Therefore if you’re going to edit and output SD, shoot SD. That’s unfortunately what I should have been doing from the start. Hopefully someone out there can find this helpful to not make the same mistake that I have. 🙂
Mike
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Mike, I saw your post about downconverting.
I have the Z1U and I don’t want to downconvert from HDV but I’m having trouble deciding on the right capture and output codes to use in FCStudio 6.
I get a lot of artifacts around the edges when there’s movement. Very bad since I shoot a lot of dance. Any ideas for the capture settings, sequence settings, and setting for export to QT?
I’ve been using apple ProRez 422 HQ 1920×1080 60i.
Nancy -
Well, here we are at Johnson Video Productions in Puyallup, WA, just starting down the HDV path. I ordered a Sony HDR-V1U and started the process of down converting HDV to SD for preparation to export to DVD Studio Pro.
The last three SD DVDs I’ve done using different settings has created an SD DVD that looks terrible. I read with interest the post from Mike who suggested shooting in SD as long as we are outputting to SD.
Did you ever get this work flow problem figured out; what settings to use, codecs, etc?
I would really appreciate hearing from you, even if it’s just a reliable link you’ve found describing the “BEST” process for optimum results.
With appreciation,
Leon Johnson
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Hey Leon,
I did get it to work with some success. However, the steps that I took to do so were extremely time consuming.
First I captured the HDV footage 1080i60 in FCP, then I would drop it into a timeline & space each clip with a couple seconds of black between them. Although I don’t remember the particulars, as I haven’t had access to an FCP system in quite some time. I would then do some brief color corrections in FCP, down-convert the timeline to some flavor of DVCAM (don’t recall which) & print the timeline to a DVCAM tape. This way I have a HD tape and a SD tape, which, is CC with only usable & organized clips. Then I would recapture the DVCAM tape into my PC system using Vegas.
There is probably a much simpler way of doing this using Compressor. I wasn’t successful in getting any decent results with Compressor & since I needed the SD clips for a PC system the most logical path for me was to recapture them. I felt it was easiest & most effective to do the whole thing in FCP. The quality didn’t seem to suffer at all using FCP exclusively as opposed to using Compressor.
Also just shooting in SD would be much simpler. But if you can shoot HD may as well.
Hope this helps some. If you discover any settings that work well please give a holler.
Mike
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