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Resizing Archival Footage
I am resizing some archival footage from Prelinger to display on a computer monitor.
The final product is going to be a 640×480 DVI signal displayed on computer monitor. The Prelinger footage uses the mp4 codec with a 320×240 resolution. Prelinger also offers Mpeg-2 files but they come in a larger resolution and a strange aspect ratio. I will find out the resolution of the mpeg-2 files tomorrow.
I am trying to figure out the workflow path that will yield the highest quality video. If the footage is imported in to Avid it will obviously lose some quality when the media is recreated in Avid. I tried AvidFX, but you have to use the transform tool to scale up the footage. I am going to try the options in Quicktime Pro tomorrow.
There must be a better way to resize the video footage. Any input will be greatly appreciated.
Thank you for your time,
M.Tapp
By the way, if you haven’t already come across Prelinger already there is a ton of great archival footage on the site and all of it is under a Creative Commons license.
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8 Replies
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Uprezzing the 320×240 clips is going to look terrible. You should definitely use the MPG2 clips. I doubt they’re a strange size…I could be wrong but I’m pretty sure broadcast SD MPG2 is almost always 720×480 and the aspect ratio can be 4:3 or 16:9. The MPG2 spec allows many other sizes both horizontally and vertically….and a quick search turned up the following, but I can’t imagine a video archive would go lower than that standard definition size:
Application-specific restrictions on MPEG-2 video in the DVB standard:
Allowed resolutions for SDTV:
720, 640, 544, 528, 480 or 352 × 480 pixel, 24/1.001, 24, 30/1.001 or 30 frame/s
* 352 × 240 pixel, 24/1.001, 24, 30/1.001 or 30 frame/s
* 720, 704, 544, 528, 480 or 352 × 576 pixel, 25 frame/s
* 352 × 288 pixel, 25 frame/sFor HDTV:
* 720 x 576 x 50 frame/s progressive (576p50)
* 1280 x 720 x 25 or 50 frame/s progressive (720p50)
* 1440 or 1920×1080 x 25 frame/s progressive (1080p25 film mode)
* 1440 or 1920 x 1080 x 25 frame/s interlace (1080i50)
* 1920 x 1080 x 50 frame/s progressive (1080p50)future H.264/AVCIf you load the MPG2 clip into a NLE or an encoding app, or even media players like VLC it should tell you the pixel size, pixel aspect etc.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
The MPEG-2 clips are 368×480 and 360×480. I use the free, downloadable MPEG Streamclip utility to convert the MPEG-2 clips to DV. As far as I know, that’s about the best you can do with what we offer online.
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[Michael Tapp] “There must be a better way to resize the video footage”
Yes there are. Depends on what software/hardware tools you have available or what budget there is to buy something new.
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Sent from my iPad Nano. -
Looks like the mpeg-2 files are the way to go. I’m going to conduct some more tests with QT Pro tomorrow morning.
What other software/hardware do you recommend? By the way, https://publicdomainfootage.com/ has some hi-rez(and kinda pricey) public domain footage if you need it.
Thank you for your help.
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Thank you Mr. Perlinger. I just contacted Getty about obtaining the high-rez clips.
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Thank you for your help. You’re definitely right, mpeg-2 is the way to go.
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I believe Handbrake can convert MPG2 to something you can use in Avid, and MPEG Streamclip likely could too. You don’t say if you’re on Windows or Mac, but you should have the needed Avid codecs installed on a Windows system. I’m just not sure if Handbrake or Streamclip will use system codecs or if they just use their own.
If you’re on Windows, a decent freebie encoder is MediaCoder, although it’s got some annoying popups and ad banners when you first install it (all can be turned off but it takes a little digging).
Another decent Windows freebie is Quick Media Converter https://www.cocoonsoftware.com/
Both of those apps will use whatever codecs you’ve got installed, so Avid codecs should be options on Windows.
If you’re on Mac, I’ll defer to others.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
[Chris Blair] “I believe Handbrake can convert MPG2 to something you can use in Avid”
Handbrake is a free MPEG-4/x264 transcoder. That’s all.
[Chris Blair] “MPEG Streamclip likely could too”
Only via the Avid Quicktime Codecs, if they are installed.
Bottom line here is that unless you get the settings exactly right in the external transcoder, then the Avid will want to render everything again, so your best bet is to drop them into the Avid and let it do a resize and codec transcode at the same time.
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Sent from my iPad Nano.
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