Aliasing/twittering EX1

[Craig Seeman]

[Olly Lawer] “I am at a cross roads of whether to send the EX1 back and get another camera.”

Imagine sending a camera back because the resolution is too high.
BTW if you look at the Vortex training DVD that’s all EX downconverted to SD. Doug Jensen mentions on some forums he does this all the time without issue.

Like any good DP you need to know what your target is. The problem is thin lines and the camera’s excellent ability to resolve them in HD.

There are a number of possible solutions ranging from turning down edge detail, softening the image slightly in post maybe shooting 720p rather than 1080p, getting higher end downconversion software or hardware.

Yes having a higher quality source does require a bit more thinking.

[Olly Lawer]

I know sending it back because the resolution is too high would be nuts, but if you read through the threads, then it seems there is no solution to getting good quality SD DVDs from the EX1…even extending to the review pro video coalition did on the EX1. (https://provideocoalition.com/index.php/awilt/story/review_sony_pmw_ex1_1_2_3_cmos_hd_camcorder)

The Vortex DVD does look better then some other SD down converts i’ve seen, but his DVD contains a lot of aliasing, which spoils the image.

I have just read an inspiring post where it seems someone has had some success. Thanks for your help.

Everyone has to start somewhere…

[Craig Seeman]

Adam Wilt’s comment in the comments below the article:

Eero: solving DVD creation problems is too big a topic for the comments section of a camera review (!); best start a thread in the forums: https://provideocoalition.com/index.php/forums/. All I can suggest (and all I’ll say here) is that you probably need to filter the high detail frequencies, especially vertically, to get the picture to look clean and quiescent on a standard-def interlaced display; HD downscaled to SD without prefiltering can alias severely, cause cross-color on composite feeds, and twitter insanely on CRTs.

You really just need to know what to do and have the right software/hardware to get good results.
That you think there is “no solution” itself doesn’t make sense. If that were true you’d never see a good DVD coming from F23 or RED ONE cameras. You need to understand the workflow and get the right software/hardware to do a proper downconversion.

[Olly Lawer]

I meant more no easy solution that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg or rather no solution with the current set-up I have EX1/FCP/COMPRESSOR/DVDPRO.

Although having dug a bit deeper there is hope that I can get quality results with the kit I have. Noah’s DVD should provide a good way of doing this.

As I said, everyone starts somewhere and as technology gets better, it also gets a damn lot more complicated. Thankfully, these forums exist and people like yourself are willing to give their knowledge to help, if i was stuck with the manual…

[Don Greening]

It would seem that Adam Wilt’s recommendation for reducing line twitter with a Final Cut Pro HD to SD down convert is to use the motion blur filter with a sample setting of 1 (one). This apparently makes FCP do a much better job during the down conversion process. He also suggests experimenting with varying amounts of the flicker filter.

– Don

[Will Griffith]

For me FCP has always been a horrible converter.

The only way we could fix HDV conversions for BetaSP
was to use a Kona and its hardware downconvert.

Right now I don’t even bother with FCP or Compressor’s
conversions and just use the IOHD with the EX3.
It also saves on rendering.

[Steve Connor]

Olly,

I’m just finishing my 3rd commercial DVD release that was partially shot with EX1/EX3’s in 50i mode alongside an HDcam HDW790. To date we have sold some 5000 copies of the first two releases without a single mention of any problems with the pictures, in fact we get great comments about picture quality I simply edit in FCP and make an SD Mpeg 2 file directly from the HD timeline and the results have no problems at all.

If you check my e-bay store and look at my feedback on the following titles “The Shuttleworth Collection 2008” and “Flying Legends 2008” you will see people are very happy with the results!

https://stores.ebay.co.uk/Aviation-DVD-Store

I also have some web videos here which have EX content on, I know they aren’t SD as such, but if there was a downconversion problem then it would show with Web Video as well.

https://www.vimeo.com/user542524/videos The B17 video on this site was entirely shot on the EX1

I have even made NTSC versions of the discs with no issues.

Yes, you should turn the detail down, I’m not quite sure what all the hysteria is about the EX not doing good SD. I’m more than happy with it.

Steve Connor
Adrenalin Television

Have you tried “Search Posts”? Enlightenment may be there.

[Olly Lawer]

Thanks Steve,

It’s good to hear that you are getting pleasing results without the need for expensive equipment.

So are you simply editing in HD and then using compressor to downconvert to SD using MPEG-2? Are you rending in ProRes?

Thanks – after putting my debts to the limit to make this happen (a childhood dream and if you don’t try, you never know!) I did panic a bit reading those posts and not getting good results from the supposive KenStone fix – unless I was doing wrong of course.

[Steve Connor]

I just simply use compressor to make an Mpeg2 from my HD timeline, I actually use DVCPro HD on these projects because of the smaller disc space, but the reults are even better in ProRes.

The EX is a great camera, dial down or switch off the detail and you shouldn’t have any problems.

Steve Connor
Adrenalin Television

Have you tried “Search Posts”? Enlightenment may be there.

[Olly Lawer]

Steve,

I tried your method, but I must be going wrong somewhere as I DVD Pro doesn’t recognize the format when I encode to MPEG-2 Elementary Stream.

Basically, I edited in HD in FCP – rendering to ProRes. I then sent the file to Compressor and selected MPEG-2 (I didn’t change any of the settings). When I import the finished encode into DVD Pro, it tells me the format is invalid.

I think I need a good book on compressor!