best method for downscaling from hd to sd

[Mark Morache]

I generally edit everything in native HD, and export a finished QT movie, then I’ll put the HD QT file through compressor to create the SD assets for my dvd.

I’m leary of the presets in the Share menu. Is this what gave you the poor dvd results?

I’ve gotten good results from this.

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FCX. She tempts me, abuses me, beats me up, makes me feel worthless, then in the end she comes around, helps me get my work done, gives me hope and I can’t stop thinking about her.

Mark Morache
Avid/Xpri/FCP7/FCX
Evening Magazine,Seattle, WA
https://fcpx.wordpress.com

[Ben Scott]

other option I have been using is just cut your hd content into an sd project or copy paste to it, then do your crops if necessary

the scaler is nicer in FCPX by a big way

the upscaling is OK, not as nice as a kona card

the frame rate conversions are not bad either, think they are set to motion blur setting like available as mid setting in compressor

[Andy Neil]

Unfortunately, the reason hollywood movies look so much better on SD is because they are shot on 2K, 4K or film so the footage they are working with is of a higher caliber than HD, and they use hardware encoders that are extremely expensive.

Consumers and prosumers make do with software encoders. I tend to follow Mark’s method myself when converting HD to SD.

Andy

https://www.timesavertutorials.com

[Chris Walker]

Replying to all of you guys..
Wanted to share with you that I found a method that works much better than anything I’ve been able to do in Compressor. What you do is export a prores 422 file of your fcp x project, then open that up in Mpeg Streamclip and export an anamorphic 4:3 version, quicktime PR422 rather than DV. Settings are max quality, better Downscaling, Deinterlace Video, upper field Dom. Also, Cropping: 9 on the L & R to prevent small black bars from appearing due to the aspect ratio conversion. Then use that file to make your compressed mpeg-2 in Compressor, making sure you have aspect ratio set at 16×9. What a difference.. for the first time I see a result that looks better than with footage originally shot in sd.
I’m surprised to hear you say putting the hd footage on an sd timeline works well: when I try it the result is much softer than with SD footage. Did you apply some kid of sharpening or deinterlacing?

[Roy Maya]

I’m a big fan of Streamclip also. Probably the best software scaler out there. I’ve been really happy with the downscaling of HD footage to SD.

[Nikola Bizic]

Downscaling in FCPX is not that good as in FCP 7.

Maybe is sharper but there is much more jigsaw edges than in any other way of downscaling.

I am working 2 TV shows shoot in HD and I tested all methods, software and hardware.

MPEG Streamclip is maybe closest to hardware downscaling.
Compressor is also good but you have to change frame controls and they are different from clip to clip.
And Shake of Corse but who is using Shake today?

I’m little bit disappointed that Apple didn’t do the same thing with FCPX.

I like to do it all in one peace of software and for that FCP 7 is great tool.
All titles, CC, downscaling etc.

I don’t think that apple will change any thing in that segment of FCPX.
That makes me sad because sometimes you have to cut every thing in SD.

So my workflow for good downscaling results in FCPX will be like this

FCPX
Just cut in HD than export to HD (export number 1)
Downscale it MPEG Streamclip export to SD (export number 2)
Finish it in FCPX titles etc. (in may case all graphic is in SD, jingle etc.) final export to SD (export number 3)

File number one HD ProRes
File number two SD ProRes
Final SD ProRes

FCP7
Create SD sequence.
Cut, put the entire graphic, color correct, export.

So many steps in FCPX just to avoid that horrible jigsaw edges.

MacPro octocore 2.8
macbook pro

[Steve Macdonald]

Hello! I don’t see where you can export an anamorphic 4:3 in Mpeg Stream Clip? I see a standard 4:3 export.
If I may, let me ask this question for anyone to respond on this forum. What’s the difference between bringing HD to SD via an Anamorphic 4:3 setting and doing it via a letterbox method utilizing a NTSC DV setting in fcp7?
appreciate the input.

[Drea Solan]

Hey Nikola,

Can you further clarify your comments with regards to FCP 7? That is, if one wants to create and edit a FCP 7 project in SD for output to DVD, do you feel one can do just fine by merely dropping in HD footage clips (1920×1080 30p) into the SD timeline? Will the resulting exported material look better than if the original footage was shot in SD? So in this scenario is downsampling the HD clips via MPEG Streamclip beforehand nice but not required? Also, do you happen to know if the same applies to FCP 6.06?

Thanks a lot.

[Kati Haapamäki]

I think that it’s a common pitfall to judge different downscaling methods only by looking at image sharpness. The problem with many software scalers is, that they produce *too* sharp results. Sharpness usually means also aliased (=jagged) edges, moire and flicker in thin, high contrast lines.

When you do downsampling, the original image must be low-pass filtered, for example by pre-blurring. If it’s not, the result is sharp, but also aliased with ugly edges. Of course this depends on the original material and how sharp it is, but generally low-pass pre-filtering is mandatory. Besides the bicubic algorithm, that many software scalers use, is not good with lower than 0.5 scaling factor. 

I have been doing some testing with After Effects, Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro 7 / X, Mpeg StreamClip and AJA Kona hardware scaling. The best so far has been FCP X. It produces very nice anti-aliased image. It also seems to do the processing in linear 1.0 gamma, which gives generally better results. Now I hear some arguments that it’s result is too soft. Yes, it’s a bit soft, but remember it’s SD, not HD. It’s not supposed to be sharp 🙂 Besides FCP X performs a correct color space conversion between HD and SD, which indeed is quite exceptional. Anyway if you think the result is too soft for you, try to add some sharpening afterwards.

As a huge fan of After Effects, I must have faced the fact that doesn’t do a good job with downscaling. Its bicubic resampling really needs some pre-blurring. But you can help yourself. Try to add some Gaussian Blur before scaling with amount of 1.2 to 1.5, if you are converting from HD1080 to SD, and less if you’re converting from HD720. And again, you can add a little amount of Unsharp Mask afterwards to get some sharpness back. Try amount of 20 to 30 and radius of 1.0. 

Premiere Pro is not doing much better than AE without help of CUDA. I just read that with CUDA, PPro uses lanczos2 algorithm instead of bicubic, but I haven’t had possibility to test it. I’ll keep you posted, if I get some tests done with CUDA.

FCP 7 has basically the same problem in progressive scaling than AE. You can use the same pre-blurring/post-sharpening method than with AE. Results are very decent, if you can use progressive workflow (footage and sequences all set to “none fields”). If you have interlaced material, it’s not that happy story. The result is soft even without any pre-blurring and sharp edges looks weird and ugly like they were duplicated or something. FCP 7 has some severe problems with handling interlaced material. But I think you all knew this already.

Mpeg StreamClip is not a solution for HD to SD conversion. It’s downscaling is way too overrated. It falls into the same category than other of those non-blurring methods, being even worse than AE. But the worst part is that it doesn’t do YCbCr coding conversion between HD and SD. HD and SD formats use different RGB <–> YCbCr translation matrices and ignoring this step gives false colors. I am not talking about the lack of color space conversion here. This is a lot bigger issue. But notice this problem only applies to codecs that are using YCbCr color values (like most video codecs), not RGB.

I have also been trying to find a proper workflow to do HD to SD conversion. Although I can get good results with FCP X or AE+pre-blurring, neither of them is a fluent workflow for me. I am looking for a stand-alone batch converter that can handle the task without any extra pain. If you just know any one that does decent downscaling, please share your knowledge…

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Kati Haapamäki
System Manager
MTV Media
On-Air Promotions

[Andy Neil]

Well, you’ve certainly explored this more than I have, but have you tried Compressor?

I’ve always done my HD to SD conversion in Compressor, mostly because I’ve always used compressor to build my DVD files. I’d be curious to hear what you know about it.

If it’s in the same league as FCPX for you then perhaps that’s the solution because Compressor is a batch converter. And with the 64 bit rewrite, it does a good job of using all cores.

Andy

https://www.timesavertutorials.com