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Compression and Encoding
I am shooting HDV video, and am using Final Cut Pro 6 to edit and render in HDV. When I output to standard DVD, I use Compressor 3 and choose Best Quality MPEG-2 6.2 Mbps 2 pass, then import it into DVD Studio Pro. I am not completely satisfied with the picture quality from the DVD when I view it on a large LCD TV. I realize the DVD quality will not be as good as my HDV tapes, but is there a different encoder that can give me a clearer MPEG-2 picture? I would like to reduce the pixelated look. I know that it is possible to get a better picture because commercial standard definition DVDs look better than mine. Would something like Cleaner 6.5 give me a sharper image?
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8 Replies
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1.- Stay away from Cleaner. Compressor is better, though not the greatest.
2.- The reason commercial retail (Studio) DVD’s look better is because A.: They are usually shot on 35mm film not HDV, B.: they use very expensive hardware encoders, meaning “not software” encoders. Don’t expect the same result. I found that experimentation is best with black and white levels, brightness and contrast and Gamma that make my DVDs look the closest to the original. Also, are you converting to SD at any point from before sending to Compressor?………………………….
Point Zero Pictures
<https://www.pointzeropictures.com> -
I have not been converting to SD before going to Compressor. I have been sending my HDV sequences to Compressor. Just now, I did a small test in Final Cut. I converted from HDV to SD in the timeline. I ended up with a soft picture but then added a sharpen filter to improve the image. I will try taking that to Compressor and see if the quality is better than going straight to Compressor with HDV.
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Is Pro Res less lossy than HDV? If so, should I be using Pro Res in my timeline rather than HDV?
I am shooting HDV underwater video, so when editing in FCP, I use the 3 Way Color Corrector on just about every shot. I also use the Sharpen filter occasionally. I can render this in an HDV timeline, then send it back out to HDV tape, and it still looks amazing, very sharp and clear on a large HDTV. So it does not look like I am losing much in this process. Going to SD DVD is another story. (I do realize that SD just is not as nice as HD, but it is the slightly pixelated look of the DVD that I do not like.)
I want to do all of my editing in a higher resolution format (HDV or Pro Res) so that I have the option of going back out to HDV or HD DVD, but most people that I make the DVDs for need a SD DVD. So I will be going to the SD format at the end of the editing process, but i need to know if I am better off editing in HDV or Pro Res.
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Also…
When you look at an SD picture on an HD LCD TV… Its always going to look “pixelated”. HD LCDs dont’ do SD video very well at all. As a matter of fact…. it shows all of the imperfections of SD video in its glory.
Besides all of that… Is you HDV video progressive or interlaced? If so, this can make a difference, too.
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Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com
https://blogs.creativecow.net/waynecarey -
My HDV is interlaced.
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I will try a comparison using HDV and Pro Res for rendering.
My final SD DVDs look pretty good on a standard TV, and not so good on an HDTV, so maybe I am just hoping to get a SD DVD picture quality on my HDTV that is not possible using software encoding.
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[Sally Bartel] “My final SD DVDs look pretty good on a standard TV, and not so good on an HDTV, so maybe I am just hoping to get a SD DVD picture quality on my HDTV that is not possible using software encoding. “
This could be the entire problem. As Wayne mentioned earlier HD lcd’s don’t display sd very well at all. Just go to a retail outlet and try to find an sd display beside an hd display and have them switch feeds from sd to hd. SD looks better on the sd monitor and looks crappy on the hd mon. but hd looks better on the hd monitor. Some dvd players do better at up-res-ing to hd than others. You could try different up-res dvd players at a retail outlet to see which works best for your discs and recommend that to clients who are displaying sd on hd monitors.
Unfortunately our clients are not all technically savvy but they know what looks good. They will blame us if what we give them does not match their expectations. We have to work with them and provide something that will work for them. Depending on clients needs you may be able to provide them with a QT self contained H.264 version on disc for them to play off their laptop or upload the movie to a server they could access through the new Apple-TV.
“everything is broken” ……1st. coined by Esther Philips I believe.
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One reason for your observations is that SD-stuff never looks really good on an LCD screen.
But on the other hand you really have an encodig problem.
Compressor is known to be bad a scaling interlaced footage. Encoding from HD sources to SD is a scale and your HDV is interlaced material.
A workaround ist to make a (progressive) SD file from your timeline and to put the finished file into compressor to encode an mpeg2 for your DVD.
It
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