Downconverting HDV to SD

[Mark Maness]

Well, the only way you can do this is with a converter box like the Miranda or Convergent Design converters. Otherwise, that’s a sticky situation.

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Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions

[Walter Biscardi]

[John Steventon] “Just got into a discussion I can’t get out of. What’s the best way to make 1080i HDV – 720×576 DigiBeta quality?”

Use a capture card like the Kona 2 to output it via downconvert on the way out to the DigiBeta deck. It can downconver either via SDI or Component.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Creative Genius, Biscardi Creative Media
https://www.biscardicreative.com

Now in Production, “The Rough Cut,” https://www.theroughcutmovie.com

Now editing “Good Eats” in HD for the Food Network

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[Chris Poisson]

Hey all,

Regarding doing this same thing in NTSC land, to what original format would you compare the results of doing this downconvert from HDV? Beta SP?

I realize there would need to be cropping or letterboxing.

[Lee Burrows]

Chris,

I just got done finishing a HDV project that we downconverted to the DV NTSC codec to edit in 720X480. We had the option of coming recapturing the HDV footage through the component outs in the beta SP Photo-Jpeg format for editing but chose the DV route since our final product was going to DVD and we learned that mpeg2 works better with the DV codec of 720X480 instead of 720X486.

We are now just trying to figure out the best way to compress the DV sequence out to the mpeg2 dvd file. We actually for kicks also compressed the HDV footage to an SD DVD and it looked nice!!

The DV codec held the HDV up well and looked good. We used a Sony HDV deck that downconverted the footage to DV. It did a pretty good good job. I wish we could have finished in HDV and produced a HD DVD. Maybe next time.

Good Luck

Lee

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[Chris Poisson]

Lee,

Thanks for the info. But what I’m wondering is what it would look like in 8bit SD uncompressed? Ever do that? Looks like Beta?

[John Steventon]

That would be my first choice when working exlusively in HDV land, but as I’m mixing the footage in with DigiBeta stuff, and don’t really have the time to dump it all to Digi first before capturing, this is why the discussion came up.

If you had to choose though, what would you for for? The hardware conversion inside the HDV deck, or a resize and render on a 10-bit Pal sequence?

John

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[Graeme Nattress]

BetaSP is an ancient analogue format, with only about 75% the resolution of standard def digital video, and hence you can’t really compare it to a digital format – it’s like apples to oranges. All digital tape formats look better than BetaSP, even boring old DV, so it’s not a “gold standard” to compare to.

Converting to DV rather than uncompressed for mastering a NTSC DVD is a bad idea though. DV is 4:1:1 and DVD is 4:2:0 and they clash. Best to go from HDV to uncompressed 8bit 4:2:2 and avoid DV altogether. So I’d suspect that capturing in FCP as HDV and downconverting in FCP5 (high qwuality scaling turned on) would be best.

Graeme

– http://www.nattress.com – Film Effects and Standards Conversion for FCP

[Chris Poisson]

Graeme,

My point is like what you said, downconverting HDV to uncompressed 8 bit 4:2:2. So alls I’m asking is what would it look like, how much better and in what ways than regular old DV footage, not DV downconverted from HDV, does that make sense? Before I spring for the hardware and camera, I just want to know what it would look like?

[Steve Connor]

It depends on how you want to work, we usually capture native HDV in FCP5, put the clips we want on to a separate 10 bit timeline and export them via quicktime to create new files.

As Graeme mentioned, make sure high quality scaling is set to “on”

It takes a while to output, but the quality is superb (providing the original material was shot well)

If you’re have a fast system, you can also just drop the HDV clips into your 10 bit timeline and get a (very slow) preview. I’ve edited HDV clips straight into a 10 bit sequence with material captured from Digibeta and rendered it off as we go.

Steve Connor
Cardinal HD

[Steve Connor]

[Chris Poisson] “My point is like what you said, downconverting HDV to uncompressed 8 bit 4:2:2. So alls I’m asking is what would it look like, how much better and in what ways than regular old DV footage, not DV downconverted from HDV, does that make sense? Before I spring for the hardware and camera, I just want to know what it would look like?”

We’ve done a comparison on a 10 bit timeline with Z1 HDV footage and PD170 DV footage. The HDV footage is sharper and seems to have better colour resolution. Put it this way, our PD170’s have been resting quietly in their bags since the HDV cameras arrived.

Try and get a demo if you can.

Steve Connor
Cardinal HD