DVCProHD to SD DVD

[Uli Plank]

It all depends an Compressor’s “Frame Controls”. If they are activated, rendering times explode. For some reason they were probably active in one case and not in the others. They are only used in converting formats, not in compression. My suggestion is: separate downsclaing and compression.

I’d recommend MPEG Streamclip (free) for downscaling. It does a very good job in a fraction of the time, as long as you don’t try to downconvert from 50/60p to 50/60I (it’ll loose 50% of temporal resolution there). Save in a good format like Photo-JPEG@75% or DV50.

The feed the SD version into Compressor, make sure it has not activated “Frame Controls” and let it do it’s compression job.

Even if you are using two steps here, overall speed will be better. One caveat: this approach can only be used as long as the number of frames per second doesn’t change.

Regards,

Uli

Director of the Institute of Media Research (IMF) at Braunschweig University of Arts

[Dov Yellin]

Thanks for the ideas Uli. Let me respond:

The frame controls were ON and consistent with all 3 attempts. Without them set to their highest qualities, the video comes out much worse. Still, with those settings all ON, the first 2 shows came out via Compressor in 7-8 hours, the 3rd had trouble. I should mention this also happened when compressing trailers for these shows–2 of 3 compressed in much shorter times than the 3rd, and no, that 3rd was not part of the same full program that is taking a long time now.

I am starting with a stand-alone DVCProHD 720p 59.94 file, and ending in a MPeg2 59.94 file. No FPS changes. I do have to resize the aspect ratio when I spit out of FCP, to get rid of the HD anamorphic–so I’m exporting as 1280×720 rather than 960×720. I’ve done tests, and this step seems necessary to ensure the final DVD aspect ratio is consistently correct.

We do have MPeg Streamclip–I will try your suggestion for downscaling from HD to SD with that rather than Compressor, separating the 2 steps. Likely will save a lot of time. Are Photo JPeg and DV50 the best codecs these days? I am more concerned with saving time than saving drive space.

[Uli Plank]

You can always use ProRes or Uncompressed if yo are concerned about quality. In my experience it’s hard to see a difference over the codecs I mentioned.

The problem is: DVCProHD in 720 is either 24p with 3:2 pulldown or progressive. If it’s interlaced by pulldown, go ahead with MPEG Streamclip. If it’s progressive, I’d rather use After Effects for this, since it can compose 60 full frames into 30 frames with interlace (much faster than Compressor too). Or get FieldsKit with it’s re-interlacer for FCP.

Unfortunately, FCP is not yet able (yet?) to preserve temporal resolution when going from full-frames to interlace.

Regards,

Uli

Director of the Institute of Media Research (IMF) at Braunschweig University of Arts

[Dov Yellin]

Thanks Uli:

I’m not going from progressive to interlaced, I’m staying progressive. The original FPS is 59.94 and it is staying at 59.94.

ProRes and Uncompressed are good suggestions, will likely require much less compression time from HD.

Also, I’ve had success de-interlacing HDV footage using MPeg Streamclip: if I remember right, I selected frame blending in addition to the de-interlace settings. It renders a much smoother motion in the picture.

Unfortunately After Effects is not available for this job, though Motion is. But again, I’m staying in progressive, not going to interlaced.

[Uli Plank]

Yes, you are going interlaced – or you’ll loose lots of temporal resolution! 60 (or 59,94) fps does not exist in SD.

Regards,

Uli

Director of the Institute of Media Research (IMF) at Braunschweig University of Arts

[Lon Keller]

You’ll always get the best quality downconversions using hardware over software. You have a great piece of hardware with the Kona 3, so use it. Set your Kona3 to output a downconverted signal (you’ll have to decide whether it’s anamorphic or letterboxed) and record on your highest quality SD video deck. Re-digitize your SD video, then encode for DVD.

Good luck,

Lon

Lon Keller
Chief Editor / Producer
Sundog Studios

[Dov Yellin]

Thanks for the suggestion Lon–unfortunately I don’t have the option of hardware conversions, as the facility I’m working in is bare-bones. All decks we use are rentals. The only option I have is a firewire-d HDV camera, which kind of defeats the purpose.

It’s going to have to be a software solution. I already have an HD QT file, 1280×720, non-anamorphic. Compressor’s been terrible at compressing this to an SD m2v, so a 2-step process has been suggested.