Encoding PAL MPEG-2 from 1280×720@50P

[Daniel Ludwig]

Sorry Mate,
this is a BIG workflow-issue!

p50 is a real bad input for optical media + broadcasting within 25fps-land.

you can start trying to reinterlace your 720p50-film to 1080i25, but this is a real big mess.

PAL SD DVD is 25fps only!

[Niklas Wikman]

Daniel,

Uh-oh, not a good thing to hear with hours of footage in the project…

Not sure it’ll be DVD, clients want web files.

If we want to shoot HD for both web and PAL DVD with our HPX500, we would have to go for 1080i then?

[Daniel Ludwig]

Niclas,
if you need to create a PAL SD DVD the most easy way would be 1080i25 or maybe 1080p25.

keep in mind that 1080i25 is upper first – PAL SD could be upper AND lower field, depending on your video-codec, so you need to choose one that fits with the source-dominance (upper first) like APPLE PRO RES – never use any DV-Codec, as they are lower first – you´ll get a field-shift-error.

to create propper PAL SD from 720p50 you have to do a bunch of work, depending on your editing-system – this makes no sence at all.

IF you need to create video for the internet it´s even more simple to deinterlace a video than to reinterlace for DVD/broadcast.

danny

[Niklas Wikman]

We did some test with the different HD formats we have on our HPX500.

25P was stuttery and looked no good, compared to 25i (that we shot before).

Perhaps we missed other settings (film cam or video cam?) but here we are now.

I can only try to reduce the damage and try to decide what settings to use for the next project….

[Daniel Ludwig]

Niklas,
there are more issues to care for, if you are workin within progressive-mode.

– shutter-speed
– camera-movement
– different (film-like) look

all because you are working in a “film-mode” – all cinema-films are shot in 23.98fps progressive.

of course 25i is different as there are more motion-informations within the picture.

again: 720p50 could be reinterlaced + upscaled to 1080i25 or downscaled to PAL SD + reinterlaced, but additional steps are necessary.

danny

[Niklas Wikman]

We are into educational/documentary field, so no need for slo-mo and such things. But sure, we’d like to pan/zoom without the image jumping all around… I guess you just have to get used to it, but I’m sure we’re missing a few settings on the camera, perhaps making the movements a little smoother….

I’m happy to try/use any additional steps, in order to get this project to look the best it can, on both web and DVD.

Obviously, we have to re-consider whether or not staying with HD or simply going back to SD. This is because all our own projects (i.e not for a client) will be on both DVD and web.

For the MPEG-2 encoding I use BitVice. The tests I’ve done with our current footage looked OK, but I still have to burn a disc and look on an old 4:3 CRT TV…
(yup, we do have one at the office, among all the flat screens… :-))

[Daniel Ludwig]

Niklas,
what editing-system you are working with?

[Eric Pautsch]

What about just shooting 23.98 from here on out? Good for the web and 24p DVDs play on PAL players

….I’m on a train from Salzburg to Dusseldorf

[Daniel Ludwig]

if your HD-cam could record 1080p25 or 1080p24 that´s the best option for recording. this could be easily handled for all type of media:

– blu-ray + DVD
– web
– broadcasting (national + international)

but you might know that int. broadcasting-standart is 1080i

danny

@eric: hey germany-traveler, hope you had a good time, please let me know when you´re back in the US. have a nice flight back home.