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HD & SD in AE
I had a question regarding using HD footage and SD Footage in the same comp.
1. Is it possible ?
2. Let’s say I am doing a project for final output to 720-480 DV SD. I want to take a greenscreen of someone on camera and move in and out on them by using the AE camera. Usually with SD you can only go so close before your video starts looking bad. Basically, if I shot them in HD would I then have more size to work with so I could pull farther in and still keep a sharp shot.
**One of the reasons I ask this is because when we shoot in 16:9 (Canon XL1s) I do get the extra on the sides but since that is still SD I wasn;t sure if switching to HD made a difference.
Is this possible or does the HD and SD not work together like that ? Sorry if this is a stupid question but I am just starting to get into finding out about HD. Maybe there is something I am missing that wouldn’t allow this to work.
Right now where I am we are still totally SD with the no immediate plans on any purchases that would get us in-house HD capabilities so I am trying to find out what I can before I give input into this type of thing.
Thanks.
Chris Holland
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9 Replies
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Sure, if you shoot HD, but edit and finish in SD, having HD source material would allow you to zoom into the footage while maintaining the sharpness.
AE will play along nicely, no problems at all. Similar to using large stills.
Bar3nd
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Actually, I’m doing this right now…
I like to use pre-comps to keep myself organizized. for instance, I’ll set up an HD comp (I’m using a sony fx1) and work on my hdv clips at full res, also doing my chromakey work at this resolution (minimizing edge artifacts once it’s scaled to SD).
Then make an SD resolution comp, when the HD comp is dragged in to the SD parent comp, I scale it appropriately and voila! you can also perform some nifty pan and scan here, this is the main reason I bought this camera.
keep in mind that the left-right edges are offscreen when planning your shots.
Alpay Kasal
Artist/Engineer
https://www.NYCRenderfarm.com
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This interests me as well…. sorry to respond with a question. So you can zoom in a bit on the shot with HD and not compromise quality if your final output is SD? Do the programs such as AE and PP experience lag when using HD? and How much room does HD require on your hard drive?
I am interested in a new camera, and want to make the right decision without Increasing my editing equipment budget.
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consider this… ntsc dv is 720×480, the hdv shot with my sony is 1440×1080 (rectangular aspect ratio produces the effective widescreen that 1920hd does). the hdv is 4.5x the pixel resolution! which basically means you can zoom in quite a bit. The numbers here say you can zoom in 450% and still be looking at DV res without scaling up at all, in practice it really feels like you’re zoomed way in there. It’s a pleasure.
Now consider that DV is plagued with probs when it comes to chromakeying, when you’re dealing with those problems at this high of a resolution, your artifacts get scaled down if SD is your final product (which is probably true for awhile). so keys and compositing look great.
please correct me if my numbers are off, I’m doing it from the top of my brain
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Awesome. Thanks guys. That right there is enough for me to start pushing for and HD camera and actaully have something behnd it. Especially since we are a little ways off from having the need for Full HD capabilities.
My hope is that once (if) we get the new camera and the bigs see the stuff we will push ahead a little quicker.
Just the fact that using HD for keys is better already since I do all that in AE anyway and if I can get sharper keys that would be excellent.
Thanks again.
Chris
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The numbers are closer to 250%, but everyone that has posted is correct that hd keys going out to sd look better than dv to dv keys.
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Just realize that HDV is a very compressed image. So you’ll have issues with compression artefacts just as you do with DV.
The same goes for HDCAM and DVCProHD in a way, but to a lesser extent.
But my guess is that when you pull a key off of HDV and then scale down to SD, it would still look better than keying DV.
Bar3nd
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[Barend Onneweer] “But my guess is that when you pull a key off of HDV and then scale down to SD, it would still look better than keying DV.”
Just get out of the HDV codec as soon as possible. Sure, work at that resolution, but use a different codec. All reports indicate that HDV is only good for acquisition.
Steve
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actually, I know why my off-the-cuff math was almost double, I’m considering total number of pixels instead of zoom percentage as it would be in any software. Technically speaking, when zooming in to about 200%, you’re getting a 200% zoom of X pixels and Y pixels. I guess the math wasn’t off, just misleading because I was counting pixels rather than percent 🙂
Alpay Kasal
Artist/Engineer
https://www.NYCRenderfarm.com
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