HD to DVD -Chronic Confusion

[Shane Ross]

Sorry…but all SD formats are 29.97. That’s the simple truth. TVs are 29.97…well, some now have higher Hz rates for ultra smooth playback, but all DVD players are 23.98 or 29.97. I think even BLURAY only goes as high as 29.97. 59.94 (60fps) is not a broadcast format. Shooting, yes. You can deliver a 60p master, yes…but all is converted to 29.97 in the end.

Shane

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[Michael Sacci]

Shooting 60p gives you good clean 29.97i (since there are 59.94 interlaced fields) it is cleaner than if you shoot 30p.

60p gives you the best of both worlds so unless you want the 24p look it is recommended for 720p, at least in my thinking.

You may want to do a short test with the Frame Control filter turn on (set to best) it takes a long time to encode but you may get a lot sharper image with the interlaced footage.

[Chris Babbitt]

Thanks Michael. I’ll try the high setting. Are you speaking of the resize filter, the rate conversion or both?
So, I’m assuming that the only reason for producing a progressive DVD is if you want the 24p look?
Would you still recommend shooting 60p over 60i if going to an interlaced DVD?

[Chris Borjis]

[Shane Ross] “I think even BLURAY only goes as high as 29.97”

to help those that might be reading this Blu-Ray only supports:

720P 23.98
720P 59.94

1080i 29.97 (1080P 29.97 is not supported oddly though HD-DVD did)
1080P 23.98

[Chris Borjis]

just a note that going from 720P to SD with compressor
even on the highest quality setting you might see
jagged aliasing on angles (roof lines for example).

I once had to do a live down-convert via kona hardware
to remedy that for a DVD.

if you have a kona card and can play it out to do
the conversion you should it will be much quicker
and better looking. It would likely also solve your frame rate boggle.

[Alan Okey]

[Chris Babbitt] “So, I’m assuming that the only reason for producing a progressive DVD is if you want the 24p look?
Would you still recommend shooting 60p over 60i if going to an interlaced DVD? “

Two benefits of progressive footage:

1. If 24p, there’s a space savings on a DVD of 20% vs. 29.97i or 30p. Also, at a given average bit rate, bit allocation will be proportionally higher per frame given the fewer number of frames per second.

2. Progressive frames generally encode with better results than interlaced frames in MPEG-2 compression.

However, if you don’t want a progressive look (24p or 30p), stick with 720p60.

Consumer LCD and plasma TVs have built-in hardware deinterlacing, which essentially turns 29.97i into 60p. If you shoot 720p60 and downconvert to a 29.97i DVD, the result on a consumer LCD or plasma TV will retain the “live” look of 60p.

Assuming you’re not using a Teranex hardware converter for downconversion, 720p60 will give better results than 1080i29.97 when downscaling to SD 29.97i because no field scaling/interpolation will be necessary.

[Chris Babbitt]

Great information. Thank you. Actually, even though the interlaced DVD looks a little softer compared to the progressive DVD, it still looks good, and may even look better to people who leave their TVs set to the factory settings. The factory settings generally have the sharpness, contrast and chroma cranked up. When I view the progressive DVD on my set with the standard factory setting, I get a sharper, but also noisier image than with the interlaced DVD.

[Michael Sacci]

60p gives you more options since 29.97 has 60 field it is a clear conversion, all it needs to do it drop every other line on each progressive field to give you the same thing as you would have got it you had shoot it 27.97i. The same cannot be said for going from 29.97i to 60p.

So if you need to convert the footage to 1080i or 1080p it would be cleaner also.

And since progressive is the way 720p was meant to be shot I just don’t see why you would not shoot it as progressive.

I would do several test, Resize at Better and best, if you are dc to SD NTSC make sure you choice Bottom First in output fields. Then I would play with the anti-alias and detail sliders until you get a best results. These are more important when up-converting but they still can help with downconverting.

Once again use short segment of the video in question. A good piece with action and detail. Compressing is an art and if you want better results you have to put in the effort.