HD to SD downconvert – Best Results Inquiry

[Jesse Coane]

I have the exact same problem on downconvert with kona LHI. My seq on the tape is one frame late.

these are 2 new systems Mac pro Nehlam 2×4 2.66 ghz 6gigs of ram. FCP studio 2.

been trying to trouble shoot it but haven’t had much luck. except that it is consistent.

thanks

jesse

[Jesse Coane]

We are having the same issue. When we downconvert are program is 1 frame late on the tape. The first frame hits at the right point usually 00:59:00:00 but it must dupe the first frame or something cause the program is 1 frame off.

this is happening on 2 new machines.

octo core 2.66 Nehlam Mac Pros
Kona LHI
6 gigis of ram
FCP studio 2

this happened with old and kona drivers

thanks

jesse

[Ron James]

“AJA Kona products give you the cleanest downconversion. We do this almost daily for broadcast delivery. You have the options of Letterbox, Anamorphic or Center Cut for your downconvert.

Best of all it’s realtime so you simply lay off to SD from your HD timeline. ”

We’re getting the same problems with the Kona 3. Soft picture, not to mention you have to offset the audio by a frame in your timeline (rolls eyes).

We’re mastering HD, monitoring on a TVLogic, downconverting to SD. The SD really looks washed out and soft. Considering other options now.

[Adam Keyes]

John,

I don’t even know if you’ll get this considering your post was quite a while ago…

But I wondered what ever happened w/ your project. I am new to converting HD to SD, but I am trying it now. I have HD that needs to be broadcast in SD. I can keep the letterbox and add graphics and text to top and bottom, so that’s not a problem.

But I wonder why I can just do this:

Edit the piece in HD
Move the whole timeline into an SD 4×3 sequence
Export 720×480

Why doesn’t that work? Will it be an issue w/ the TV Station? Or maybe it does work, but it’s just not a good way to do it (quality-wise).

Anything you learned would be great to know. 🙂

Thanks,

Adam

[John Collucci]

Hi Adam,

Since my original post, a few things have happened.
1) The project died at the hand of client focus groups. The media buy was aborted.
2) We have upgraded to Final Cut Studio 3. This changed some workflow options & quirks.
3) I have had more success with the newest version of compressor.
4) It may just be me, but FCP 7’s scaling seems even better than FCP 6.

To detail what worked on my project before it died, my best looking software conversion was done exactly as you describe in FCP. I dropped my HD timeline into an SD sequence (center-cut to master in 4×3 however) and then I rendered with the appropriate 10-bit broadcast settings. This looked great to my eye, however, my original footage was not extremely beautiful OR color-corrected due to the director’s method of shooting with “homemade authenticity”. It’s possible that I would have noticed some scaling or interlace artifacts if I had been working with higher production-value footage.

I’ve worked on other HD projects since, and finished in 24p before adding pulldown and laying off the finals to a 29.97i timeline. In these recent instances, I’ve had no issues with the software conversion in FCP – however I am still waiting on my new HD hardware to arrive and put it through a comparison test. I have no doubt it will be better – but I’m not crying out for it.

[Jennifer Mayer]

I was searching for some answers and saw this thread. I am downconverting to SD and I have to do it using software. I’ll use Compressor as you suggest John Fishback. I would like to downconvert without letterbox. When I do this, some images look more noticeably stretched vertically. Is there a setting I need to change? Thanks in advance for any help.