HDV to DVD

[Rafael Amador]

What workflow are you fallowing?
You are carrying three main processes:
– Process your HDV (Cut, CC, Effects, etc).
– Downconverting the HD to SD
– Making the SD MPG2.
There are few things to do in the three steps to improve the final result.
I’m not working with HDV but with EX-1. One of the important things about all the 420/411 formats is to try to recompress the less possible number of times. So you can try making your Master with only one rendering. You have to options:
– Edit your movie in an HDV sequence and then drop that sequence in an SD one.
– Edit your movie directly in a SD sequence in Proress for example.
Things to do to improve your movie (apart of a perfect editing, sound, graphics etc..):
– Improve the look of your footage. Color Correction and Chroma Smoothing for 420 footage (off course the Nattress “Smooth/Sharpening’ or his Colors filters if you go that way).
What to do to improve the down-sizing? Now the 1440×1080 HDV pixels (may be with some filters on top) must be converted in 720×480 NTSC Anamorphic pixels. Your computer must do many numbers. Why don’t do that with the “Higher Precission” that your Mac allows you?
I change the sequence setting to Apple Proress HQ, set “Render all YUV in High Precision “. This will help with the filters and graphics. Set “Motion Rendering: BEST”. This will helps with the down-sizing”.
Now you can export your Master. Make sure that looks OK in an interlaced monitor. If you are happy, send it to Compressor. The way you do it won’t change much the final MPG2 from Compressor but can short or increase the compression time.
Once in Compressor, choose a preset according with the length of your movie. There are also parameters to change to get a better MPG2 (Bit-rate, GOPs structure).
Those are the steps “on the paper”. Normally they go together with dozens of tests and tries.
In iDVD I think you have no many options.

Mac OX 10.5.2-FC 6.02-QT 7.4.1
G5 2x2Gh 4GbRAM-BlackMagic Extreme
PMBP 17″Core2Duo 4GbRAM-AJA ioHD
JVC DTV-17″
SONY EX-1 . SONY PD170
..and always a big mess on top of the table.

[Kevin Curtis]

Thanks for taking the time for such a comprehensive reply Rafael, it really is appreciated.

Wow, that’s quite a lot of stuff I’m fairly unfamiliar with, I’ll go through it bit by bit and see where I get to.

So does adding filters and constantly rendering reduce the quality? I’ve been using Magic Bullet filters on my projects.

[Rafael Amador]

The only way it would be no loose at all, it would be rendering and exporting in an Uncompress format. In the moment you go to a compressed format (even Proress HQ) you are loosing some information.
Think that when FC renders, de-compress all the footage and treat it as 4:4:4. It doesn’t matter if the footage was DV or 10b Uncompressed.
That means that each pixel is treated independently and have his own RGB or or YCbCr information. Only when FC writes those renders, this information is compressed or not. depending of the codec you are using.
So when using highly compressed formats (DV, HDV, XDCAM) try to do the less possible number of de-compression/re-compression processes. As many times you can not avoid that, use a codec that keeps as much as the original information as possible. before I used Apple Uncompressed or Sheer. Now I’m using Proress HQ.
If you have any question, just post.
cheers,
rafael

Mac OX 10.5.2-FC 6.02-QT 7.4.1
G5 2x2Gh 4GbRAM-BlackMagic Extreme
PMBP 17″Core2Duo 4GbRAM-AJA ioHD
JVC DTV-17″
SONY EX-1 . SONY PD170
..and always a big mess on top of the table.

[Catherine Ceigersmidt]

This is the same problem I’ve been having…so Rafael, in your first response you said to begin by copying the HDV-edited sequence into an SD sequence, but then you went on to say that you convert to ProRes HQ, change the settings to the highest quality and then “export your Master.” I’m confused as to what step should come first. Could you clarify?

Thanks,

Cathy

[Catherine Ceigersmidt]

Also, what setting should I choose for the SD sequence — Apple ProRes SD 1440 x 1080 @ 23.98? My media is the following:

HDV 24F and 60i footage (primarily 24F…shot on a Canon XH-G1)

Thx!

[Rafael Amador]

Hi Cathy,
I’m in PAL land, but I guess you can use the DV 23,98 Easy Setup.
Open a sequence with that Easy Setup:
In the Sequence setting set your Field Dominance to Upper (same than HDV).
Drag the HDV sequence to the DV 23.98 sequence.
Then in the Sequence Setting again, change your Compressor> Proress HQ or 10b Unc. (big file). In the Video Processing Tab, set “Render all YUV in High Precision”. Down in Motion Filtering Quality> BEST.
Render.
>Also, what setting should I choose for the SD sequence — Apple ProRes SD 1440 x 1080 @ 23.98? < 1440x1080 can never be SD. >My media is the following:
HDV 24F and 60i footage (primarily 24F…shot on a Canon XH-G1) < If you have those two different formats, I think that you will need to choose in wich one you will edit. The other footage I guess you will need to transcode it. Mac OX 10.5.2-FC 6.02-QT 7.4.1 G5 2x2Gh 4GbRAM-BlackMagic Extreme PMBP 17″Core2Duo 4GbRAM-AJA ioHD JVC DTV-17″ SONY EX-1 . SONY PD170 ..and always a big mess on top of the table.