NTSC 480×720 3:2 Footage — What Settings to Edit at for DVD?

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Bryan,

I think you have your numbers flipped, as NTSC and DVD are both 720×480. And that is what you should edit at. There is no advantage to converting to HD, will soften and pixelate your footage. Also, ALL HD formats are widescreen, which is why your numbers are not coming out correctly when you try to upscale.

Just make a high quality DVD, and Blu-ray players and *most* new DVD players have hardware upscaling built-in that will do a nice job of converting your DVD to HD via HDMI out to your display.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Bryan Mailer]

Thanks. That reply actually clarifies a number of the issues that had been bothering me.

If I can delve a little further…

I still feel like I may need to do some sort of expansion in editing for the following reasons.

– I have made some good hi-res titles to apply to the footage, but when I shrink the titles down to fit the 720×480 clip and simply export the sequence as a MOV file, the titles are mushy and blocky by virtue of being shrunk down so much. I get the feeling they demand a better resolution.

– The footage wasn’t filmed on something as good as a Canon XL1. It was a strict consumer grade old handicam. When I sampled the tapes as NTSC DV, the sequence automatically showed up as 480×720. The aspect ratio looks right in the window, so I never questioned these numbers.

I know I can’t take low-res footage and magically increase the resolution. But is there an effective way to increase the resolution of the final output to accommodate the better resolution titles?

If I export a current 480×720 sequence with titles and play it back at “fit to computer screen” the footage and titles look pretty lousy…

One of the reasons I have brought this up is that if I send a clip to a HD Motion Project, expand the footage to fit the window and apply HD titles / effects, it all looks pretty good. Having the handicam footage zoomed in (and mushed up a bit) with the good titles still seems to be a superior result.

However, if I do all of this at the original resolution, even the titles end up being fairly ineffective.

Thanks again for the time and tips.

[Jeff Pulera]

I don’t know where you are seeing “480×720”, DV video is most definitely 720×480. Where/how did you create your titles and at what resolution? Note that NTSC video is interlaced, and if you watch it on a computer screen, those are progressive, so you can see some funky interlace artifacting issues, so don’t judge the picture that way, it never looks right. Burn a DVD and view on an actual TV set.

Jeff

[Bryan Mailer]

I guess I meant 720×480. I haven’t paid much attention to which axis is stated first, but I guess it is usually X.

My titles and such are created in Motion, and I did so in HD. I chose 1920×1080 for design, and then, I figured I could crop out what I don’t want and apply them to something like 1620×1080 if I expand the DV footage.

Because of the interlacing in the footage, should I leave it there for DVD authoring? I applied a de-interlace filter because it looks better on the computer screen while I’m working, but I can always remove it if necessary…

[Jeff Pulera]

There is no 1620×1080, get that number out of your head as well 😉

NTSC video is usually interlaced and you’ll want to keep it that way, as deinterlacing throws away half the resolution and you don’t want that! If your titles were created at HD resolution, then they are 16:9 and now you are putting them into a 4:3 project, so that may have something to do with the quality issue. Why not create titles at NTSC resolution?

Jeff

[Bryan Mailer]

The titles and effects are much better designed than the quality of the original camera and in a couple ways have the potential to upgrade everything as a whole. Also, when I’ve shrunk them down to the resolution of the footage and exported, they haven’t held up terribly well.

I have learned that 1620×1080 isn’t a common (or even existing) preset but the way I got to it was by taking the 720×480 footage and – assuming that it might be worth it to do titles and transitions in HD… Well, if I expand the 480×720 proportionately…I get 1620×1080. So I guess in the end I would end up with 1920×1080 but with narrow black “wings” on the sides… It seemed to make sense…

Of course, none of the stuff developed in Motion has been developed with interlacing involved. Don’t know how well that will play out on a DVD or TV and if that will be an issue.