resizing DV/SD for HD

[Jerry Hofmann]

Teranex conversion will most likely blow away any other solution.

Jerry

Apple Certified Trainer

Author: “Jerry Hofmann on Final Cut Pro 4” Click here

Dual 2 gig G5, AJA Kona SD, AJA Kona 2, Huge Systems Array UL3D

[Thaxter Clavemarlton]

[Andy Mees] “4) i have no idea, but here instead is my favourite joke …”

A pair of jumper-cables walk into a bar.
The bartenders says, “Hey, we don’t serve jumper cables in here.”
The jumper cables say, “We’re just thirsty, we won’t start anything.”

[Andy Mees]

i’mm glad somebody went for option 4… thanks Thax

Andy

[Walter Biscardi]

Take the footage to a facility that has a Terranex and let them handle it. It will be a pristine upconvert to HD and better than anything you can perform in FCP. There’s a facility here in Atlanta that performs this service for clients worldwide. http://www.cinefilmlab.com

Alternately, rent a Panasonic 1200A and let the deck perform the upconvert. The only downside to this option is that you’ll get a lot of interlace “jaggies” as there is no line doubling like the Terranex.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Creative Genius, Biscardi Creative Media
https://www.biscardicreative.com

Now in Production, “The Rough Cut,” https://www.theroughcutmovie.com

Now editing “Good Eats” in HD for the Food Network

“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters

[Andy Mees]

thanks for the advice Walter,

just to update …
well, we’re not exactly ‘Wing and a Prayer Productions’ but it would seem that the Teranex solution isn’t going to happen.
whilst it appears that a Terranex upconvert will give the best conversion, unfortunately the client isn’t going for it.
apparently they have seen an upconcert from the deck and are happy enough with that.

hence my plan is to use the VTR’s upconvert (we’ll be using a Sony HDW series deck)
at this point, for full screen, i’m going to go with upconverting the 720 x 486 SD to 1920 x 1080 HD, then stretching it back up to the correct aspect ratio … basically, do as much of the scaling as posible from the deck.

or, if i can convince them to go with the vertical letterbox look, then will just use the deck’s upconvert to 1600 x 1080 (edge cropped) and not use FCP scaling at all (… but they’re pretty set on full screen so the former is much more likely)

still thanks again for the info

[Andy Mees]

hey all
wanted to post an update in case it may help someones search at a later date.

well, our HD deck, Monitor and Scope finally showed up and I got a chance to actually run some tests on the options

1) bring the footage in 16:9 at 1920×1080 (which would make it squashed) then scale up on y axis only — to 1920 x 1440

and

2) bring the footage 4:3 at 1440 x 1080, then scale up equally on both x & y axis — again to 1920 x 1440

we found the upconvert from the MSW2000 deck, in both squeeze (option1) and edge crop (option 2), was pretty darned good … considering the variable quality of the DV source, it was excellent. stretching up the squeezed version muddied it a little, but overall it was much better than expected. with the edge croped version, after scaling it up, there was no discernable difference versus the previous version.
however there was a considerable advantage in render times with option 1. it was maybe twice as fast … not surprisingly we went for option 1.

as a side note, we then treated the DV inserts with Graeme Nattress’ fabulous Film Effects … not too shaby for DV at HD res 🙂

cheers
Andy

[James Bayliss-smith]

Hi folks, I thought I’d join this thread as I have a similar question. I need to do this on zero budget so no fancy equipment just software, I have MPEG streamclip and compressor. I have a 4:3 SD DVD with some archive. I’m thinking of converting the DVD with MPEG Streamclip into ProRes 422 1920 x 1440. That way when I use it in Final Cut Pro then zoom into the 4:3 footage to make a 16:9 image the resolution will be HD 1920 x 1080.

Am I being logical? Does this make sense? The resolution of the original image was 768×576. Am I being fussy. My instinct is to upscale then edit with that. Should I just use the original in my HD timeline. Surely this is a better way?

Any other upscale Strategies/solutions for this problem would be most welcome, I also have some DV footage I need to do the same to.

Thanks,

James