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SD output EX-1 footage should be better
I’m shooting with my EX-1 since March 2008 and it’s great. In April 2008 I had to deliver a television series in SD. For this I used the method Rick Young advices on Ken Stone’s website and outputted to DV PAL, the format my client requested. The results were fine.
Now, a year later I’m trying the same thing and I can’t seem to get the same quality. The SD images look softer, almost blurry. Since last year I replaced my G5 for a new MacPro with a Blackmagic Intensity Pro for playback monitoring. I’m outputting exactly the same as a year ago, checked all my old QT files and just don’t understand what’s wrong. Another difference is I shoot interlaced now instead of progressive, again because my client wants that. But could interlaced HD footage end up that different when downconverted to DV?
I already changed my EX-1 settings to the same settings I used in 2008.It all sounds a bit strange, I know, but maybe someone has got an idea?
thanx for any help…
Johan
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3 Replies
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For me, interlaced footage looks a bit softer than progressive when downconverted to SD-DVD.
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For any downconversion (or worse, up-conversion) progressive always seems to trump interlaced for scaling in my experience.
TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions, -
Good luck,
Have had a lot of camera’s, my last one prior to the EX1 was the Z7.
Had I have known, that software can’t do a decent job of downconverting, I would have never bought the EX1.
I am a Sony Vegas user.
Was hoping Vegas 9 would do a better job of it that V8.
Using a Sony camera/codec & Sony software, one would think it would be easy.
All my results wether I shot HDV or HD are lousy!!!
Allow me to explain. Whilst the HD footage looks brilliant downconverted to SD it looks soft and wide shots even look out of focus. Plus I have that horizontal line flicker problem in SD.
Have spoken to Sony, who told me that to get a good result one must use hardware.
If Clip Browser would do a decent job of exporting to AVI, life would be so much simpler. Was hoping 2.5 would fix this.
Most of my productions the client only wants DVD.
I was under the dissaloution that starting in HD would result in brilliant SD dvd’s.
Well in think a $1000 consumer camera shouting in SD would produce comparible if not better dvd’s.
Have been surfing the net for months, made so many calls,even tried other NLE’s.
From tests I have done I think anything using the “Main concept” codec can’t do a decent job.
I would love someone to prove me wrong.
As I find myself contemplating selling the EX1 and going back to the Z7, something I don’t really want to do.
To clarify I always shot 1920 or 1440 in 50i, am a PAL user.
Please let me know if you have any luck getting a great result downconverting.Cheers
Colin Andronis
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