Still Seeking Quality HD to SD Conversion For DVCAM Master

[Walter Biscardi]

If your final output is DVCAM, you should be shooting everything in 1080i/60. Progressive formats always have some strobing / smoothing issues unless you want to pay a dub house to downconvert using a Terranex converter. That will achieve the absolute best quality. Can be pricey, but that’s the best.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.

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[Kevin Jones]

You are certainly right about the 1080 60i footage.
Not familiar with the Terranex converter.
Facilities here in small town Alabama probably never heard of it either.
Thanks.

Kevin Jones

2.5GHz Quad-core PowerPC G5
Final Cut Studio 2

[Rafael Amador]

Hi Kevin,
I’m editing the EX-1 footage directly in a SD sequence. I’m shooting 1080i50( for Pal land) and dropping the footage in a ProRes HQ PAL-SD sequence. I set the rendering to High Precisson and Motion rendering to Best. What I get looks great.
To go DVCam you can do the same, although the DV codec won’t hold the same quality than the ProRes.

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.

[Del Chapple]

in reference to the tape format.. a good dvcam with sdi input will rival a beta sp. beta sp is theoretically better but they suffer from analog drop outs etc. in my tests with a dvcam dsr2000 up against the beta bvw75 and the dvcam was more favorable..i have seen poor quality dvcams dubs but i think sony nailed it in the dsr2000..

just my 2 cents..

del

you cant hear my inner voice scream… can you..?

[Kevin Jones]

I wrote to Doug Jenson at Vortex Media, author of the “Mastering The Sony PMW-EX1” DVD set.

Here was his response…

Hi Kevin,

I’m glad that you liked the DVD.
Just about everything I produce gets output to DVD. I don’t output to tape at all, and haven’t for about three years, so I don’t know if I can give you all the answers. However, here’s my workflow for DVD. Maybe you can adapt it for DVCAM where necessary:

I believe it is very important to edit with Sequence settings that are as close as you can come to matching your final output. In other words, if you aren’t going to author a Blu-ray disk or some other HD final product — then don’t edit in HD!! Edit in SD. Choose sequence settings that match your final output — not the source footage. That’s how I edited “Mastering the EX1” and it looks fine, right?

Here’s how I edited “Mastering the EX1” and all of my other DVDs with FCP 6.

1) I shoot most of my footage 1080 30P HQ — but I don’t think that makes much difference in the final output.

2) I open a new Sequence in FCP and use the “DV NTSC 48Khz Anamorphic” preset . . . or non-anamorphic if the output will be a 4×3 DVD . . . yes, I still do those too.

3) I change the Field Dominance to “NONE”

4) I edit the entire program within that Sequence.

5) When I’m done editing, I then Export a QuickTime movie of the Sequence. I choose “Current Settings” and I do NOT choose to “Make Movie Self-Contained”.

6) I then take that QuickTime movie and bring it into Compressor.

7) I then choose the Compressor preset for DVD Best Quality and modify a few of the settings (such as bitrate), but nothing major.

8) After that file is finished rendering, I bring it into DVD Studio Pro and author the DVD normally.

This is exactly how my EX1 DVD was produced, and it’s the workflow I’ve been using with XDCAM HD for almost two years. VERY SIMPLE. No extra software, no extra rendering, nothing special at all. I do everyting EXACTLY how I demonstrate in the EX1 DVD and it looked good, right?

I hope that helps.

Doug
http://www.VortexMedia.com

2.5GHz Quad-core PowerPC G5
Final Cut Studio 2

[Ben Scott]

was wondering if it is worth mentioning the real time down convertions of HD with black magic and kona cards.

are these better conversions than simply putting HD in an SD sequence and letting final cut pro do its not so good scaling

I have had prores 720p footage (from the FCP6 diana weynand book) downconverting really nicely to sd but had quite a bit of flickering with HDV footage which I am pretty sure was 1080 50i sony camera. I use a blackmagic card.

also how would you set color bars for such a sequence, it is a prores HD sequence and then put hd bars in and then on sd monitor color balance to that from the downconverted source?

or is it only going to work for color correction with sd sequence, reason I am asking is that many people are shooting HD and then downconverting to sd and the grading, at which stage do they grade in Color for instance, with it downcovnverting in the blackmagic card?

– – – – – – – – –
Check my podcast at https://cowcast.creativecow.net/final_cut_pro/index.html
or my site at
https://www.benscottarts.co.uk/ – – – – – – – – –

[Rafael Amador]

[Ben Scott] “or is it only going to work for color correction with sd sequence, reason I am asking is that many people are shooting HD and then downconverting to sd and the grading, at which stage do they grade in Color for instance, with it downcovnverting in the blackmagic card?”
It doesn’t matter that you use Color before of after the downconverting. Color can only monitor in SD.

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.

[Ben Scott]

it matters which color space you are going to be printing out with surely 701 or 601?

and therefore the bars matter surely

are you saying it is only SD output in color as that sounds wrong?

– – – – – – – – –
Check my podcast at https://cowcast.creativecow.net/final_cut_pro/index.html
or my site at
https://www.benscottarts.co.uk/ – – – – – – – – –

[Rafael Amador]

In Color you can monitor only in SD. This do not affect rendering off course.

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.