up-converting 480 footage

[Shane Ross]

MPEG STREAMCLIP isn’t the right app for this. It doesn’t do the best job. You need to use Compressor. Adjust the frame size to Custom 4:3, and make it 1440×1080, square pixel. And in the FRAME CONTROLS, turn them all to BEST. And you change the frame rate in the Video settings.

Shane
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[Bleakley Mcdowell]

[Shane Ross] “MPEG STREAMCLIP isn’t the right app for this. It doesn’t do the best job. You need to use Compressor. Adjust the frame size to Custom 4:3, and make it 1440×1080, square pixel. And in the FRAME CONTROLS, turn them all to BEST. And you change the frame rate in the Video settings.”

Thanks Shane. I think I’m going to need to get a Kona-type card for sure as doing all the video I have in Compressor will takes days. I can use the Kona card on already digitzed files, correct?

Also, why is it not possible to keep the frame size at 720×480 when making the conversion?

Thanks!

[Bleakley Mcdowell]

[Dave LaRonde] “what was the reason behind changing the frame rate? “ Part of the footage was shot in 1080 at 23.976 and I want to stick with that for my sequences and final output. The video I want to convert was shot in 480 at 29.97.

[Dave LaRonde] “Was the frame rate conformed to 23.976, which means the footage now runs slower?”
Yep.

[Dave LaRonde] “Was a new frame rate simply designated in MPEG Streamclip in the vain hope that frame rate conversion magic would occur?”

Yep. I thought MPEG Streamclip was good at doing rate conversions.

[Shane Ross]

[Bleakley McDowell] “I can use the Kona card on already digitzed files, correct?”

NOPE! The Kona and other capture cards are IO cards…INPUT/OUTPUT. They take in video signals and output video signals. Any and all conversion they do is done then. None of these cards add processing speed nor power to converting already captured media.

[Bleakley McDowell] “doing all the video I have in Compressor will takes days.”

You can also use Premiere Pro. It does a great job at scaling. Scale it up, export via Media Encoder as ProRes. Better job than AE in CS6 at least. BUT…if you have a LOT of footage, meaning you need to upscale a ton of source…don’t do it yet. Edit first, using the footage as it, and then when you are done, media manage only the low res files using the COPY option with handles. Upscale those with Compressor, recut them into the show.

[Bleakley McDowell] “Also, why is it not possible to keep the frame size at 720×480 when making the conversion?”

Uh…that’s the point of UPscaling. You are make the frame size bigger. You want to use 720×480 in a 1920×1080 project…you want to make it BIGGER. But you said you also want to keep the same frame dimensions, with bars on the side. To do that, you need to increase the dimensions to 1080…to match. But if you went 1920×1080, the image would be distorted…4:3 converted to 16:9. To keep it square, you go 1440×1080.

You can’t upconvert and keep the frame size the same…that wouldn’t be upconverting.

Shane
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[Bleakley Mcdowell]

[Shane Ross] “NOPE! The Kona and other capture cards are IO cards…INPUT/OUTPUT. They take in video signals and output video signals. Any and all conversion they do is done then. None of these cards add processing speed nor power to converting already captured media.”

Ah. Darn.

[Shane Ross] “You can also use Premiere Pro. It does a great job at scaling. Scale it up, export via Media Encoder as ProRes. Better job than AE in CS6 at least. BUT…if you have a LOT of footage, meaning you need to upscale a ton of source…don’t do it yet. Edit first, using the footage as it, and then when you are done, media manage only the low res files using the COPY option with handles. Upscale those with Compressor, recut them into the show.”

Cool. Thanks for the tip!

[Shane Ross] “Uh…that’s the point of UPscaling. You are make the frame size bigger. You want to use 720×480 in a 1920×1080 project…you want to make it BIGGER. But you said you also want to keep the same frame dimensions, with bars on the side. To do that, you need to increase the dimensions to 1080…to match. But if you went 1920×1080, the image would be distorted…4:3 converted to 16:9. To keep it square, you go 1440×1080.

You can’t upconvert and keep the frame size the same…that wouldn’t be upconverting.”

Ok. This may be an absurd question, but is there a way to use 720×480 footage in a 1080 project without upconverting it? I tried just changing the framerate to 23.97 and the compressor to prores and the pixels to square, but the footage came out slightly stretched.

[Shane Ross]

[Bleakley McDowell] ” but is there a way to use 720×480 footage in a 1080 project without upconverting it?”

Sure…if you keep it small frame and surrounded by black. Or, small frame layered with other video, picture in picture, or video wall style. But if you want it to be full frame, that is called UPCONVERTING. And if you just blow it up in FCP, it’ll look cruddy. That’s the worse way to upconvert.

Shane
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[Mark Suszko]

Shane Dave, maybe you guys have an answer for this: Smith Micro keeps e-mailing me ads for stuff like Poser and animation apps at a blow-outprice, but they also have an image-scaling application that looks pretty good for blowing-up stills. I reckon If I had the need, I could convert a chunk of SD video to image sequences of stills and process them thru this thing to up-rez them… but would the results, do you think, be any better than scaling in Compressor or AfterEffects? Or a hardware-based scaler?

[Shane Ross]

That seems like quite a bit of working around to upscale footage. Personally, I wouldn’t do it when there are many better options out there for video. Instant HD, as mentioned, is one. Compressor is OK, and believe it or not, Adobe Premiere CS6 and CC is far better at scaling than After Effects.

Going this still route will take lots of time, lots of effort, and still might not look as good as the video scalers…because they are designed for video, where as the one you mentioned is for stills…different pixels going on here.

Shane
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[Bleakley Mcdowell]

[Shane Ross] “Sure…if you keep it small frame and surrounded by black. Or, small frame layered with other video, picture in picture, or video wall style. But if you want it to be full frame, that is called UPCONVERTING. And if you just blow it up in FCP, it’ll look cruddy. That’s the worse way to upconvert.”

Thanks Shane.

I’m definitely not going to blow it up in FCP.

What would be the workflow for keeping the footage in 480 and using it in a 1080 project?

My project is: 1920×1080/23.98fps/Apple ProRes 422/pixel aspect: square/field dominance: none

Some of my footage is: 720×480/29.97fps/DV-DVCPRO – NTSC/pixel aspect: NTSC-CCIR 601/field domniance: Lower (Even)

I figure at a minimum I need to at least conform the frame rate to 23.98. What else do I need to do to keep it at 480 but use it in my project?

Thanks,
Bleakley

[Shane Ross]

[Bleakley McDowell] “What would be the workflow for keeping the footage in 480 and using it in a 1080 project?”

Having it on screen very small, surrounded by black. Or, layer several of this type of footage so you have multiple windows of footage.

[Bleakley McDowell] ”
I figure at a minimum I need to at least conform the frame rate to 23.98.”

Yes, you will.

Shane
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