Upconverting almost 86 minute film from SD to HD

[Peter Wiggins]

Trevor,

Finish your film in SD. The gain you might get from HD is putting graphics on in a larger resolution.

Then spend time with compressor tweaking the parameters to get the best upscale you can. It will probably take at least overnight to render though. Maybe try 30 seconds of the film as a test first.

Make sure you the film on a external monitor to check for field order issues before you convert.

Peter

[Shane Ross]

[Trevor Ward] “How do I go about upconverting everything? Do I first create a new HD sequence and copy/paste all the clips from the old sequence into the new sequence? Then, take all the used clips off line? Then, recapture the clips with my hardware solution?”

Sorta. You use the MEDIA MANAGER to CREATE OFFLINE and choose the format you wish to recapture as, ProRes 720p 23.98 or 1080i ProRes. That will break the clips so that only the ones used in the cut will be recaptured…with handles. BUT…there’s a problem with this. The hardware can upconvert the footage, but it cannot remove the pulldown at the same time. So it can’t take the 29.97fps from the tape and remove pulldown to 23.98 while it upconverts. Just won’t work. (see my article here on the Cow about using the kona 3 to upconvert).

Your best bet would be to output your final to DVCAM tape then upconvert with a terranex to HDCAM. Hmm…no, that won’t work either. 23.98 will only go to tape as 29.97. Well, then you can upconvert to 1080i 29.97 HDCAM. Sure, it won’t be 23.98, but it will still have the film-like cadence to it. But then you 720p footage will be first downconverted to SD, then back up to HD. So their original HD state will be lost.

Or you can media manage the cut…using the COPY function, and delete unused with handles, to get ONLY the footage used in your cut, then use the MM to upconvert to ProRes. No, that won’t be the best way, but it might work. You might also try using Compressor to convert all the MM footage to ProRes, but you need to put all the settings on BEST, and this might take days or weeks, and then reconnecting the cut to them might be nightmarish.

OK…best bet I think would be to take your DV film…exported as a self contained file…to a post facility with FCP and a Kona 3, and upconvert as you output to 1080psf 23.98. Yes, your 720p footage will not be HD anymore, but this seems like the simpliest solution…in my mind.

Shane

GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Shane Ross] “Your best bet would be to output your final to DVCAM tape then upconvert with a terranex to HDCAM. Hmm…no, that won’t work either. 23.98 will only go to tape as 29.97.”

Yes it will. You can send a 23.98 DV movie to a facility that has a Teranex. They then can output your 23.98 dv to 1080psf23.98 HDCam. The Teranex is very smart and will be able to detect the 3:2 pulldown being played from FCP/tape.

There’s a facility here in Chicago that will do this for you no problem. I can give you the info if you want.

Jeremy

[Chad Brewer]

Trevor,
Read this recent thread I was involved in:
https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/8/1062344#1062480
My website is located below.

chad
TeleVersions Broadcast Video

[Trevor Ward]

Yeah, give me their name or number.

-trevor ward
Red Eye Film Co.
http://www.redeyefilmco.com
orlando, fl

[Jeremy Garchow]

Actually, just click on Chad Brewer’s signature. He’s who I was going to have you contact, funny enough.

Jeremy

[Steve Oakley]

well before you go sending any tapes off, you need to know what your final deliverables will be.if you don’t know that, you could well be creating the wrong output.

you could certainly plug a MXO2 into your laptop, send this out to SD tape, then recapture it back in letting the hardware scale it to 720 or 1080. Dvcam would not be my first choice, but digibeta would be. shouldn’t cost more then a few hundred to rent one for a day. either way, your 3:2 PD cadence should be the same with the hardware adding it on output, so removing it on input isn’t hard if you have the REAL need to deliver a 24p HD master. if you don’t , don’t worry about it. – see you need to know what you need to deliver.

I’d also have any graphics turned on during the layoff. doing a graphics clean pass is pretty much standard procedure anyways for doing international versions. you can then redo the graphics in 720 or 1080 as appropriate.

finally you can rent a HDcam VTR for a day and use the MXO2 SDI to send it out to a couple of tapes if thats your final output.

of course none of this considers the various audio mixes you’ll need to also create from full stereo, mix minus, and possible 5.1 you could need to create several tapes since HDcam only has 8 tracks. will you also need to deliver any SD versions ? SD isn’t dead yet 🙁

Steve Oakley
DP • Editor • VFX Artist
http://www.practicali.com