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Uprezzing DV to HD
updated 16 years, 6 months ago
2 Members
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3 Posts
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So…in this project that I am doing (The Mexican American War…airdate Sept 29, 2006 @ 8:00 PM ET/PT) I had three stock footage shots. I knew that I’d only be able to get this footage on SD tapes, so I was planning to uprez these when it came time.
Well, it came time so we ordered the three shots (film shots of 19th century sailboats) and requested them as DVCPRO 50 (since I had access to a DVCPRO HD deck). The other option was Digitbeta, but DVCPRO 50 is practically the same quality, and as I said, we had access to the deck…
WELL…I go to the dub facility, pick up the tape, attempt to capture at DV 50…and can’t. Dropped frames ALL over the place. Hmmm…OK. Well, huh. Let me try as DVCPRO HD via HD SDI…nope…wouldn’t do it. (Did I mention that AJ-HD 1200 decks are tempramental and complex? thot so). Hmm….OK, lets try DV/NTSC….BINGO! But…man…that isn’t what I wanted. Now I have to take a DV quality shot (THREE!) and put them [i]not only[/i] into a DVCPRO HD 720p project, but uprez them [i]again[/i] to 1080p.
Well yuck.
I tried dropping them into the timeline and resizing…eew. No no no. OK…that won’t do. Hmmm, I heard great things about INSTANT HD, let me get the demo. OK…dropped it on and…hey, why did the sides shrink instead of expand? Let me look at the documentation for this…alright, I can’t find any. Must be available when you buy it. Well, I don’t want to unless I know what it does. So…alternatives.
Compressor.
Using Compressor I choose the ADVANCED CONVERSION option and see DVCPRO HD 720p60 at 59.94. I’ll choose that as the footage is 29.97 and will convert frame for frame. I did so…and interestingly the image widened…it stretched it horizontally. Fine for me, I am just using long distance ship shots. And…LOOK AT THAT! All that aliasing you get on the DV has been smoothed out! SWEET!
I had one shot that I slow-mo’d in the show, but FCPs slow-motion leaves something to be desired. So I took the 59.94 clip…duplicated it, opened Cinema Tools and conformed it to 23.98. Done…sweet slow motion.
Hmmm…but still, the quality is a little off and doesn’t match the Varicam shots we have. Not much to do about that. But I can try to treat it enough that it is SUPPOSED to look different. I grab the Nattress Film Effects and dropa Bleach Bypass on it…adjusted it here and there, then a Magic Bullet Misfire Grain, cut the preset in half.
Wow…that didn’t look half bad. Rendered…walked away for 14 min (23 seconds of footage with Misfire Grain)…and returned to find a great couple shots that blend with the other footage well (easily spotted as different, but recognizable as shot on film, and added effects to rough it up to hide the DV quality).
When this is over I will do a write up and show pictures.
Mind you, this won’t work for everything. I still have to figure out the horizontal stretching issues.
Shane
Littlefrog Post
http://www.lfhd.net -
Hi Shane!
I suppose you did great work there, and Compressor is doing pretty good conversions.
Just one suggestion: if the footage originated from film, you should be able to remove pulldown first. So you’d have progressive images to start with and much better uprezzing (I’m currently doing a lot of testing on the whole subject). Or were they in some kind of silent movie speed? Things might get difficult with anything else but 24 fps.
The best uprezzing I’ve found so far is Photo Zoom Pro, but it’s difficult to use with movies (only image sequences) and very slow. Both ReSizer and Instant HD do a decent job.
Regards,
Uli
Author of “DVDs gestalten und produzieren”, a book on professional DVD-authoring in German.
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Hmmm….I wonder if I should have removed the pulldown. I might have to try that.
Well, my experience playing with Instant HD was less than satisfactory. And there was no documentation to go wtih the demo version (that I could find) so I couldn’t figure out the adjustments. Compressor did a decent job.
Shane
Littlefrog Post
http://www.lfhd.net
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