[Casey Petersen]

I gave that a shot and it looks slightly better, but it still doesn’t have the same look as a hollywood DVD. The motion still looks a little too stuttery on my monitor. The shutter speed on this footage was at 1/50, so that shouldn’t be the issue, right?

I will run some more tests tomorrow.

Someone on another forum suggested adding a motion blur…what do you think about that?

Thanks!!!
Casey

[Casey Petersen]

Thanks Michael,

Compressor’s frame rate was set for 24p (The inspector’s A/V attributes reads 1920×1080, pixel aspect ratio-square, native field dominance-progressive, frame rate 23.976). I was using the Best Quality 90 minutes setting (frame rate-100% of source, selected 23.976). I didn’t change anything on the Compressor settings…just the default.

One thing I have noticed with Compressor is that it is not very good at going from HDV to standard def. mpeg2 video. I get better results taking my edit back to HDV tape and recapturing as NTSC, then doing the encode. Maybe I’m having the same type of issue here? I suppose hollywood isn’t using Compressor or going to DVD before broadcasting.

Thoughts?
Casey

[Casey Petersen]

I uploaded a short sample of a DVD that I made that shows my attempt at 24p. It looks like it’s in slow motion, but it isn’t.

It’s 45mb and you can download a ZIP file of my VIDEO_TS folder here

I would appreciate it if someone would burn it to DVD, look at it on a tube TV and tell me what I’m doing wrong.

Thanks!
Casey

[Casey Petersen]

This is something I have been wondering about as well.

For me, and my mostly-self-taught experience with the 7D and progressive footage this past year, I have had mixed emotions about it. I have not used 24p or any flavor of progressive footage (I am from the US, BTW, and have been using HDV 1080i60 for the past 6 years). I am still learning, and that’s why I’m posting now.

My opinion of the footage from the 7D is that it looks awesome on the computer/internet, it looks awesome on a Blu-ray, it looks pretty good on a SD DVD on a LCD TV, and it doesn’t look very good on a SD-DVD on a tube TV.

I now understand that “Most hollywood DVDs are 24p with players adding the pulldown and interlacing”, which is good to know!

However, in my experience, my 7D with 24p on a DVD does not look nearly as good as a typical hollywood DVD. My footage on a tube TV looks like a cheap film effect…it has the strobe/flicker look to it, which the hollywood DVDs don’t have.

I like when Ken said “Should I train myself to like strobing video and call it a film effect?”, because that’s how I feel too. I don’t think it looks as good and I have to pretend that it does.

I don’t think I’m doing anything wrong in the conversion process from h.264 to ProRes…I am using the same method and settings (even Final Cut Pro settings) that many respectable people recommend. However, I have only seen samples of their work online, where my stuff looks just as good.

Is there something in the DVD compression/authoring process that needs to be done differently than I have been doing for years with my interlaced footage. I use Compressor’s presets for DVD encoding (DVD Best Settings 90 minutes or 120 minutes), and I just drop those files into DVD Studio Pro without changing any settings or doing anything different. Is there somewhere where I need to tell Compressor or DVDSP that it is 24p and it would handle it correctly?

I watched the House finale that was shot on 5DMKII cameras, and watched it both on an HDTV and a tube TV, and they both looked fantastic…so what am I doing wrong? I assume that if this were a problem, everybody would be complaining about it, and since that’s not happening, I think it’s an issue of people like me who are not experienced with using progressive footage correctly.

Any thoughts/help would be greatly appreciated!

Casey Petersen

[Casey Petersen]

I guess this isn’t so simple a question after all!

[Casey Petersen]

Hmm…in movie mode, I can only change the ISO in Manual mode, but in photo mode, I can change the ISO in any mode (P, TV, AV, M). In movie mode, the ISO is automatic in all modes except Manual. Is that right?

[Casey Petersen]

Thanks!

Sorry, I’ve been a little overloaded with details (frame rates, sizes, interlacing, etc)…so much that my brain has gone a little mushy, and have gotten lost and can’t find my way back.

I see the Compressor preset under Apple->Formats->QuickTime->Apple ProRes 422. I see that the Width & Height are 100% of source, and Frame rate is 100% of source. Codec type is ProRes HQ (does it need to be HQ?). Is that the right preset to use…do I need to change any of the settings?

Also…in making a DVD of the rough footage…should I be using this ProRes preset in Compressor first, or is it okay to go straight to MPEG2?

Thanks!
Casey

[Casey Petersen]

Oops…sorry…I’m used to posting on a Final Cut forum….

I’m using Final Cut Studio 2 on a Mac Pro 2x3Ghz Dual-Core Intel Xeon, 10Gb RAM, running OSX Tiger. My hard drives are 2 Western Digital MyBook 1TB FW800 drives (does that make a difference?).

Thanks!
Casey

[Casey Petersen]

I’ll try that, Noah.

What settings would you like, Michael? As far as the camera settings, it varies all across the map (ISO, shutter, aperture)…nothing has looked that spectacular in standard def. It looks a little blocky.

As far as the settings in Compressor, I am just using the preset for DVD Best Quality 90 minutes.

Thanks!
Casey

[Casey Petersen]

Well, I’m seeing this on every bit of video I’ve ever shot with the 7D…you know, if you plug the camera in to a TV using the composite video cables, you get a “low res” version of the video…that’s basically what I’m seeing with everything. I see this whether or not I transcode from h264 to ProRes (or any other format), and then go from ProRes to DVD, or if I’m going straight off the camera files into DVD.

It looks like it’s resolution overload on the tube TVs. The video never looks as sharp and smooth like footage from my JVC GY-500.

Is it a progressive vs. interlaced issue? Is that why the footage looks crappy on a standard interlaced TV? Is there a method people are using…like using Compressor to convert the footage to interlaced so it looks okay?

Thanks!
Casey