[Tom Wille]

Thank you both so much, I learned quite a bit from this thread.

I did mess around with filters on the grainy footage. There’s only so much you can do, so obviously I’m still not happy about it, but I’m just making due for this project.

I’ll be taking some test footage with the Rokinon 14mm in both 720p and 1080p in an upcoming shoot and keeping the shutter speed at 180 degrees and closing the aperture a couple stops to see if there is any significant improvements. I’ll return with my highly scientific findings!

[Tom Wille]

Hi Ryan,

Most of what you posted I already knew, but I did learn something new about the line skipping, so thanks for that.

I don’t think my problem is the difference in quality between Canon 6D vs. cinema cameras since the 1080p output does me and my clients fine so far. We just aren’t big enough to be investing in cinema cameras yet. I love the 6D’s video output in 1080p when I take into account how small and flexible the camera is (the main perk of DSLRs). I’m just frustrated at the difference between 1080p vs my 720p footage that looks like 420p, not 720p.

Also, I did notice slight improvements when I used my 24-108mm at 720p on the same set. Still not perfect, but not awful.

I tend to agree with you both, it’s likely a combination of lens, camera body, 720p, and maybe being a touch out of focus (overestimating the focal range). I’ll ask you the same question, though, would you anticipate a sharper image if I’m shooting outside to close the aperture instead of upping the shutter speed?

[Tom Wille]

I usually have very crisp video so I never venture into software sharpening. I’ve played around with some of the effects in PP and they all make it the footage look fake.

I’ve uploaded a sample shot below. This is the raw 720p 60fps footage which is matched to a sequence and then quicktime exported. I had the lens at infinite focal range (it has options for 1 feet, 2 feet, 3 feet, and infinite).

https://youtu.be/JX_sPUqMXkE

If you have any software sharpening advice that would be nice, but I’ll be honest I haven’t looked into it that hard so I don’t want to waste your time when I can google the answer myself!

[Tom Wille]

Hi Blaise –

Thanks for your response. I’ve always been in the habit of using MPEG Streamclip for transcoding all of my footage because I also use FCP 7 to be able to edit/render two projects at once – but I understand I don’t *need* to for PP.

Before making this post, I did some testing with bringing in the raw 720p 60fps shot into PP and it still has that soft feel like it was shot in 420p or worse. I did exactly what you said, new sequence that matches 720p 60fps and watched it at 60fps and also slowed down to 24fps. In any case, I’ll natively import all of the footage like you said for a better workflow, however for future projects I’ll need to know the root cause of why the footage doesn’t look crisp.

Do you not think it has anything to do with the lens? That’s kind of the common denominator to all of the problems, but I’ve never heard of that being an issue for anyone before.

[Tom Wille]

Hi Shane,

Seems that camera shoots in AVCHD and I got the footage from that (there was no compressing in between). When I got the footage, I tried prores 422 LT, mp4, h264, DVD files, etc. with no luck. I don’t believe that program would make a difference if it seems like the solution doesn’t involve converting the footage.

[Tom Wille]

I figured this was the case, I just wanted to confirm it. Thanks for your help, time to look for a renter cam!

[Tom Wille]

Thanks. I actually need the file sizes smaller because a big client uses the videos in PowerPoint and anything higher than 200mb usually crashes it.

[Tom Wille]

Additionally, how do you think I come across super small video files that look amazing, or download a 2 hour digital copy of a movie that is crystal clear yet only 1.5-2 GB? If I compressed something 2 hours long 1080p it would be at least 12 GB.

[Tom Wille]

Thanks for the reply, Craig.

In order to save some money on those other two products, what would be your recommendation in Compressor? mp4 with a max bit rate, Apple ProRes, other?

[Tom Wille]

That’s what I figured as well. What if I made the footage 16:9 SD. Do you think that would be a good idea? (I don’t really know how to do this either)