HD timeline to SD DVD - pretty bad

[Angelo]

Well, on a Canopus Edius subject: I captured at Canopus HQ Standard and Canopus HQ Fine. There was absolutely no difference in quality. I also captured an m2t file. No difference in quality between this an the HQ files.

Good to know that GV HQ codec is performing perfectly and sounds like camcorder setup issue, reading the past posts.

...Angelo

[Martin_Gleeson]

Well, on a Canopus Edius subject: I captured at Canopus HQ Standard and Canopus HQ Fine. There was absolutely no difference in quality. I also captured an m2t file. No difference in quality between this an the HQ files.

[GrassValley_KH]

But there are many other forums to discus these matters not here as the thread will get shut down.

Correct. Consider this the first and only warning.

[Angelo]

To be honest, I'm starting to cheer up. Looks like it was all camera operator (mine) fault.

An Edius question, as I'm worried they might close this thread: I presume to capture and work with HQ in "Fine" mode, I change it in Settings -> Hardware Settings -> Generic HDV settings -> Canopus HQ Codec?

Thanks

That's GREAT! I have to agree spending so much money on equipment only to be disappointed is one of the worst feeling.

I'm not sure about the HQ quality setting as I'm capturing M2T 1080i and converting to HQ 480p with PC3 which looks better than an DV 16:9 cam.

...Angelo

[Martin_Gleeson]

To be honest, I'm starting to cheer up. Looks like it was all camera operator (mine) fault.

An Edius question, as I'm worried they might close this thread: I presume to capture and work with HQ in "Fine" mode, I change it in Settings -> Hardware Settings -> Generic HDV settings -> Canopus HQ Codec?

Thanks

[Martin_Gleeson]

I bet that you probably have gain on when you don't have to and your f-stop is above 5.6, cuz it shouldn't be that noisy for an outdoor scene with plenty of light like that.

Khoi,

Gain was at 0db and F-stop was 4.0.

[Angelo]

Ditto that thought here. Blu-ray is a fully developed HD delivery format with greater capacity and more players (including PS3s) in circulation, plus better overall backing from movie studios. It would be a blessing if HD-DVD just disappeared quietly into oblivion, but someone (probably Microsoft) appears to be bankrolling its survival long enough to make it a nuisance. I've seen enough to conclude that Blu-ray will mostly likely be the winner and went ahead and bought a Blu-ray burner with Adobe CS3 software. If someone want's HD-DVD, I'll cram a few minutes of footage on a standard red-laser disc and leave it at that.

There is not doubt that BD has burners. HD will eventually have HD burners too. Currently you can burn about 40min of HD on a standard DL DVD+R disc which is very cheap. For us video editors BD is the best option, but the customer this is always right.

Stop the FUD and I can drum up the same for BD/Sony. Ideally, I would love to see all manufactures, studios to go neutral and let the public choose. But there are many other forums to discus these matters not here as the thread will get shut down.

...Angelo

[Angelo]

open the file in Tmpeg4 and add a deinterlace filter, yes, it is grayed out because there are no fields

I have a feeling the camera head is set to progressive scan and the recorder output is set to interlace, in which case the output is actually progressive

Since Martin captured HDV 1440x1080 50i (M2T file format) to RT HQ 1080, would if the RT HQ converting caused some problem?

Martin, does the original HDV M2T look better than the HQ image, maybe you can check?

...Angelo

[kwshaw1]

What war?, there are no HD DVD burner, but plenty of Blu-ray burners, so as far as I'm concern, Blu-ray is the way, the light, and the future if you want to deliver hidef on optical disc.

Ditto that thought here. Blu-ray is a fully developed HD delivery format with greater capacity and more players (including PS3s) in circulation, plus better overall backing from movie studios. It would be a blessing if HD-DVD just disappeared quietly into oblivion, but someone (probably Microsoft) appears to be bankrolling its survival long enough to make it a nuisance. I've seen enough to conclude that Blu-ray will mostly likely be the winner and went ahead and bought a Blu-ray burner with Adobe CS3 software. If someone want's HD-DVD, I'll cram a few minutes of footage on a standard red-laser disc and leave it at that.

[Khoi Pham]

open the file in Tmpeg4 and add a deinterlace filter, yes, it is grayed out because there are no fields

I have a feeling the camera head is set to progressive scan and the recorder output is set to interlace, in which case the output is actually progressive

That clip shows top field first on my system, a little noisy and a little soft.
Martin, go into your camera vtr and into the menu/displaysetup/data code and choose camera data, playback that clip and hit date code on your remote, it will display the gain/f-stop and shutter speed for that scene, I bet that you probably have gain on when you don't have to and your f-stop is above 5.6, cuz it shouldn't be that noisy for an outdoor scene with plenty of light like that.

[antonsvideo]

open the file in Tmpeg4 and add a deinterlace filter, yes, it is grayed out because there are no fields

I have a feeling the camera head is set to progressive scan and the recorder output is set to interlace, in which case the output is actually progressive

[Martin_Gleeson]

Thank you all, especially for going to all the trouble of downloading and converting the clip.

A number of things:

1. Auto-focus. Yep, guilty! I am used to using this for wedding shoots. I find that with manual focus, by the time I have the thing focused (a couple of seconds is the absolute fastest (sometimes longer) I can manually focus). By then, what ever I wanted to film is most likely almost over! Also, I find that cameras like the A1 don't have a great viewfinder for manual focus (even with "peaking"). So, for scenes like the one posted, where I'm wandering around getting shots, I use auto focus. In more controlled circumstances (such as ceremony, speeches, etc), I find I have the time for manual focus.

2. I think my mistake was capturing this footage as Canopus HQ Standard (instead of Fine). I presume this would have removed the "softness"?

3. The camera certainly needs some adjustment. It it set too bright. Khoi has very kindly sent me his settings, so I will experiment with those.

4. As for the progressive/interlaced issue Anton found: This is a mystery. The camera is set to capture in 50i (PAL land here). The Edius project is set to 1440x1080 50i. So I have no idea how the footage is being interpreted as progressive. I also put this into TMPG4, and yes, it though it was progressive too. I have no idea what to do about this issue.

One more question: What is the purpose of the filters in Procoder to convert colorspace to 601? It seems there are options to convert from HD color space to SD colorspace. Are these options recommended. BTW: I tried to use them last night, but Encore complained that the MPEG2 file produced was an Invalid MPEG file.

Once again, many thanks to you all
Martin

[Fred Dwyer]

Nev:
You state "Then I have the problem of being over 60yo. Hmmmm"
Don't worry about it. Time will resolve that problem for you.

[RandyD]

I think Anton as usual is on it. I only use 60i with my Canon and the downconvert is very sharp (better than with the Z1). What were the camera settings when you shot it? Edius will do a number on footage that is not properly interpreted when it is handed off to any encoder.

[jonandmarkuk]

Well I have just tried exporting HD video to SD using the DVD burner and the video looks fine but the audio is terrible, it keeps cutting out every few seconds. Edius plays the footage fine in the timeline so it shouldn't need to be rendered and I haven't rendered footage in the past. Also I don't have any AV software installed as the boot partition isn't even on the net.