The HD/SD discussion ..........

[AJL14]

Good morning all. There have been many posts over the past couple of weeks concerning the conversion or integration of HD material in an SD timeline, and conversion of an HD timeline to an SD DVD. There have been multiple fine solutions proposed and outlined by many of you experienced and knowledgeable film-makers. During the past weeks I have tried them all, and have discovered a solution that I feel delivers the highest quality conversions/transformations/DVD's of them all. It's been mentioned before, but I'm not sure than many have tried it, and I want to spread the good word for all interested in seamless and non-destructive results.

For the EDIUS user, this is one of the finest programs I've seen or used as a "partner product".

VirtualDub is a FREE program available at www.virtualdub.org. With this program I have imported HD files and with the "resize" filter have succeeded in two areas of conversion that beats the quality of any ProCoder conversions "hands down". I projected all this experimentation onto a 14 foot screen, and between the "before and after" shots have witnessed very little, if any, destruction of the original quality of the clip - and at NO TIME have I seen any down-conversion artifacts - which I have seen in almost all other conversion methods. I resized 1440x1080 16x9 to 720x480 letterbox - quality of the resize is indistinquishable from other footage originally shot in SD of the same subject. Then I pulled the "ultimate" test, and resized 1440x1080 16x9 to 720x480 3x4 - losing a little on each side to fit the frame - and again, the results were so close that only side-by-side comparisons could see any difference (NO ARTIFACTS - only perhaps a slight increase in "grain") between a similar scene shot in SD, and the down-conversion of the HD. If anything, at times the downconversion looked "sharper".

Then I outputed the VirtualDub revision to an .avi file, reinserted into the EDIUS timeline, and the resulting SD timeline (if that's what you're editing in) is seamless in quality.

I have also taken the HD timeline straight to DVD (which many of you have suggested) and then compared that DVD with a DVD made from an SD timeline after resizing the entire timeline down to SD from HD (with the VirtualDub program - does take a little time), and the one really BIG difference, the downconverted timeline results in a more "artifacts-free" DVD.

Since it's a free program, I urge those of you who might benefit from trying it - to at least give it a go! It's perfect adjunct to our beloved EDIUS NLE. No, I don't own any part of the company who makes this product! I have only benefited from using it and making my life not only easier, but more rewarding. If anyone has a problem with some of the settings to get to the results above, let me know and I'll post them!

Good luck - and enjoy!
Alan

[Khoi Pham]

Yes it is better, I have done it before, but with extra time and effort, but the point is trying to get GV to make it right in the first place, I have been trying to get them to fix it for the last 2 years but they don't really care, put a real bad taste in my mouth, a free program and a cheap $99.00 Tsunami encoder can even do better, if you can search back on the other forum you should see my post about HDV timeline to SD a lonnnnnggg time ago, last time I heard is that they are looking into it, yeah.

[Imagine Video]

So I have bought PC3 for this reason - I am half way through my first serious HDV project and The client will want SD dvd..........

I was under the impression that PC3 will handle the HDV 1440 X 1080i project and encode to my SD 16:9 Mpeg 2 Elementary Stream with Wave audio for SD DVD authoring....Direct from the EDIUS time line??? or I can encode AC-3 if I need it instead of letting the authoring app do the WAVE to AC-3 conversion.

This is not the case or what?

Are there issues with this process?

Cath

[Khoi Pham]

It will do that but with alot of stais steps aritfact, the quickest way with acceptable result is when finish editing, switch your project to SD, resave all your titles then encode, or if you want a little better result, output timeline to a single HQ file, use virtual dub to resize and frameserve or Tsunami encodeder.

[Bassman]

This is quite important as delivering in HD is still at the beginning stage.

A bulletproof SD DVD delivery method is at the heart of people being able to make the jump to HD.

I am disturbed by your experiences as sombody who is on the cusp of an HD upgrade.

[Bluetongue]

This is good Alan I will try it
I tried Tsunami as Khoi suggested and it is brilliant for making DVD video without artifacts using Khoi's instructions, but for me it was not possible to use it to convert to SD 4:3 as it does not support SD AVI (Incorrect field order) and I could not find a way to crop correctly, maybe it was just me, so I had to look back at Procoder
Still Looking for alternatives that also support cropping to 4:3 and SD AVI, so far Procoder has been the best but with many filters added.
Media Studio Pro 7 and its MPEG encoder gives no artifacts BUT the video is not as sharp so there is another one that may be of use to someone, be aware this takes for ever and uses only 2 cores 10 hours to encode 1 hour slooow
I have just added this I have looked back at some earlier DVD's and 4:3 AVI's and this seems to have become progressively worse with 4.54 and now more so with 4.6 Before I use to export straight from the timeline, interestingly taking the HQ AVI into Procoder is no different, has the HQ encoder been changed for the "Better"?
There is one other factor in here I changed cameras around the same time to ones that are much sharper! so maybe this is the problem?
Regards Barry

[Bluetongue]

Virtual dub works extremely well BUT first what causes the problem
It seems to be caused by interlacing
In virtual dub the filters work sequentially so adding a de interlace filter first completely eliminates the problem on the Horizontal lines but brings in minor ones on the vertical lines almost non detectable, the best de interlace is the "Blend" but of course it leaves the two slightly displaced fields
IF the output is in "Progressive" the problem is not there but "Interlace" the output and it immediately returns!
The other problem I have with this program is that it only saves in AVI but most of us require MPEG for DVD as well and so far a DVD Direct from HDV through Procoder (with the appropriate filters) is better than one made from the AVI from Virtual dub
I have looked at Procoder and using the de interlace filter but no change and if I read the handbook carefully Procoder de interlaces automatically when down sizing.
Hope this helps, it will certainly add to the arguments and discussion
Regards Barry

[Jerry]

Yes it is better, I have done it before, but with extra time and effort, but the point is trying to get GV to make it right in the first place, I have been trying to get them to fix it for the last 2 years but they don't really care, put a real bad taste in my mouth, a free program and a cheap $99.00 Tsunami encoder can even do better, if you can search back on the other forum you should see my post about HDV timeline to SD a lonnnnnggg time ago, last time I heard is that they are looking into it, yeah.

Khoi,
Are you converting from a 1.3333 aspect or a square pixel. My conversions with using a straight square pixel as opposed to the 1.3 are pretty much free of stair steps. You have the obligatory ones that I think will be there no matter what. However, for the greater part, I get a very clean conversion from an uncompressed 1920x1080 file going to MPEG 2 7500 dual pass vbr,with the 709-601 filter added.
I have downloaded the TMPGE 4.0 express trial and at this time trying the same conversion. The trial did not offer the 709-601 conversion. But, I did read that there is a color phase filter.

[Khoi Pham]

Khoi,
Are you converting from a 1.3333 aspect or a square pixel. My conversions with using a straight square pixel as opposed to the 1.3 are pretty much free of stair steps. You have the obligatory ones that I think will be there no matter what. However, for the greater part, I get a very clean conversion from an uncompressed 1920x1080 file going to MPEG 2 7500 dual pass vbr,with the 709-601 filter added.
I have downloaded the TMPGE 4.0 express trial and at this time trying the same conversion. The trial did not offer the 709-601 conversion. But, I did read that there is a color phase filter.

I'm converting from 1440X1080, but I did try switching the project to 1920X1080 then outputing an HQ AVI and converting but still see the same stairs step, I will try to capturing as 1920X1080 next time.
Thanks.

[Jerry]

I'm converting from 1440X1080, but I did try switching the project to 1920X1080 then outputing an HQ AVI and converting but still see the same stairs step, I will try to capturing as 1920X1080 next time.
Thanks.

When you try your test, try the HQ and an uncompressed file at 1920x1080 and do the conversion. Compare the two. I have just gotten used to exporting to uncompressed due to using the files in Encore.

I burnt a disk with the tsunami trial. I guess each encoder has its strong points. I felt the image was a little softer than from my PC3 version. Both produced the same problem with a scene that has the fronts of two window unit air conditionars. As the picture zooms, both flicker the same amount.
Both had the same 'stairstep' problem on a wooden deck as talent walked across and a slow zoom out. For $99 I will more than likely pick it up.
It did seem faster on the quad machine as a single encode. Procoder 3 is faster with multiple encodes.

[Martin_Gleeson]

I had tried the OP's method quite some time ago. I found it did get rid of some artifacts and "steps", but the picture was softer than my normal workflow. See this thread from the Procoder forum.

[msvideo]

I agree with the original post in this thread. Virtualdub resizes/downconverts better than any other method I've tried. However any output I make, when placed on an Edius timeline to examine on monitor, the field order defaults at bottom first and 4:3 aspect. Changing in edius clip properties to top field first and 16:9 fixes and the SD file plays 100% perfect, no artefacts, scaling or interlace problems. I've tried the field swap filter in Virtualdub but it doesnt have the desired effect. I would prefer virtualdub create files that will play perfect standalone. Can anyone shed any light?

Also, I cannot get outputting by framserving to work. I can start the frame server but have tried opening the .avi in Procoder and windows media player and it fails to open.

Anyone experienced with virtualdub? care to share your settings and worklow?

Thanks
Mark