HD to SD conversion: the Holy Grail

by Phil Powell on April 8, 2008

I remember the first time I was able to experience the magic of Final Cut and real-time HDV editing.  It was like a revelation; an epiphany in my editing life.  I didn’t have to think about working in a different way from DV – it just worked the same: same disk usage, same real-time effects and transitions; same capture process.

Editing is a breeze, and since we set up our new company, we decided that in order to future-proof all of our work, and to attain the highest quality video footage, we’d put an HDV workflow in place.  That means that we shoot in HDV, and we edit HDV.  That way we can distribute HD resolution video online, and be prepared for when we’re (finally) able to produce HD resolution DVDs.

But it introduces a sticky element to our workflow, which ought to be easy to negotiate, but which can really clog up the whole process.  Having all this HD resolution footage around is great, but we need to create DVDs to distribute our films, and to prepare stuff for broadcast.  And Final Cut makes that really, really difficult.

In the past, I’ve used Compressor to render MPEG files ready for use in a DVD project.  But there’s three snags with that:

  1. Compressors rendering quality is pants.
  2. There’s some voodoo you have to carry out in order to deinterlace the source video in Compressor.
  3. It’s really slow.

And I’ve been forced to completely abandon the Final Cut > Compressor > DVD Studio workflow entirely since upgrading to Mac OS X Leopard, since Compressor no longer works (thanks Apple – as far as I know, this is something which Apple are aware of, but are only fixing in newer, Intel versions of Final Cut Studio).

That could have been a really nasty brick wall to have hit, and for a while I was a little lost with Compressor.  I trialled a few other programs which were meant to do a similar job, but they just didn’t cut the mustard.  I was ready to break stuff, until I realised that DVD Studio Pro has it’s own renderer built-in – and from what I can tell it’s much faster, and better than the one found in Compressor.

But, there’s a fly in the ointment.  If you take a HDV file and throw it at Compressor, it’ll happily import it and allow you to work with it just like any other asset.  But when it comes to render, there’s a serious problem with deinterlacing, where you get strange shimmers appearing in some shots, and some really ugly jitters in others.  It just doesn’t work as a method for downconverting.

That’s when I stumbled across the Bonsai method.  This technique is absolute genius, and gets around all the problems, with a pretty fast workflow.  The theory goes:

  1. Create a standard definition timeline, using the DV50 codec.
  2. Drop your HDV footage into that DV50 timeline – Final Cut will deal with all of the rescaling and de-interlacing.
  3. Export the timeline.
  4. Import it into DVD Studio

Et voila!  It sounds simple, and in essence it is.  There’s just a few settings which might trip you up along the way, and I’ve had to experiment with using a few different settings to get good results.

I’ve converted the workflow so that I generate PAL footage, and here’s a brief step-by-step guide to what to do to get HDV footage onto a SD DVD.

First you need to create your sequence for the downconversion:

  1. You should have your finished edit in a HDV or Apple Intermediate Codec sequence.
  2. Create a new timeline, and call it something like “Final Edit – DV50″.
  3. Make sure you have this sequence selected (sometimes Final Cut can be picky over editing settings on something you haven’t selected) – just click on the sequence timeline to make sure it’s at the forefront.
  4. Go to “Sequence settings”.
  5. At the bottom of the settings window, click the “Easy setup” button.
  6. Select “DV50 PAL 48 kHz Anamorphic”.
  7. Back in the sequence setting window, make sure that “Field dominance” is set to “Upper (Odd)”.  This will save you a world of pain when it comes to importing into DVD Studio.
  8. Click the “Video processing” tab.
  9. Towards the bottom, you’ll see a “Motion filtering quality” setting.  Set this to “Fastest (linear)”.  This makes sure that your deinterlaced image doesn’t look like it was done on an Etch-a-Sketch!
  10. Drag your master sequence (your HDV one), and drop it into the DV50 sequence.  Final Cut will scale your footage anamorphic DV resolution.
  11. View the master sequence in the viewer (select it in your timeline and hit return).just check the Filters tab for the sequence, as Final Cut can be prone to add a Field Shift filter if you haven’t set the field dominance correctly – you don’t want that, as it’ll cause headaches later on, and add time to the rendering process.

That’s all the tricky stuff out of the way, you can now go ahead and export a master copy:

  1. Select “Export > Quicktime Movie”.
  2. Make sure “Make movie self-contained” is selected (else you’ll end up with reference movies, and that’ll open a world of pain for you).
  3. Don’t change any other settings – you want to be exporting with the default codecs for the sequence.
  4. Go make some coffee.

Once your file’s rendered, just give it a check.  It’ll play in Quicktime et al in 4:3, so will look all squashed – that’s just because it’s an anamorphic file – we’ll be stretching it out again in DVD Studio.

Final step is to import this footage into DVD Studio Pro:

  1. With your DVD Studio project open, select “Import” and locate your file.
  2. In your asset viewer, right-click on the video file, and choose “Encoder settings…”
  3. It should be set by default, but just make sure that “Field Order” is set to “Top”.  This makes sure that the interlacing of the MPEG encoded file will be the same as your source file.
  4. Set “Aspect ratio” to “16:9″.  This will stretch your footage back to it’s original size.

And that, should be that!  Work with your assets just like you would for any other DVD project, and when you come to build and format your discs, they ought to play back with crystal-clear clarity.

Some things to note:

  • It really is worth always checking your DVD builds on a proper cathode TV.  A lot of the time, the scanning of LCD monitors will hide nasty interlacing problems, and you won’t be able to tell if things have gone astray.
  • I’m working with Final Cut Pro 5 – I’ve not had a chance to upgrade to version 6, so couldn’t say whether this process works in the latest version – or indeed, whether this whole process is no longer needed.
  • There are other elements of the Bonsai Method, such as applying a channel blur to reduce flicker.  I’ve not felt the need to use these, but it’s worth reading about them, as they could be useful to you.

So now, I’m happy because I have a full HD to SD workflow back in place, and it works much faster and with better results than the Compressor workflow I’ve used in the past.  It may not be the best way to do this process, but it’s the best I’ve found so far.  It’s interesting that this is a workflow which Apple shys away from discussing or documenting on their website, or in any of their documents.

I’d be interested to here any input from anyone who has suggestions on improving this process – or indeed from anyone with a quicker, easier alternative.

48 comments

I just burned my first DVD coming from an HDV timeline in FCP 6 (I’ve created many DVDs before, but they were all from a DV timeline) and this process worked perfectly. Thank you very much for sharing your findings with us!

Cheers!

by Marcelo Lewin on May 25, 2008 at 4:03 pm #

Let me start by saying I have many years of experience working in large scale SD encoding production environments. After years of making someone in management look good I started my own video production company. While the production business has been good I gradually started getting calls from other productions companies to act as an encoding specialist. Recently I took contract job for a Wedding Video company that has scaled up from 3 edits a week to over 30. They shoot in SD, HDV, and DVCPro HD, but almost all of their final products are NTSC SD DVD. The first time I loaded 90 (3 per wedding with an average of 2 hours per) mixed format Final Cut movies into compressor my heart sank. Even with my Gigabit network cluster between 5 Intel Macs of various models the estimated time to finish was ungodly. After hours of testing and searching I came upon the very same solution with my 2 minute test clip. I actually second guessed the decent result so I decide to research other options. The very next site I visited was this one! Bravo! Not only was my solution verified, but I have a clear-cut, easy to understand text to show the Company owner when he gives me that blank stare. Thanks for the info.

by Kelly G. on August 14, 2008 at 5:39 am #

Tried your suggestion and it gives a much clearer picture than my old DV time lines. However would like to ask if you have any other way to deal with de-interlacing 1080i than using the de-interlacing filter in Final Cut Pro 6. If I leave it out – DVD SP does not de-interlace and I am back to square one.

by henrik on August 17, 2008 at 8:00 pm #

@henrik: There are any number of tools you could use to de-interlace your 1080i timeline, but I’m not sure that you’d save any time. Visualhub might be the best bet – from my experience, it has a really fast encoding engine and might prove useful for adding a de-interlace filter before you import to DVD SP.

It’s worth noting that I’ve recently upgraded to FCS 2, and I’ve now re-incorporated Compressor back into the workflow, which appears to handle interlacing correctly when down-converting. I’ve also discovered that Nattress Film Effects, although designed for DV, give a brilliant filmic result, along with reliable de-interlacing – but the render time can be quite considerable.

by Phil Powell on August 19, 2008 at 10:37 am #

Hey Phil, thanks so much for this. I’ve been searching for good explanations as to how to do this and this seems to be the best answer. I am curious though, as I also have Nattress, as to which filters you are using. I typically will de-interlace all of my video to take off that video look and edge. I found the Nattress de-interlace filters to give me bad image doubling. Maybe I’m doing something wrong but I’ve had more success using the generic deinterlace. And maybe I’ve been over-researching but I’ve confused myself as to how I would compress the outputted FCP file. As interlaced or Deinterlaced? Thanks!

by John Gibson on September 12, 2008 at 10:24 pm #

John: the whole interlacing issue is a tricky and confusing beast to tame, so I can entirely understand you’re confusion. I’m just using the Nattress de-interlace filter, but have to tweak the default settings a little, as they are set for NTSC, and I work in PAL – has to be set to 25p and I think I switch the field ordering.

As for final output, I generally just work with whatever native format I’ve been using on the timeline.

I might write a separate article looking at the mechanics of de-interlacing, perhaps with some sample files – let me know if that might of use.

by Phil Powell on September 15, 2008 at 10:54 am #

Thanks Phil, that would be helpful. I actually ended up using the Nattress smart de-interlace on the DV50 timeline before outputting for DVD Studio Pro and it turned out really clean. I must have done something wrong originally. My only problem now is that it looks beautiful on a 4:3 TV letter boxed but it plays in 4:3 on my widescreen even though it’s set to 16:9 letterbox. Not to get off subject, heh, I had the opposite problem last year with a movie. Perhaps I need to export the file non-anamorphic for DVDSP. It plays correctly on the simulator in the different aspect ratios. Thanks again, the total time to get this on DVD was a fraction of the time I was spending before.

by John Gibson on September 15, 2008 at 2:28 pm #

Stupid mistake, everything worked amazingly. Even a few shots I had no choice but to stretch up look flawless using this standard DVD compression. I really have to thank you for this. I think my flick is a shoe-in for Sundance. I’ll be looking for that write-up on interlacing. Would be nice to grasp the concept. Either way, my final output looks phenomenal. Thanks, Phil.

by John Gibson on September 18, 2008 at 2:02 am #

Glad you managed to tame the beast John, and good luck with the flick. I’m hoping to have that interlacing article written today.

by Phil Powell on September 18, 2008 at 9:16 am #

Phil, I first just wanted to say thank you for taking the time to offer all this valuable information. I’ve been working with HDV since 05 & still spend countless hours trying to find the highest quality solution for DVD & Web Video Exporting.. (what do you think about the AVCCAM?)

1. Regarding the Bonzai Method, my question is that at step #7, we should set the sequence “Field Dominance” to “Upper (ODD)”. Since this is a SD Project intended for DVD, isn’t it true that DV uses the lower field first? so why wouldn’t we set it up that way…

2. What are your feelings about Apple’s ProRes format, fitting into the whole HDV -> SD DVD Process? Ken Stone has a whole article here: http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/hdv_timeline_to_sd_dvd.html

– thanks again..

by Bernard Bonomo on October 18, 2008 at 5:22 am #

Hi Bernard – thanks for the encouraging words. Getting good results with HDV seems to be one of those black arts which you’d imagine software vendors would have streamlined for us by now.

Don’t know too much about AVCCAM – but to be honest, I’ve veered well clear of Panasonic products after I heard about the foolish mistakes they made when implementing P2.

In answer to your other questions:

1. I think the reason I had this set to “Upper” is because of some quirk with DVD Studio, which tends to use “Upper” in the default encoder settings. With no discernible problems with image quality using either field, I guess I was just being lazy and saving time when coming to format discs (which can sometimes be done in a rush – so the easier the better). I should probably change that to “Lower” though…

2. I’ve yet to play around with ProRes, mainly because I’m currently running a Macbook Pro, and very much doubt I could capture ProRes. I’m definitely going to look at that link for downconversion using ProRes though – thanks for the pointer!

by Phil Powell on October 18, 2008 at 11:41 am #

thanks for getting back so soon & clearing that up. one more thing that I wanted to ask, was whether or not you’ve seen a considerable difference in quality from using DVDSP vs. iDVD 6 @ Professional Quality?

by Bernard Bonomo on October 19, 2008 at 12:18 am #

Can’t say I’ve done any side-by-side comparisons- but maybe that’s something worth me investigating for a future post.

by Phil Powell on October 20, 2008 at 9:54 am #

Following up on ProRes, there’s a great write-up on using ProRes and HDV in a workflow in this discussion thread.

Seems like my puny Dual core MacBook Pro really won’t be up to the task of working with ProRes.

by Phil Powell on October 28, 2008 at 10:46 am #

Hi Phil,

Thanks for this. Fantastic!
Though I’m trying to output to mpeg 2 programme stream. (to send to broadcaster via Dubsat)
I took the self contained quicktime FCP movie which is 720×576 and tried encoded it through compressor’s ‘mpeg 2 programme stream’ preset (settings based off the source resolution and frame rate) The result is an mpeg2 with dimensions of 720 x 404.
My original footage was Prores 422 from Red Cam. Any thoughts on why a 720 x 576 FCP file is ending up in these dimensions?

Cheers

by scott george on November 5, 2008 at 1:00 am #

It is the Holy Grail !! I have successfully burned an SD DVD from HD 1080i original and the results are pretty good. I had been struggling and struggling right up to deadline until I found the site. Many many thanks. Lou P

by Lou Pack on November 9, 2008 at 11:44 am #

I just spent a whole day doing conversions from HDV to SD and comparing the results to the hardware conversion performed by the Sony GV-700 HDV deck and the Bonsai Method is by far the best. It looks like Sony soft a slight blur prior to down-conversion to keep the aliasing down, then they do a sharpen on the resulting SD movie to make it pop a little. I find it a tad much, but this could be repeated by sharpening the resulting file after the Bonsai conversion as well. One tip I thought I would add is that the gaussian blur applied to the HDV file before downconversion to DV50 is very important. If you leave that step out, the downconverted movie will be very “twittery” in areas of high detail because of aliasing. The resulting DVD will not compress well because there is too much data, so it will be noisy on top of that. I found that a setting of .4 on the gaussian blur is just enough to knock down the aliasing, but not affect the apparent sharpness of the resulting SD conversion. Hope that helps.

Jonathan

by Jonathan Bird on November 26, 2008 at 8:01 pm #

Thanks for sharing your research Jonathan – that kind of detailed comparison is incredibly useful.

I’ve always been a little suspicious of any kind of hardware conversion – simply because there’ll be software running in the background somewhere, and you have no control about the settings some technician has decided on for you.

Interesting and valuable point you raise about the blur. I generally omit that step since I’ve never seen too much jitter in any footage I’ve worked with – but the fact that a sharper image will cause more stress on the compression rings true! Perhaps I ought to revisit and revise this workflow, rather than being lazy and using Compressor lately!

by Phil Powell on November 26, 2008 at 8:36 pm #

Thanks for the info!
Has anyone had successful results with ‘other than normal’ speed video?

This technique has worked well using FCP 6, except for clips that have been slowed. I have some clips where the speed is set to 50% and the result is very jerky.

by Doug on January 7, 2009 at 12:40 am #

I am confused. Why is everyone deinterlacing before going to DVD studio pro? I thought teh Mpeg2 video for DVD is supposed to be interlaced, bottom or upper field first doesn’t matter. What do I have wrong?

by Elijah on January 19, 2009 at 7:19 am #

Elijah: it’s exactly the fact that MPEG2 is interlaced that means you need to de-interlace first. Else you are re-interlacing already de-interlaced footage, which can cause all sorts of problems with artefacts and bad compression. Sometimes it will be OK, if the field order matches, but it’s generally best to assume “better safe than sorry”.

by Phil Powell on January 19, 2009 at 10:04 am #

Thanks for replying Phil. So you are saying that you take interlaced footage, turn it into progressive footage by deinterlacing it and then reinterlace the progressive footage to a Mpeg2 format?

And the result is basically a interlaced progressive video file? The reason I ask is because I used a ProRes codec for my HDV timeline, rendered my 1920×1080 ProRes file with interlaced Upper Field First. Then I used compressor to convert to DVD best quality and the resulting file plays awesome on CRT’s but not on my Toshiba LCD/DVD combo. It looks like interlacing and line doubling and just nasty stuff.

I took the same ProRes file (awesome quality) and put the DVD best quality preset on it and chose “Output Fields:Progressive” and then changed deinterlace to Best and Resize Filter to Best for the downvconvert and the DVD plays awesome on Computers, CRTs and LCDs.

I guess your posting and comments are confirmation that it is ok to feed a interlaced progressive file to DVD.

Cheers,

Elijah Lynn

by Elijah on January 20, 2009 at 1:55 am #

Thanks for the info on going hdv to dvd.

Does this work the same for DVCPROHD 720p?

Also, you stated you converted the workflow so that I generate PAL footage. Can you give that process as well?

Thanks in advance

by Sam on March 5, 2009 at 8:00 pm #

@Sam: Could imagine that a similar process would work for DVCPRO HD, although you’ll need to be careful about de-interlacing – since DVCPRO HD is progressive (as far as I’m aware – never used it) you shouldn’t need to de-interlace when you downconvert.

As for PAL footage – the instructions above are for PAL, I tweaked them from the original NTSC process.

by Phil Powell on March 6, 2009 at 8:46 am #

In going over his how to I am a little confused. I know it’s been a while since the post but I can’t seem to find some of the options and settings you are saying to do. Is it because I have version 6.0.5?

For example, you say

4. Go to “Sequence settings”.
5. At the bottom of the settings window, click the “Easy setup” button.
6. Select “DV50 PAL 48 kHz Anamorphic”.

I can’t seem to find where it says DV50 PAL 48khz Anamorphic

Sorry for the inconvenience. Can you advise? Would it be easier to email me?

TIA

Sam

by Sam on March 6, 2009 at 3:57 pm #

After some searching i found the window sorry for the confusion, just want to make sure i’m doing it right :)

Sam

by Sam on March 6, 2009 at 4:04 pm #

Thank you so much for this post, it is really helping me out since swapping over from Avid Liquid to Final Cut Pro. If I’d known before I started my project that FCP hated HDV so much I would have stuck with liquid.
I just have a sideline query though….For just this project, I need to export my vision as an .avi for another company to do the DVD authoring and duplication. What is the best way to go about doing this?

by Sandra on March 7, 2009 at 2:25 pm #

@Sandra: FCP doesn’t hate HDV too much – you just have to handle it carefully and keep track of field orders etc when converting from one format to another.

As for converting to AVI: I’m guessing Flip4Mac would probably be your best bet.

by Phil Powell on March 9, 2009 at 9:35 am #

I still can’t get past the first few lines which say you want to “future proof” stuff so you are shooting HDV! God, with a little luck, HDV and all its crappy GOP associates will go the way of the Do-Do bird and we can move on with our lives and real HD.

by Raymond Wolters on March 25, 2009 at 1:42 am #

@Raymond: Obviously the HDV codec isn’t to everyone’s liking – after all, it’s an intermediate codec shoe-horned onto a legacy format, and that manifests itself in more than a few hangovers and understandable gripes.

But for many, HDV has served, and will continue to serve, as a reliable, entry-level codec for working with HD. Sure, it doesn’t create TV broadcast quality footage, but we’re only just entering HD saturation at a time when traditional TV is dying off. For IP broadcast and for SD downconversion, it provides the biggest bang per buck.

That is, until the cost of flash memory storage makes XDCAM et al a viable alternative.

And, as for future-proofing: I’ve been using HDV for around 4 years now, and will probably continue to use it for another few years yet. That’s a long time in 21st century technology terms.

by Phil Powell on March 25, 2009 at 8:44 am #

Thanks very much for this, I’ve shot at 1080/50i and had all kinds of problems converting to DVD. I’m going to try this tomorrow. I’m using FC Studio 2 and was wondering at what point in the workflow you reintroduced Compressor (and what stages, if any, you miss out). Also, the deinterlacing: at what point should I deinterlace the video in Compressor (if at all)? Cheers!!

by Simon on April 21, 2009 at 9:32 pm #

Simon: I ditched Compressor for quite a while, choosing to use DVD Studio’s built in compression for DVDs or VisualHub for anything else. I’ve come back to it in recent months though (simply for ease of workflow) and use my own set of presets for outputting for web or DVD.

Once you’ve deinterlaced in FCP, there should be no need to do it again in Compressor.

by Phil Powell on April 22, 2009 at 9:52 am #

@SAM:
4. Go to “Sequence settings”.
5. At the bottom of the settings window, click the “Easy setup” button.
6. Select “Advanced”.
Select “Compression type: DV PAL”
Select “Aspect Ratio: 16/9″

by bermarte on May 28, 2009 at 12:53 pm #

Sorry: in the previous post there is an error, there’s no number 5.
At the bottom of the settings window, click “Advanced” button.

by bermarte on May 28, 2009 at 12:55 pm #

Thank you for going to the trouble of publishing this article. I’ve spent the best part of a week following one failed theory after another. Finally stumbled on the Bonsai method and that led me here.
One Question??
In ‘sequence settings’ in my DV50 PAL etc. do I go into Advanced and change my ‘compressor’ settings to
Scan Mode: Progressive Aspect Ratio: 16X9?

by howard on June 23, 2009 at 1:02 am #

@ howard: if you’ve chosen DV PAL Anamorphic, the aspect ratio should already be set, and you shouldn’t need to change the scan mode – setting the field dominance should take care of any interlacing problems. If you want a de-interlaced, filmic look, you should apply a de-interlace filter to the final output movie.

by Phil Powell on June 23, 2009 at 8:28 am #

Thanks Phil
As for all above – you’ve saved my bacon. Tried the ProRes route HDV to SD DVD to no avail, but this does the trick.
I’d be very grateful for your advice on a related problem. I’m looking to master my film in HD on miniDV (using Print to Video in FCP 6 – as Edit does not seem to be an option) – all the advice I’ve found so far has lead to terrible results.
Thanks
Sam

by Sam Forsyth on September 27, 2009 at 7:51 pm #

@Sam Forsyth Sorry I haven’t replied to your comment earlier – seemed to have got lost in the approval queue – oops…

I have mastered out a HDV timeline to a HDV deck in the past, but can’t recall exactly how it was done. Seem to recall that there was lots of tweaking to do to get the right settings. If I remember correctly, the Playback settings need to be set up exactly right for the video stream to make it down the wire. Only advice I can offer is to keep trying consistent settings – you should get it to work eventually!

by Phil Powell on October 6, 2009 at 6:54 pm #

I am in the midst of my first project – a half hour doc and only now do I understand the difficulty I am facing with the mix of SD and HDV, and a few tapes shot in different frame rates. My consulting editor will come to help tomorrow, and hopefully we can figure things out – I am grateful for your time taken to publish this. Do you know about conversion of different frame rates?

by Judith Morrow on October 27, 2009 at 12:45 am #

I think it all depends on the format Judith. FCP should be able to mix and match frame rates without too much trouble – I think the only thing you need to keep an eye on is the field order of each clip – maintain consistency there and you shouldn’t have too much trouble.

by Phil Powell on October 27, 2009 at 8:32 am #

(FCP 5.1) Editing HDV 1080i60 timeline, have video and photos with motion zooming in and out. Export DV50 via qt, video looks fine, put the video in compressor dvd 90 min best and photos are bouncy, line double interlaced, (not sure what to even call this) Everytime I compress to mpeg i get weird bouncy effects. I’m trying to just input the QT file straight to STpro

Has anyone else experienced weird interlaced/line doubling, bouncy effects in video and motion photos???

98% of the video looks great, just weird jitteries here and there. can’t figure this one out.

TECH INFO just in case:

HDV, > HDV Blur .5 > DV50 NTSC anamorphic timeline (not rendered) Set to lower, YUV BEST, Fastes Linear, export qt file. This file is perfect 4:3 viewed in quicktime. Once in compressor is the problem.

Going to try different DV50 setting tonight since it takes 10 hours to export 42 minutes.

by Ghostrider on December 3, 2009 at 9:31 pm #

@Ghostrider
UPDATE:

OK, so straight to DVDSP worked pretty nice. Removed the top flickering, there is still a little flicker on still images around the edges. My moving images still bounce. Going to just make them still, remove the motion, and my project will look perfect.

by Ghostrider on December 4, 2009 at 7:16 pm #

I’m wondering if you’ve ever had to adjust your workflow to make an NTSC DVD? I’m starting out with HDV1080i50 and can’t figure out how to make a nice looking picture on the NTSC DVD. Any tips or ideas? Thanks.

by sara on January 11, 2010 at 3:42 pm #

Hmm – moving from 50i to NTSC could be fun. I think that ideally you should be working in a 60i timeline to start with, then you’re going to need to be careful about choosing de-interlacing options in your workflow to have any good results.

Afraid NTSC really isn’t my bag, so can’t offer too much help.

by Phil Powell on January 11, 2010 at 3:46 pm #

Hi, thx, great article and has been very helpful. I’ve not long been involved with HDV and been reading up on a lot of various methods to get to SD without a lot of success. I’m trying this (Bonsai) method now and will let you know of my results. I came across another method which I’ve tried as well, that’s take an HDV timeline and export it as a ProRess 1920X1080 before doing the mgeg compression. For some reason exporting it so, rather than a normal 1440 seems to help with artifacts,. At least when I’ve played the resultant 1920 quicktime, though it’s stretched it looks fantastic. Though I’ve noticed a slight improvement it doesn’t resolve the aliasing problems I’ve had in the mpeg2.

I’ve a question though which was referred to earlier by John Gibson and didn’t seemed to get picked up on.

“My only problem now is that it looks beautiful on a 4:3 TV letter boxed but it plays in 4:3 on my widescreen even though it’s set to 16:9 letterbox.”

I’ve had the same problem in that I’ve letterboxed the mpeg and on my 4×3 TV it works fine but on a widescreen It’s not letterboxing and losing parts of the image right and left screen. I wondered if you’d any thoughts on this and why it might be happening.

thx

by Phil Haslam on January 23, 2010 at 12:36 pm #

Hi Phil, and thank you for all the help in clarifying these issues, to me you are, in fact, a god…. Anyway, and even though I know it is very late in the thread I hope you can shed some more of your very bright light on one issue I’m having. Which is, when I create the DV50 sequence, and setting it up as described, after dropping the edited HDV clip on to the timeline FCS 2 invites me to again change the sequence settings to match the clip settings. If I decline, the clip (1 hour 5 min) becomes unrendered and also zooms in on itself considerably. If I accept, it of course reverts to the HDV seq settings which defeats the purpose. Is is probably worth mentioning that my clip was originally shot in 1080i50 and i have converted it to 1080i60. Subsequently I have been using all the NTSC equivalent settings. (the aim here is to create an all region playable DVD which I’m led to believe is best achieved in DVDSP by making an all region + NTSC DVD) But as we all know ‘only the best pics will do’… Thanks again for all your guidance, it has enabled me to go for a beer every so often…
Pete

AIM HIGH, WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG….

by Pete Ray on February 12, 2010 at 8:16 am #

Thank you ! Thank you ! Thank you for this post!

Im working with Canon 5D and Sony EX3 and this is the best way to get the quality on DVD!

Good idea to do some sharpening after blure on SD sequence! Wery good result!
Channel blure from “Chanel” menu is much faster to render that channel blure from “Blure” menu, but channel blure from “Blure” menu gets better quality!
Sorry for English!

by inso on June 21, 2010 at 10:21 pm #

Thank you all for your wonderful help. For those of you still experimenting, I want to sum up the workflow you see here because you’ll probably need to experiment. But here it is:

Step 1. Get out of LONG GOP HDV into Pro-Res, DVC Pro HD, or DV 50. Even outputting same as source might do it. The intermediate frames are best calculated BEFORE compressing. Otherwise they are calculated DURING compression and that seems to throw things off.

Step 2. Compress to MPEG 2. If you have interlaced footage, you’ll need to apply a deinterlace filter in compressor. You should turn Frame Controls on and set deinterlacing to ‘better’

My own workflow was Export as Quicktime a 93 minute HDV movie to Pro Res 422 HQ. This takes around 7 hours and the file is well over 100 GB. (Some people say you don’t need to use the HQ version. Up to you)

Then I went into compressor, set VBR at 6.3, two pass, turned on Frame Controls and changed deinterlace to better (I left everything else the same) This encode takes just over 24 hours!

I use a 2.8 iMac using clusters to take advantage of the dual cores (you can google how to set this up) Otherwise it might take 48 hours! With audio encoded as AC3, you fit it all on a DVD-5 at 4.6GB (but no other content except a simple menu)

The quality is AMAZING. using FCS 2. Frame controls on is the key.

by Doug Morse on August 16, 2010 at 12:28 am #

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