HD to SD conversion

Question

Hi,
I have HD footage which I have edited in FC and using a variety of methods tried to convert to SD and author in SP. All results have been poor quality video with soft images, blurry motion and jagged edges on straight lines. I have tried using compressor to export to DVD best 90 min, 120min even 60 min setting as well as changing one of these to settings to output field=top first or progressive as well as setting deinterlace to fast with no major changes in results. I have also created an SD sequence (using DVCPRO50-NTSC compressor setting with field dominance set to upper) and imported the HD footage into it while maintaining seq settings. I then exported SD footage out of this seq with current setting and authored in SP with similar results. Comparing this footage with my SD camera footage processed through SP footage shows extremely poor quality. Any advice and or lessons learned anyone could share would be greatly appreciated.
Sol

Answer 1

Hey there, I'm real new at this and no doubt the rest of the folks here are more qualified to answer this question, and may not like what I have to suggest, but I have had this problem myself recently and I want the chance to help here as so many help me. (i love this discussion).
I found this walk through "step by step" on how to make your video look great. i would suggest that you make 100% sure that your video was captured in HD in FCP. Double check your settings for the capture, but then make sure that your settings on your Sequence match up with SD (that is why your getting crappy end result). What I did was create a new project and sequence, clicked file> easy set up> then choose an SD NTSC option, then set your sequence to the same, then paste your already edited sequence in the new sequence and then export it to a QT making sure that you have even within that an SD NTSC option and that'll do it. Believe me this has been a struggle with me too and it should be easy to make crystal clear HD footage look great as an SD, but you just have to check all your settings.
Now here is what I've found also (as I mentioned above) it work absolutely perfect for me (although it feels like a lot of steps that may not be necessary once I'm a pro). The guy calls it the bonzai method and the following is his step by step method:
the website I found it on is: (http://www.produxion.net/2008/04/08/hd-to-sd-conversion-the-holy-grail/)
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 down conversion:
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.
Good luck,
Crayton