HD to SD conversion

[Guest]

Hello,

I would like to know how can I convert Full HD footage to SD without the slightest loss of picture quality.

When we get the new DVDs from the DVD stores, we can see that although those movies (like Avatar) have been shot in HD or 4K,

the DVD version has a picture of super clarity.

I don't care how much money these softwares or conversion methods cost. Since it can be done, I would like to ask if anyone knows about the best method to convert HD footage to SD without any picture quality.

Thank you!

[Jeff Bellune]

are you recommending then that a 1080i source should be encoded for DVD as progressive video?

No, I'm not recommending that.  But if you have a high-quality deinterlacer in use, then it probably won't matter if you do.  hd2sd gives you a choice of deinterlacers based on the DeintMethod parameter setting.  And Pr CS5.5+ has much better deinterlacing than earlier versions of Pr.  The high-quality deinterlacing in Pr is used automatically (and it's fast!) when hardware MPE is in use, and it's selected manually by the Maximum Render Quality control when software MPE is in use.  But software MPE and MRQ is a very slow combination.

Jeff

[Guest]

The proffesional DVDs can be played in any kind of TV (in Europe ... PAL Interlaced or Progressive, or in America ... NTSC Interlaced or Progressive). They can be played in every TV system and on every kind of PC, having the same superb quality. Which is this kind of encoding and authoring that is suitable for every kind of TV systems and PCs? I could give my movie-video to one of these proffesional companies and tell them to make such a DVD for me and pay them. Or I could ask them about the equipment they are using, so I can purchase it. My goal is to achieve the best possible picture and audio quality. Money is not the issue. But before I investigate further this matter and contact the professional motion pictures studios, I did this question in this forum, in case someone had a clue about these things and because I have all the Adobe products and softwares. I also have AVID, which is used for film and TV editing. I think I have all the professinal softwares (AVID, PREMIERE, AFTER EFFECTS, FINAL CUT, 3D MAYA, CINEMA 4D, 3D Water simulation, PHOTOSHOP and many more). But I need the best encoding and authoring software available in the global market .

[Jim_Simon]

I need the best encoding and authoring software available in the global market .

I'm afraid you'll have to look elsewhere for that.  And don't be surprised if the price goes into six figures.

[Guest]

I found a very simple way with perfect resaults.

STEPS:

1. Import the 1080i50 or any other type of footage in PPremiere or After Effects.

2. Export your footage as a sequence of uncompressed TIFF images. (a frame of an interlaced video is a picture. If you save that frame into a picture/frame of the best uncompressed quality....that is TIFF, you get a perfect deinterlaced picture).

     (As you know you can very easily manipulate a picture's dimensions.

3. You import this uncompressed TIIF sequense in to Premiere Pro. But you import the TIIF pictures in to a MPEG DVD Premiere sequence.

4. You downscale the TIIF photos dimensions and as you know if you downscale a high resolution image you get much better quality. If you enlarge a picture you lose resolution.

5. A probleme is that MPEG DVD encoding doesn't have square pixels. It's very easy to change the TIFF images pixels to resemble the ones of the MPEG DVD encoding.

6. If you do this you encounter a picture deformation. You play with the pictures dimensions and you very easily fix this issue.

7. You export your TIFF sequence using the MPEG DVD preset and you get an even better resault than the original HD footage, because now you watch a high resolution video in a standard definition frame. So the image is more rich... You don't lose resolution. On the         contrary, you gain resolution.

I did this with a small video. Now I will try this in large scale footages and see what happens...... With this way you can solve the deinterlacing issue. But if you want you can export your original footage into interlaced TIIF images.

I get better resaults than the professional DVDs and they play everywhere...  I'll try this on a whole movie and share the resaults...

[Guest]

Nope...

I made an uncompressed Quicktime movie out of the TIIF still images with the exact dimensions of an Mpeg DVD preset. This uncompressed video looks super on my computer. I have applied Sharpen 20 to the Tiif images before esporting.

But when I export this crystal clarity uncompressed Quicktime movie as an Mpeg DVD file, I get the not so good quality when played on PC and the super good quality when played on TV. So the PC issue id not solved yet...

[Guest]

I shot some scenes in SD and they also seem bad on my PC monitor. So downscaling HD to SD and playing mative SD on a PC monitor, look bad both of them. It looks like noisy footage. I dould denoise the clips but imagine having to denoise a full 2 hour movie. It will take days and the action scenes that contain a lot of movement will look horrible with the denoise filter.So I still cannot find the way to make a video look good both on TV and PC yet...

[Katsa-bxVGl2 · Accepted solution]

I have been struggling with the same problems for months. I have been trying to find a downscaler plugin or stand-alone converter that could do proper downscaling, but still wouldn't cost a fortune. I had no luck, so I started to study the theory of downsampling.

I ended up writing own plugin for After Effects with Pixel Bender. It gives a lot smoother results than AE's default scaling. The trade off is that the result is softer, but for me softer is not nearly as bad as poorly downconverted video with all kind of artifacts.

The brand new plugin can be downloaded from here: https://sites.google.com/site/katisvideotoolbox/smooth-bspline-scaler. You can give it a try. The best thing is that it doensn't cost a fortune. It's free.

Kati Haapamäki

[Ann Bens]

Well thank you very much. I will certainly give it a spin.

[Guest]

Very good iob. You can fix the soft resault with adding some effects like sharpen and pop from colorista. Fantastic!!!

[sandresx]

For a while you will have difficulties with the same problems for several months. I have been trying to find a downscaler plugin or standalone converter that could do the proper downscaling, but it is not yet a fortune. As no luck, I began to study a theory of wear reduction.