HDV --> SD DVD Workflow?

[hhansard]

Dont want to sound stupid or naive, but probably going to come across that way

I have shot [underwater] dv for years, and moved to hdv in 06. Since I have an end-to-end blu-ray setup with a broadcast scalier, my hdv footage looks great at home.

I was asked to take some of my hdv footage and burn an sd dvd for distribution. I took an edit of 1440x1080 and exported in PP-CS3 [movie] [Sorenson] as 720x480dv, no recompression highest quality (26G for a 30minute vid), etc, etc.. and imported it into a new PP3 d1 project. Burned the DVD again highest quality

I looked at the results on an sd 4:3 monitor terrible much worse then my old native dv footage. I expected to loose quality, but assumed that the scaling algorithm would smooth, and I would end-up with something acceptable --- but it does not look like it it looks like pixels are just dropped with no interpellation at all. I mean if you never saw the original footage, you might let it pass, but having seen the original footage, you can tell that the compression has killed it. I know that this is like a 2 (maybe 3) generation dupe, but I have access to the original pixels and would have assumed with minimal recompression/expansion the results would be as good as 1gen dv but I cant seem to get there

Can anyone point me to a good workflow [or some settings] to take hdv footage and cut a decent quality sd dvd using the production suite??

Thanks in advance,

Hugh

[_Valera_]

Mr. Dan!
Would you please post (or point to if already made) a step by step video tutorial from start to finish about your proccess. that would be much appriciated from many users who get stuck in the middle of it.
I am exporting using ex-1 30p or 24p (progressive)video looks pretty good to me, I wonder if your way will increase quality.
I also work with DVCPRO -HD 1080i and the only way to export in PPro to DVD I have to select Progressive on export settings (instead of interlaced upper) and check deinterlace. That way it looks pretty good. Again, interested if going avisynth will improve the quality.

I have very long projects and using uncompressed avi before mpegDVD will require me to buy terrabites of storage.
Thanks.
Momentfilm@hotmail.com

[SiriNeosBoss]

Thank you very much Dan. Sorry for the delay,but I was on Holidays. I will follow your advices.

I have a new question.
I am going to edit a film about a treking in the Pirynees mountains. Half of the clips were recorded in HDV with my HV30 Canon, but the other half were recorded in SD with a Sony machine. So that, I must edit in SD.
I edit with Premiere Pro 2.0

What option do you recommend me for editing the HD clips?:

1) Convert the HDV clips to AVI files without compression, following your workflow with avisynth and Virtual Dub?
2) Downconvert to SD with an option in the Canon machine?
3) Any other?

Could you give me any advice. Thank you very much again for giving me your knowledge.

[_C__David_Young_]

Use the HV30 to capture in SD would save a lot of time, although you may be able to achieve slightly better results with avisynth and Virtual Dub. Another approach would be to upgrade to CS3 and convert all your footage to 720p using Dan's scripts.

[SiriNeosBoss]

Thanks David Young
I will follow your fist advice (capturing in SD).
I used a lot of time for feeling confortable with PP20 jumping many troubles. Now I can increase my ROI. I will upgrade to another PP only if I can get any really interesting.

[erickzimer]

Thank you for helping people get the information they need. Great stuff as usual. Keep up the great work! fun88 login