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

[Dan Isaacs]

Absolutely, Ian. But first -- PLEASE read my posts in this thread and try things out for yourself first. Download and install AviSynth ( http://avisynth.org ) and go though some tutorials and have a look at the docs.

I think most folks who have implemented my technique would agree that it is essential to gain a basic understanding of AviSynth and the general process before doing these conversions. It shouldn't take too long -- it is much easier than it seems at first.

I am glad to help people with the conversions, but I don't really like teaching "AviSynth 101" over and over again. One of these days I'll make and my own HD->SD tutorials (perhaps with videos) and post them online but I have no time for this at the moment.

[_ian_clubb_]

Dan

Thanks for that. I'll go through all the posts etc and I'll get back to you with the initial results.

Ian

[_Corey_Vidal_]

I just read quite a number of these posts, but it's so easy to get lost in this thread!
Is there any way we can (as a group?) come up with a definitive 'this is the best quality' to do it, and outline the exact steps? Perhaps posting somewhere else, other than this thread? Because as soon as other people start responding, it gets lost in the pages and pages of information. Searching all over this thread and reading all kinds of different work flows is really intimidating me, but I DO want to get better quality HDV->DVD and am willing to put in the work.
Could someone perhaps e-mail me at cvidal@aexian.com and give me a hand? The company I work for does weddings, and we're popping out like two or three a week (we've got 10 full-time editors here). It would really be great if we could up our quality.
Thanks for the help!

-Corey

[_John_Rich_]

I can't get all the comments to show even when I click "show all messages". I would like to see a summary of your method also.
John Rich

[Dan Isaacs]

OK. This is a "quickie" guide (I put it together in about an hour). There could be errors or omissions, but it seems OK enough as a starting point.

Some day when I've got more time I'll go through it in more detail and expand the document. Please check it out and let me know if something is amiss.

http://invertedhorn.axspace.com/hdv2dvd_basic.html

Please email me @ d.isaacs (-at-) comcast (-dot-) net with any questions or issues.

[mickkeay]

Excellent stuff Dan (as usual) all seems obvious to me now (but how I struggled at first!) -that will help so many on the way to decent HDV - SD DVD creation

[Dan Isaacs]

Thanks, Mike. You may have noticed that I've abandoned SmoothDeinterlace for LeakKernelBob. It was a painful call, but I've noticed a few little issues with SmoothDeinterlace that I can no longer abide :)

At my own peril, I'm posting the "advanced" script. You'll probably want the latest version. As always, read the new readme (hd2sd.txt) and download all the required plugins.

I realize I've no way to enforce this, but PLEASE no questions about the advanced script for anyone who hasn't implemented the basic workflow (I know that's no issue for you, Mike!).

http://invertedhorn.axspace.com/hd2sd.zip

[Jeff Bellune]

Dan,

What kind of quality do you get using SmartDeinterlacer in VDub? If it works well, you can skip that whole AviSynth thing for users that don't want to mess with it.

I know that would *require* a render to an intermediate .avi for all mpeg encoders, but it may simplify the overall workflow.

Nice guide, BTW. :)

-Jeff

[Dan Isaacs]

Thanks, Jeff :)

> What kind of quality do you get using SmartDeinterlacer in VDub

The SmartDeinterlacer in VDub does not do the framerate doubling. You could use this to get progressive output that would be much better than checking the "deinterlace" box in Premiere, but not true interlaced output.

There is a SmoothDeinterlacer port for VDub, but you need to feed it separated fields (at half resolution). It will then interpolate the missing lines. So... In order to do that, you need to split the fields with AviSynth first 😞 There's supposed to fe a field-separating input option in VDub but it never workded for me. In any case, you'd need AviSynth to weave the fields together again.

You can use VDub to get better output than Premiere.
1.) Use SmartDeinterlacer - which will only yield progressive output
2.) You can scale the video in VDub with the "interlaced" box checked

Neither of these come close to the quality and flexibility afforded by the AviSynth scripts.

[Dan Isaacs]

Jeff -- Why the reluctance to try AviSynth? My guide should make things pretty simple (especially for a guy like you!). Just use my "4b" option and write an intermediary AVI file from VDub and plop it in Encore for transcoding.

Downloading and installing AviSynth + plugins may take about 5 mintutes, maximum... follow my steps and you should be up and running.

Once you've got the gist of it, download the advanced script functions I wrote and try that out.

http://invertedhorn.axspace.com/hd2sd.zip

That will probably require about an hour to download/install the required plugins and read the docs in included in the .zip file. This provides huge flexibility and even greater quality. There's room for improvement, of course, and I'll keep it updated as I find better ways.

On my to-do list for hd2sd() :

1.) Provide the option of "plugging in" different deinterlacers into the script. There are two user-created functions out there (MCBob, MVBob) that provide absolutely incredible results. Slow? Oh yeah, but for those who can afford the encoding time... Wow.
2.) Integrated 24p/25p telecine and IVTC conversions
3.) Better (faster?) noise reduction routines
4.) "Adaptive" sharpening (like Unsharp Mask)
5.) Scene change detection to reduce the possibility of deinterlacing artifacts
6.) Inegrated option for low-resolution, progressive, square pixel output (for use in online video, podcasts, etc.)
7.) Speed improvements, as possible (???)

So, you see it is a work in progress but already very useful. The speed is already quite good, unless you use the fancier noise reduction options, sharpening, etc.

[Jeff Bellune]

>Why the reluctance to try AviSynth?

As Jim Simon is fond of reminding me when I try to point people to applications/techniques that work for me but are beyond the scope of normal Windows or Premiere Pro usage, I'm not the "average" computer user.

I have AviSynth installed, along with the plug-ins you included in your guide. I tested your basic script. It works. I'm not averse to using AVS. In fact, I'm grateful to you for outlining the necessary tools and providing the scripts that will produce good results. It lays the groundwork for my anticipated move to HD sometime next year.

I just wanted to find a simpler way for those folks who might find AVS intimidating. Or those who might find *two* additional levels of 3rd-party solutions intimidating for a simple workflow that Premiere Pro should handle all by itself and better than it currently does.

I suspect that PPro fundamentally remains an application designed to ingest, edit and export interlaced footage. Simply deinterlacing by discarding fields is OK for progressive output that is designed for small web videos, and that is what PPro does.

However, with the advent of HD workflows, including progressive HD source material and scaling HD to SD, and significantly higher resolution web-based video content, that approach no longer works. PPro CS3+ *must* be able to produce stellar progressive output, as well as stellar quality scaled interlaced output, all without resorting to 3rd-party tools.

[Jim_Simon]

Sounds like a nice WOW for CS4.

[Jeff Bellune]

> Sounds like a nice WOW for CS4

It would be a nice WOW item. However, I'm going to use the 3rd-party tools the way Dan has outlined until (if ever) PPro improves in this regard.

-Jeff

[Steven L. Gotz]

I will just shoot HDV and deliver HDV and not worry about it on those few occasions that a family video needs to be done.

[Jim_Simon]

I'll keep shooting SD until my clients start asking for HD, cause it isn't worth the significant financial investment until then.

[Steven L. Gotz]

I see your point, but since I got all of my customers away from the competition by offering HD, I would have to diasagree that your method is wise, unless you are very certain of your customers.

Although I guess event videography is significantly different in that you can not control the playback mechanism like I can with my training materials.

It should not be long before enough people have Blu-ray that HD will be the preferred delivery. Especially among young people getting married.

[Jim_Simon]

>unless you are very certain of your customers.

Not sure offering a free player to wedding and sports video clients is a sound move for me. And I did once have a client ask about HD. They had no idea what they were really asking about. It's just one of my competitors offers it, so they asked. Once I explained it, they decided it wasn't important and booked with me for other reasons.

It'll happen eventually. But in my market, it's just not that important to my clients at the moment.

I do hope there's an affordable AVC-I camera with full support from Adobe by then, though.

[Dan Isaacs]

IMPORTANT!

Thanks to another user who downloaded the advanced script function, I found and fixed a few errors.

Please download the updated version here:

http://invertedhorn.axspace.com/hd2sd.zip

Hopefully it's OK now! (thanks, Ron T.) BTW, this link will stay the same for the foreseeable future, so periodically check back to see if you have the latest version. Sorry for any inconvience caused by the error.

[_Corey_Vidal_]

Hey Dan,
All of this seems really fantastic to me. Your guide is great, and I really appreciate the work you put into it.
I safely assume I can bookmark it, and you will continue to update the same page? Maybe you could throw a line at the top saying 'this page was last updated...:' with a date, that way we're all aware of your changes. Your work could end up becoming a part of our permanent work flow! You'd be changing the face of Premiere. :)

In another topic, I think I know exactly WHY Premiere isn't making very good DVD files (MPEG2s) in the first place. Adobe Media Encoder's renderer for MPEG2-DVD is 'MainConcept MPEG Video'.
I've dealt with MainConcept before, and have three legit copies of their software for Premiere. In my experience, they are absolutely TERRIBLE. Their stuff is barely "good". It's definitely not amazing. And "amazing" is what we all want from our HDV footage!
Premiere CS3 is handing off its MPEG renders to a MainConcept renderer (a third-party plugin that ships and installs with Premiere, that we're not even aware of), so REALLY we need to blame MainConcept for its crappy quality.
And a note to Adobe: DEVELOP A NEW MPEG RENDERER. Don't use MainConcept. Don't sub it out. Do it yourself, or hire a better company. We're all looking at "now"-generation video quality, and we expect results to match. If I'm shrinking my HD footage by more than half to put it on DVD, I want some results to match my work.

[Jeff Bellune]

Sorenson Squeeze, one of the very best commercial encoders available, also uses MainConcept's engine for their mpeg2 encoding. So I doubt that is the issue with Premiere Pro.

Encore also uses the MainConcept engine, and (I think) Dan has stated that an uncompressed .avi file transcoded by Encore still produces excellent results if his whole workflow is followed.

I've used MainConcept's encoders for many years, and have had outstanding results from them. The only caveat, in this case, is that I haven't used Dan's entire workflow except for a few simple "does-it-work-at-all" tests. No real-world projects yet.

[Dan Isaacs]

I have some minor issues with the MainConcept engine, but I am not sure if this is their fault or Adobe's. Truthfully, I've not spent enough time analyzing these apparent issues so I'll keep my mouth shut in fear that I may be wrong.

In any case, these are minor complaints and most of these should be mitigated nicely by my workflow, as Jeff suggested.

Please keep me posted, Jeff, on any "real-world" testing. I trust your observation and I believe you could help me improve things nicely if issues were to arise. As alluded to in another thread, you may also find that some simple modifications to this workflow could achieve very nice podcasts, which may be of interest to you.

[Jim_Simon]

"Most tools (Adobe, Sorenson Squeeze 5, Rhozet Carbon Coder) use the MainConcept codec, which delivers the best quality. Apples codec (available in Compressor, ProCoder, and Sorenson Squeeze versions before 5) was the former quality king, but has slipped to last place. In the middle is the Dicas codec, which is available in Telestreams Episode Pro." - Jan Ozer

[Dan Isaacs]

Owing to my sometimes amazing stupidity, there was another error in both my suggested workflow and the advanced script. Arghh!!!!! That's what I get for making changes without testing thoroughly.

Basically, I messed up the field order so that specifying upper-field first got you lower-field first and vice-versa. It should be OK now.

The script example on the page has been fixed. There is a link at the bottom of the page for the updated .zip file. The revision dates are now posted on the page (great idea, thanks!).

http://invertedhorn.axspace.com/hdv2dvd_basic.html

[_Nelson_Maldonado_]

Hi all,

I am having problems with horizontal banding or stretch lines when displaying a interlaced SD dvd on a 50" HDTV.

I'll have to try Dan's method asap, however in the mean time, I just re-rendered the dvd as progressive. The results are very nice. Much better than a interlaced dvd and no horizontal banding or jaggy edges. The overall progressive file size was about the same size as the interlaced file.

[Dan Isaacs]

The time has arrived... I've moved over to a new thread. Please post comments/problems/suggestions for my proposed workflow (using DebugMode FrameServer and AviSynth) in here:

http://www.adobeforums.com/webx/.59b5b2fb

This thread is great, but it's just too long and messy and it's probably just too deep for newbies to get into. Furthermore, most of the earlier posts were by Hugh and Howell who have long since departed from the discussion (where are you guys??).