HD footage to SD DVD looks like CRAP!!!!!

Camera: HVX 200
Video: 720 24pn
FCP: 6.0.2
Why does my footage look like crap when i put put it on SD DVD?
When is shoot and edit my project it looks fine.
When I make a Quick time file it looks fine.
When I make an MPEG2 file for SD DVD it looks fine .
When I burn the SD DVD from the MPEG2 file and view it on a plasma screen or any other screen that is not a crt monitor it looks like crap. Bad interlacing, along with squiggly lines...
When I view that same dvd on a crt monitor it looks fine....
I can not give this dvd to a client and expect them to still view it on a crt monitor,,,especially when they and the rest of the world has a monitors that are not crts'.....
I have ad this problem for the past 2 years..when my clients ask, I have been telling them that it is the down conversion that is causing it...
I can't sell my clients on HD video and then give them crap on the SD DVD
HELP !!!!!!!!!!!!

Then give them HD video.

Your shooting in HD but finishing in SD then displaying SD (720x480) on an HD (1920x1080) monitor, of coarse it looks like crap.

When you play a SD DVD on a computer monitor, if you play it at the source resolution is looks good but if you play it full screen it will look less than good. If you played your SD-DVD on an ED (enhanced definition) Plasma it would look good.

When you play an SD-DVD on a HD anything you displaying about 1/6 the amount of information that the desplay was designed to use. So it has to scale and filter the crap out of it and the reult is that hard edges are soft and compression is blocky. Admittedly there are DVD players that do a pretty good job of up-converting which looks much better but no where near as good as HD.

SD displayed on an HD monitor looks like crap, there's really not much you can do to change that. There is a silver lining however and that is that because your producing in HD you at least have the choice to finish in either resolution, if you produced SD content you have no choice.

I see what you are saying
But I have to give them what they want ...They want a DVD that they are paying for.
They don't have Blue Ray , they still have SD DVD.

Also, after i made the SD DVD i played it on my mac and the video looked bad just like a on the plasma screen.

The first thing I'd suggest is to isolate the problem. How well does the SD DVD play on a regular CRT TV?

When do you down convert, before or after editing?

How are you down converting?

What are you using to encode the MPEG2 file, Compressor, DVDStudioPro or other?

Something that I've noticed watching SD commercials on HD channels is that some broadcasters are letter boxing 16x9 SD material, this has the effect of pillar boxing and placing black around the entire image so that it fills about two thirds of the screen. This is clever, I suspect they are doing this because this prevents the display from automatically scaling the image up to fill the full 1920x1080 screen.

The SD content appears to be better quality and keeps it the proper aspect ration, there's a large rectangle in the middle of the screen.

Also, you should check the FAQ to see how others have dealt with this problem. Unfortunately the best thing to do is to experiment with different workflows until you find one that works for you. Any images coming from the HVX200 should liik stunning in both SD and HD DVD.

I down convert ofater editing from FCP i export compressor DVD 90 min best
then drop it in DVD SP
It happens whether it is letter box or 4x3...
i just spoke with a friend of mine and the same thin just happened to him only he shoots on Sony HDV cam...
same problem , looking at the files on an enhanced screen it looks fine ,,it when they are converted to SD DVD...
I go back to ,,,is it the rendering or the compression????

I have burnt a number of SD DVD from HVX200 footage, 720p 24PN and the results have always been excellent. Maybe it is the work flow.

1) File > Export > QT (Not with Conversion). Make Self Contained, Use Current Settings, Do Not Recompress all frames.

2) Drop the QT self contained into Compressor, 6.8/7.8 dual pass VBR, motion = best

3) Into DVSP, set DVD SP Prefs Display mode, Menus and tracks to 16:9 letterbox.

4) Create a disk image in DVD SP and burn from Disk Utility.

Last week I was testing in Encore (as I'm trying to learn about Blu-ray) and burnt a SD DVD from Encore of the HVX 200 footage. Again the quality was great. I did notice that footage burnt through Encore seems to be a bit more contrasty than footage from Compressor/DVD SP.

--ken

I have also burnt footage from HDV and from the Sony EX 1, again, excellent results.

The projects I work with are typically under an hour, so I use 6.8/7.8

I wonder if you are exporting from FCP directly to Compressor? I don't. I export from FCP as QT self contained and then into Compressor.

--ken

every SD dvd played on an SD dvd player to a plasma/lcd looks like ass - especially compared to a CRT. thats just the way it is. even hollywood features.

the best you can do is get an upscaling sd dvd player, and/or go out via hdmi or just start delivering on blueray.

Forgot to mention that I am viewing my SD DVDs on a Sony HD TV LCD 40".

--ken

I have very good luck downconverting HDV to SD while capturing-- my little Sony A1U does it on the fly and offers choices-- letterbox, center crop. Do you have a downconvert option available from deck or camera? I would test that workflow.

- Loren
Today's FCP keytip:
Adjust video or audio gain with Command-Option-L !

Final Cut Studio 2 KeyGuide? Power Pack.
Now available at KeyGuide Central.
www.neotrondesign.com

Ken,
I'll try your method,,,and let you know,,
I hope that is what it is and i finally come to the end of my 2 yr nightmare ...

Please keep me posted.

--ken

It work amazing, Ken Stone way, HDV looks great, also I did not do the image (because Dont know how) but I did burn straight from DVDSP4 and looks very presentable.

thanks again for the life saver.

LFCP rules!!

Good news.

BTW, creating a disk image in DVD SP takes just one click.

[www.kenstone.net]

--ken

for J. Garcia,,,

Hey,
so the method of burning a SD DVD via DVDSP from HD like hvx200 worked good for you when you viewed your sd dvd on a plasma or enhanced monitor?

I need to know how you did it,,if it was the exact method described by ken or if there was a rendering procedure before


Thanks,,,

>
> The projects I work with are typically under an
> hour, so I use 6.8/7.8
>

The benefits of having audio encoded onto dolby digital as opposed to pcm audio, is that it allows you more bitrate for the video.

> I wonder if you are exporting from FCP directly to
> Compressor? I don't. I export from FCP as QT self
> contained and then into Compressor.
>

It's strange, the manuals recommend exporting directly through compressor to prevent generational loss (rendered sections).

I found that the biggest difference for quality is between a 2pass encoding versus a 1-pass encoding, but going 2 passes takes twice as long, but useful on those 15 frame gops.

An additional tip, before exporting from FCP, is to check the "include compression markers". This writes the edit points into the metadata of the mov file, allowing compressor to include I frames at those specific points.

Ken,
I tested the "Rick Young" workflow on your site with EX1. Used resultant file for SD DVD - MAJOR YUCK!

I shot and edited 1080p30. Used "Rick Young" workflow (although I went to DV I probably should have used DVCPro50 or even 8 bit uncompressed). I dropped that file in to Compressor using the DVD 90 minute Best preset. The results were HORRIBLE.

I had shot scenes in a Botanic Garden with lots of naked tree branches (winter no leaves). I got line twitter most obvious on slow zooms, aliasing on diagonals. Other shots looked OK though.

I also tested using the 1080p30 timeline to Quicktime Self Contained and tried that in Compressor. It looked a bit better but still there was obvious line twitter and aliasing.

I checked the DVD on a Samsung 46" LCD 1080p HDTV using a Sony DVD player component out with "progressive" on (no upconvert feature). I also checked on a JVC 13" CRT monitor from a Samsung DVD player S-Video out. It looked bad there too.

This is my analysis (and I may certainly be wrong):

Compressor seems to do a better downconvert that FCP (apparently Rick Young implies otherwise)

Shooting thin lines with HD Progressive seems to be particularly hard to down convert.

The original poster doesn't provide enough for me to tell if it's the same type of issue but it may be. That may be why some say "no problem" and others see a serious issue with the same workflow.

I've provided a lot of detail above so one can be clear where I THINK the issue lies.
Any thoughts?

I was the original poster.
This is pretty much the same problem..
What is the Rick Young work flow?

Thanks,

Ken Stone has a great site and as you might note, it participating in this discussion.
Here's Rick Young's workflow.

Rick Young EX1 to SD

The target is SD DV (not DVD though) but if the DV is "clean" you'd think it would make a good DVD.

Personally I really think the content is a big part of the issue. A number of my shots from the edit look OK. It falls apart on the horizontal tree branches and it its worst during slow zooms for me.

Apparently the issue is a combination of HiRez Progressive source with thin horizontal lines going to SD (interlace?) playback despite keeping everything progressive as Rick does.

DV to mpeg2 (dvd) isn't a good idea to start with. HD to DV to mpeg2 (DVD) sounds even worse. HD straight to mpeg2 sounds like the best workflow. Doesn't DVDs allow progressive scans?

I mentioned I tried that. I went straight from the EX1 1080p30 timeline to Compressor. Yes it certainly was better than going to DV first but it still had a "nicer looking" version of the same issues.

It's not MPEG2 artifacts. It's line twitter and aliasing. Apparently neither FCP ("Rick Young" variant) nor Compressor are handling the downconvert well.

I'm going to try a custom setting in Compressor.

strypes Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> DV to mpeg2 (dvd) isn't a good idea to start with.
> HD to DV to mpeg2 (DVD) sounds even worse. HD
> straight to mpeg2 sounds like the best workflow.
> Doesn't DVDs allow progressive scans?

I've been having issues too, a 1080i60 project to a 60i standard def dvd.
Nesting my hdv timeline in a prores sd timeline resulted in a file with the field order messed up which made huge interlace problems when viewing the dvd. Since I have about 4 hours of edited hdv footage to go to sd dvd I've given up on this process(a lot of wasted rendering time). Now I'm just creating hdv qt files and converting those in compressor, I find I have to use the "edge sharpening" filter in compressor a little to mitigate some of the softness thats happening during the down conversion. I know It's probably not the best option, but for me with the amount of material and amount of time I have to get it out its all that can be done. It does help though if your client doesn't put a lot of value in best image quality and just wants the product out(his old projects were shot on handy cams).

what Craig Seeman is describing is my problem. It has been my problem all along...
What do you recommend that i give my clients if the hd to sd dvd does not work.
They wan to play their video on plasma screens...
Do i give them a file to play off their computer????
They asked for a dvd to play on the monitor, I'd hate to give them that when it looks bad....
Some one help !!!

BTW, I also did an HD to SD MPEG2 Elementary Stream (HD to SD DVD) in Episode Pro. Same results. So the issue isn't specific to Compressor not handling it.

There must be somebody here who has a good workflow to go from HD (HD Progressive) to SD DVD.

Yes,
Some one please help !!!!!!!!!!!

I think the real problem is that shooting 30p and then encoding an SD DVD causes an interlace flicker. If my delivery format is SD DVD then I shoot in 1080 60i. There are no flicker problems here. Hopefully Compressor will be able to handle the conversion of HD progressive into SD mpeg-2 in a future version, but it obviously can't yet. People are having the same problem on the DV Info forum the Creative Cow forum, etc.

Don't drop an HD clip into a SD sequence to do the conversion to SD. Just export a self-contained HD Quicktime movie and drop that into Compressor to create the mpeg-2 files. It's worked for me every time and looks great.

Hope this helps.

If there's interlace flicker, doing a small, vertical gaussian blur on the HD footage, before you output a movie, can help. Indeed, doing a small blur in general can help avoid aliasing issues on the SD, if done carefully.

Graeme

Thanks Giys but it is not the flicker that bothers me too much.
it is the squiggly lines and the around objects that are moving and sometimes not...
there are times it takes up the whole screen....it has happened to me as i shoot 720 24p
and same with a friend who shoots Sony 1080 60i...
Remember the Quicktime files look great ..it's when i put it to sd dvd via mpeg 2

I cant tell by looking at the mpeg 2 before it goes into dvd sp...
it's only when i make the sd dvd and play it on an enhanced monitor...
again, when i play that dvd on a crt monitor it looks fine...but not on an enhanced monitor...
all my clients like the rest of the world, are on enhanced monitors....


is there someone out there that has great looking SD DVD from an originall 720 24p shoot and edit???
if so, please post your exact steps....

Thanks

I use Bitvise for some jobs. It does a better job in some cases. Like using a lot of still images. Maybe try the free download and see if it works.

Maybe if i ask the question like this...

Why does my project that is shot in HD and put on a SD DVD look like it has squiggly lines and clear like the file....
And why doesn't happen with motion picture sd dvd's you buy at the store????