HD to Anamorphic SD DVD revisited

I have been using Ken Stone's method of converting my HD footage from my Sony EX1 to create anamorphic SD DVD. It works great. Right now I drop the HD sequence (copy and paste) into a DV anamorphic 16x9 sequence, render, export, use Compressor, etc.

I have read about others copying their HD sequence into a ProRes (HQ) or 10-bit uncompressed anamorphic sequence. This makes sense to me since this would be a higher quality than a DV sequence. But when I try this, checking the 16x9 box in the sequence settings, when I export the file from the ProRes (HQ) or 10-bit uncompressed anamorphic sequence, it doesn't work right. When I drag the exported movie into Compressor, it does not recognize the anamorphic 16x9 tag, and brings it in as a squished 4:3 movie. what am I doing wrong?

You're doing way too much, basically. All you need to do is change the compressor on your HD timeline to ProRes or uncompressed 10-bit (whichever your system is capable of handling), export a Quicktime and run that through Compressor using one of the built-in DVD presets. Compressor will scale your footage down to SD and "squeeze" it into an anamorphic aspect ratio.

I just tried it and it doesn't quite work. I must be missing something. If I just change to the Pro Res compressor setting in the sequence settings it is still exporting an HD quicktime movie. I must need to change some additional settings in the sequence settings.

>and brings it in as a squished 4:3 movie.

Doesn't matter as long as you encode the DVD with an anamorphic flag so DVD players are aware that it is 16:9 FHA. To set that flag, import that mpeg2 file that Compressor has encoded into DVDSP, in the tracks palette, set the track to 16:9 letterbox.

It doesn't matter because SD has the same number of encoded pixels (720x480/486 or 720x576 for PAL).



www.strypesinpost.com

Thanks. That worked as far as the correct aspect ratio. It looked great for 30 seconds then it started this flickering in and out pixelation of the image.

I used the Apple ProRes 422 (HQ) NTSC 48 kHz Anamorphic sequence preset and dropped the HD clip into the sequence and exported as a self contained Quicktime movie.

Gonna be hard to diagnose what the flickering from so far away.

Did you get the frame rate right? I'm assuming you shot 29.97. Is the flickering on the Mpeg2 encode.

It's alright to export a HD movie, as Compressor will resize it when you select a DVD preset.



www.strypesinpost.com

I shot in 1080p30. The flickering is during playback on my HD TV. I've tried about a year ago to export an HD movie to compressor. The SD DVD looked crappy. That's when I started using the Ken Stone method of dropping the HD clip into a DV anamorphic sequence and exporting. The link is: [www.kenstone.net]

When I use this method, it states in the Compressor inspector window:

Format: M2V
Width and Height: Automatic
Selected: 720 x 480
Pixel aspect ratio: NTSC CCIR 601/DV (16:9)

When using the Apple ProRes 422 (HQ) NTSC 48 kHz Anamorphic sequence the Compressor inspector window stated:

Format: M2V
Width and Height: Automatic
Selected: 720 x 480
Pixel aspect ratio: NTSC CCIR 601/DV
Crop: (L: 0, T: 4, R: 0, B: 2)
Padding: None
Frame rate: (100% of source)
Selected: 29.97
Aspect ratio: Automatic
Selected 4:3

I doesn't know it's 16x9.

Quote

I shot in 1080p30. The flickering is during playback on my HD TV.

Betcha that explains it.

I've used the Ken Stone method of creating SD DVD's for a year and it works great with 1080p30 footage. I was hoping for better DVD quality by exporting using a ProRez or Uncompressed 16x9 sequence. Maybe I should just stay with what works.

>I doesn't know it's 16x9

It doesn't matter. You have 720x480 number of pixels in an SD DVD, and every other horizontal line belongs to a separate field. That's how it is encoded.

The anamorphic flag in DVDSP is what tells the DVD player it is 16:9 and allows it to react accordingly on playback.



www.strypesinpost.com

You're right. It does work just like you stated. It's just that some weird pixillation crept into the process using the ProRez sequence. I'll stick with the Ken Stone DV sequence method. I just tried that method again and it looks great. This has been a nice rainy Sunday experiment. Thanks for all your help. I did learn something Gerard.

There was this line from blogmaverick recently that went, "if it's not broke, doesn't mean it's optimal."

You could try Uncompressed (I hardly touch ProRes for SD, since Uncompressed is still manageable in SD), or DV50 (which I occasionally render out DV to as it has the same field dominance in PAL).



www.strypesinpost.com

The Uncompressed sequence worked very well. Non of the pixillation as with the ProRez sequence. The DVD was a tad better than the DV sequence method. The dark areas were better represented, the skin tone was a little better, and it did not have quite the same edge as you can get with DV. Thanks again.

> The dark areas were better represented, the skin tone was a little better, and it did not have
>quite the same edge as you can get with DV.

That's because DV is 4:1:1 in NTSC and DVD is 4:2:0. You won't see as much difference if your source is DV, but because your source is HD, you don't want to introduce the excessive 4:1:1 chroma subsampling of DV when you recompress to your sequence codec. Also, it's better to avoid compressed formats if you do not have the need to (sufficient drive speeds, sufficient space).

Compressor resizes better, but only with frame controls set to "best", and that takes quite a long time. Alternate workflows include using After Effects as it does better scaling than FCP, or Mpeg Streamclip may be faster and better than FCP (not sure if it converts the color space properly).

Also, you could try dropping the clips in a DV/DV50 sequence and export straight to Compressor (not export QT movie). This will bypass sequence codec compression and use FCP's motion tab for resizing. I prefer to use the Uncompressed route and export, as it's much faster and Compressor is able to encode with multiple cores this way.



www.strypesinpost.com

Ahh Compressor resizes things just without frame controls on, you just need to resize it to a HQ codec first, not resize and compress to DVD or web in the same step. I shoot and edit all HD and only delivery on dvd or web so i do this all the time.

The best results and workflow i've found is going out of FCP through Compressor to ProRes SD Anamorphic or my web delivery size. Once i have my destination size, i flip it to MPEG-2 or H.264. Works like a charm and looks great, and i get to stay in optimal color space the entire time.