HD advantages in a (currently/mostly) SD world?

[nullphonic]

Barry Green and a few others have discussed the (potential/probable) quality hit you may take when down-rezing to SD from HD for DVD/SD deployment. However, are the other advantages, and I realize some of these features are currently pure speculation, worth the hit?

- 4:2:2 (this is relative and specific to possible HDX capabilities, not HD in general of course)

- 16:9 (“native” and/or some “XL2-ish / DVX squeeze” trick)

- Composite/Effects in post in HD may (obviously) offer advantages over SD rez in that world.

- Is there an advantage in fundamental processing such as color correction in HD rez regardless of the fact that it’s going to be down-rezed?

Again, I know this must remain somewhat hypothetical and/or “in theory” until any real-world work can be done with the “HDX” but I guess the general question is still valid: higher rez processing advantage regardless of final target (SD).

[Flintstone]

Compared to native 4:1:1 DV, I would speculate that down-converting 4:2:2 DVCProHD footage would yeild superior results for DVD deployment. *I would not say the same for the highly compressed 4:2:0 HDV though.

[Barry_Green]

Depends on what you're comparing it to. *Are you comparing it to DigiBeta/DVCPRO50, or to DV/DVCAM? *If comparing to DV/DVCAM, then yes the 4:2:2 would potentially be a large advantage. *Transcoding 4:2:2 to DVD's 4:2:0 should, in theory, look better than transcoding DV's 4:1:1 to DVD's 4:2:0.

4:2:2 will also give you much cleaner chroma keys.

Shooting on HD will also provide the oft-mentioned "future-proofing"...

The "advantage" of 16:9 depends on what you're going to do with the footage. *If intended for European distribution, 16:9 is of great importance. *If intended for US distribution on the airwaves, 16:9 is of little relevance now, but will grow in importance as consumers adopt more and more 16:9 televisions. *I do believe consumers prefer 16:9, and there will come a time (although we don't know how soon) when US broadcasters may start broadcasting a 16:9 signal over the airwaves... right now all broadcasts are SD 4:3 (except for the few HD broadcasts to the few HD sets out there).

More resolution is always better, yes... as long as it doesn't hurt you in the end. *The downrezzing process costs a little. *It's not a big loss. *It's not like there's a night-and-day difference between native 720x480 and resized 720p down to 720x480... it's just a little softer.

I think people don't understand what I've been saying: it's not that the HD camera will make a lousy DVD, because it'll make a DVD with sharpness roughly the same as the native SD camera. *It just won't make a BETTER DVD. *It'll be, at best, about the same as a native SD camera of comparable technology would deliver.

And the same ain't bad. *It's not a drawback.

It's just not "better" -- lots of people are promoting the myth that FX1 footage "blows away" DVX/XL2 footage on DVD, and it's just patently false (or they didn't know how to use the DVX/XL2 so they had lesser-quality footage to begin with).

A properly configured, properly executed HD shoot will yield excellent results on DVD. *All things being equal, a comparable SD camera will likely do a slightly better job than the comparable HD camera would have, due to issues such as light sensitivity, latitude, and the HD->SD resizing aliasing/softening. *But if the cameras are truly comparable, the differences will be fairly minor. (and you'll always have that HD original footage to make an HD version with too).

[MovieSwede]

Barry

How would it compare to a PAL version of the DVX. The PAL already is 4:2:0 so it should has some advantage there? (When going for DVD)

[Barry_Green]

And that, my friend, is a good question. One that I can't speculate on. I mean, you'd think the PAL DVX would make a better-looking PAL DVD than an NTSC DVX would make of an NTSC DVD... but how do you compare 'em?

When the HDX comes out, we'll have to find a way to run some comparisons.

[Jan_Crittenden]

How would it compare to a PAL version of the DVX. The PAL already is 4:2:0 so it should has some advantage there? (When going for DVD)
4:2:0 is not an advantage to 4:1:1.
See Adam Wilt's article on this very subject. You will need to sign in for this article but it costs nothing but the time to sign in. http://www.dv.com/news/news_item.jhtml;jsessionid=AMJXG4Y0RA4SUQSNDBCCKHS CJUMEKJVN?LookupId=/xml/feature/2003/wilt0603&_requestid=1204502

Best regards,

Jan

[alpi69]

barry why do you think 16:9 is of more importance in the european broadcast world? most networks tell me to stay 4:3, because if you look at all their programmes they are 4:3 unless it is a feature or highquality series (super16) or a nature programme.
i think 16:9 has the same problems here as it has with you. when people see it they like it but the majority uses 4:3 TV-sets still.

[SimonMW]

Speaking for the UK, most things are shot 16:9. The BBC shoots all of their productions in 16:9 and protects for 14:9.

So digital transmissions in the UK are in 16:9. If you watch analogue broadcasts on the BBC channels all broadcasts are in 14:9 so 4:3 sets will see only small letterbox borders.

I don't know what ITV's policy is but their news is mainly in 4:3 as they still use BetaSP. This is quite irritating if you happen to own a digibox and a 16:9 set. Unlike the US the penetration of 16:9 sets in the UK is very high, and to my knowledge are outselling 4:3 sets.

[nullphonic]

Thanks for the replies and the link (that’s a very good and straight forward article btw). It seems difficult to go wrong if the current (speculative) specifications stay intact for the HDX.

- I know that some folks up-rez (quite a bit actually) SD footage in order to ease and achieve better quality post effects. The bottom line seems to be higher rez is always better i.e. backing down on resolution is better than artificially creating higher resolution.

- 4:2:2 is a better platform (certainly in theory at least, until someone officially finds a pitfall due to a conversion issue or something) to work from than 4:2:0 or 4:1:1.

- Cranking up your workflow tools (FCP, etc) to HD capabilities is a minimal hit.

- <Shameless marketing DVD credit> “Mastered from an HD source”. Even though HD saturation is currently pretty low, “HD” is a pretty hot consumer term. Even if you're painfully aware of the reality of what that really means (or doesn't mean) it's currently compelling to consumers.

- Resale value of current SD products when a HD/DVD delivery system becomes available. That goes for everyone from indie filmmakers to musicians to wedding/event videographers. When the HD/DVD medium becomes available, even if it’s 3 years from now, you’ve got resale value from getting in the loop now and it’s native resolution rather than up-rezzed. (of course you may need to create a digital storage warehouse but it’ll potentially be worth it. The wedding guys will have to worry about the divorce rate however *:)).

- As difficult as it’s been (and currently is and will be moving forward for a long while in my opinion) for a new standard to come together and deploy, you’re probably covered regarding HD at least from a native resolution aspect for 10-15 years.

Obviously most of that is pure opinion and it depends on the individual and what they have/need but I’m officially psyched.

- We have CD/DVD release parties coming up 3 quarter where we’ll bring our own (rented) projection device. Obviously HD will be cool.

- European markets have always been more receptive to us (we’ve historically sold 3 times more European units than domestic).

- As cheesy as it may sound it’s a fact, “HD” is probably more of a marketing term currently than reality but it is what it is: “Shot in HD”, “Mastered from HD”, blah, blah, blah.

- We’ll have resale value in the future, even if it’s 10% resale to current SD clients it’s worth the upgrade now.

And to hopefully head-off any “It’s not the camera, it’s the ability of the artist” rebuttals, I totally agree, the latest-and-greatest only makes sense if it makes sense for you, it’s not going to suddenly revolutionize your own abilities. However, if it’s the right tool for your targets and Panasonic is getting ready to pull off another DVX100-like SD market “coup d’etat” for the emerging prosumer HD camera market, I’ll take 2 HDXs.

Thanks again everyone.

[Isaac_Brody]

I’ll take 2 HDVs.

You mean two HDX's, or two HDVCPRO-HD cameras? Sorry, it caught my eye. People have been mixing up the two. I hope this is just a general typo and people don't make the same mistake when making their purchases in about six months.

[nullphonic]

Woops, thanks, I meant HDX *;D

(Fixed it)

[Barry_Green]

Alpi, my info was based on the same thing Simon said, so maybe it's just really more of an issue in the UK... I had understood that the penetration of 16:9 sets in Europe was much higher than it is in the U.S., I'd heard about 50% in Europe vs. about 10% for the U.S. But perhaps it's not "Europe" as a whole, but just primarily the U.K.?

I had also understood that the BBC and other European broadcasters were now requiring program submissions in 16:9, protected for 14:9. Is that not the case? I'd heard that Greek broadcasts are still 4:3, so maybe 16:9 isn't as prevalent in Europe as I thought?

[alpi69]

we deliver to pan-european, austrian and german networks like Eurosport, RTL, DSF, ARD, ORF etc. if you look at their commercials and programmes they are mostly 4:3.
it is true that 16:9 sets are outselling 4:3 sets, but there are still so many 4:3 out there.....and so many networks are still on BetaSP. i NEVER got the request for 16:9, but some demand DigiBeta for master-commercials (even when shot on DV). therefore i think the majority of important european countries (important for the advertisement segment) are 4:3 still: germany, italy, france etc.

as long as a 16:9 programme is actually marked in a TV-guide i assume the networks are sending 4:3 primarily and see 16:9 as an extra feature and not the ordinary. and the TV-guides i look at all mark 16:9 on a few of their programmes.

i think they stay away from making the big jump now anyway as everyone looks how HD will come and how much it will cost. then we will see a flood of 16:9 and my company is working hard to at least be visually prepared for the 16:9 world in our shooting style ;-)

[Spiff]

The downrezzing process costs a little.

It seems from what I've read that the loss of sharpness in down-sampling higher resolution pictures is due to the lack of sophistication in the down-sampling algorithms - the effect of which is slight low-pass filtering. In order to "match" the sharpness of footage captured natively in 720x480, either higher order scaling is needed, or digital sharpening must be applied. If appropriately done, doesn't this mean that the down-sampling should cost *nothing* in 720x480?

Considering how obvious edge enhancement is on some DVDs (i.e., the badly done ones), it's pretty clear this step is used in the Hollywood pipeline - yet there is very little discussion as to why it may indeed be necessary for transferring HD content.

-Spiff

[Shaw]

I don't believe so. When downsampled the footage is interpolated (ie an entirely new set of pixels are created. Several pixels become one etc). When footage is interpolated there will always be a hit in sharpness. How much is hard to say of course.

[Flintstone]

What if the transformation is bicubic, just like Photoshop does its resizes? It would take into account sub-pixel interpolation at resize, should it not? Loosely translated, one way to acheiving anti-aliasing is to reduce an oversized image and reduce it (e.i. by bicubic transformation). Should it not be the same in this case?

[Spiff]

Interpolation is tricky business. Of the many tools and methods commonly available, "bicubic" is often the best method provided. It is not however perfect. This article is at least approachable for those not interested in the mathematics:

http://www.designer-info.com/master.htm?http://www.designer-info.com/Photo/image_resample.htm

[jonahlee]

No matter what when losing that much resolution you will lose aparent sharpness, and adding sharpness may lessen the effect, but isn't actually adding back detail.

Really I think we will have to wait and see how well it does. I am excited to see how the camera handles downcovertion. I know it can go to DV, but can it also downconvert to DVCPRO, and how good will that look? Of course then you would probably need to reconform so that probably isn't an option.