What is the image like viewed from DVD

W

Wendt

Active member
[SIZE=+0]Once the video from the A1 is down converted and burned to a DVD is there much difference from the same video shot with a DSR 250? I only do video jobs two to three times a year ($10-15K) for a few select customers using my DSR 250. The final output is DVD so I do not want to tell them about the how great this camera is if they will not be able to tell the difference. How much HD can fit on a regular DVD? Will the A1 be better for displaying video on the Web?[/SIZE]
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Thanks
 
probably not much difference on dvd, except better colors... on the web, it makes a big difference, especially if you want to post in HD.
 
Wendt said:
[SIZE=+0] How much HD can fit on a regular DVD? [/SIZE]
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Thanks
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Regular DVD does not support HD. There are some DVD players that will play back HD DIVX, QT or WMV files, but unless you know the recipient of the video has one of these it is a bit risky delivering on such a format.

The SD DVD image quality from the A1 is OK, but nothing special. The results from my XL2 are better. Not familar with the DSR-250 though. If it is 16:9 and 24P then I would exect it to be at least as good as the A1 for SD.
 
I would never shoot SD with the A1, why would anyone want to? Shoot in HD and bump it down to SD in post, the image is sooo much better. I've seen some amazing footy around the web that used this process.
 
shoot ai in hd then down convert.the results to my eye were definitly better in terms of sharpness,color,and cleaner image
 
coffee said:
I would never shoot SD with the A1, why would anyone want to? Shoot in HD and bump it down to SD in post, the image is sooo much better. I've seen some amazing footy around the web that used this process.
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Well tell that to a client that wants overnight turnaround on a DVD in SD. I am in Orlando shooting as I type. I am using an XLH1 and shooting in SD 4x3 60i.

Yuck!!!

I would prefer to shoot HD and downrez but I have to edit overnight on a laptop and burn a final disk in the morning in 4x3. I would not be able to edit in HD and render out to SD in enough time to finish this project. In this case I have no choice....

Being an admitted HD whore I do not want to do it this way. But I have to. And the client can care less about any of this, they just want it done here on site in the morning.....4x3 60i.

Peace!
 
icicle22 said:
Well tell that to a client that wants overnight turnaround on a DVD in SD. I am in Orlando shooting as I type. I am using an XLH1 and shooting in SD 4x3 60i.

Yuck!!!

I would prefer to shoot HD and downrez but I have to edit overnight on a laptop and burn a final disk in the morning in 4x3. I would not be able to edit in HD and render out to SD in enough time to finish this project. In this case I have no choice....

Being an admitted HD whore I do not want to do it this way. But I have to. And the client can care less about any of this, they just want it done here on site in the morning.....4x3 60i.

Peace!
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YOu can shoot HDV and capture as DV using the in-camera downconversion. (At least, you can with the A1, so I thought the H1 would be the same). This way you can still go back and recapture as HDV if you want to work in HD later.
 
ennfurno said:
shoot ai in hd then down convert.the results to my eye were definitly better in terms of sharpness,color,and cleaner image
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Depends what you compare it to. I always shoot in HDV on my A1. I have tried downconverting on capture, and in Vegas using different methods (DV timeline, HDV timeline) and also using Virtualdub and Procoder to downconvert the rendered output. So far, even thought the results can be very good, they are not as good as what I get with my XL2. The A1 footage has a shimmery quality with certain camera movements or zooms that I never see with the XL2 footage.

And I would have to disagree about the cleaner image. On my A1 it looks like there is always a bit of gain/grain noise, even at -3dB (and yes I HAVE switched off the AGC).

One of the reasons I bought the A1 was that I believed all the posts that said it would give better SD video because the source resolution was higher. It was quite a disappointment at first to find out that it is not the case. Now I'm just looking forward to the availability of affordable delivery methods for HD video, where this camera really shines.
 
when i said the a1 looked sharper, cleaner,and represented better colors downconverted to sd, i never said that as fact but only to my eye.also when i recorded i used the noise reduction and got a grainless picture.
 
jaegersing said:
YOu can shoot HDV and capture as DV using the in-camera downconversion. (At least, you can with the A1, so I thought the H1 would be the same). This way you can still go back and recapture as HDV if you want to work in HD later.
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The H1 will do that also but from all that I have heard it is a crappy downconversion. Everyone that I know who has tried this says so and recommends that I do the conversion in software.

The other problem in this case is while I have been filming we are pulling a live feed from the camera to a 10ft screen on the back of the stage. It is 4x3 and SD only.....so it cannot handle conversion of a 16x9 signal from the BNC out. The H1 sends out a SD version of the HD signal but it does no Aspect conversion so everyone would be squished.

Bummer.
 
actually, i found today this setting that takes 16x9 footage and letterboxes it.
 
icicle22 said:
The H1 will do that also but from all that I have heard it is a crappy downconversion. Everyone that I know who has tried this says so and recommends that I do the conversion in software.

The other problem in this case is while I have been filming we are pulling a live feed from the camera to a 10ft screen on the back of the stage. It is 4x3 and SD only.....so it cannot handle conversion of a 16x9 signal from the BNC out. The H1 sends out a SD version of the HD signal but it does no Aspect conversion so everyone would be squished.

Bummer.
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Hi Marty. I did try the in-camera downconversion of my A1's picture, comparing it to the results from Vegas. Yes Vegas is better, but only by a small margin, and I would never describe the in-camera conversion as crappy. I suggest you give it a try on a short sample, you may be pleasantly surprised. (If not, then at least you won't have wasted much time on it.)

Regarding the projector, the A1 has an option to letterbox the SD video output for such a case. Are you sure the H1 doesn't have this too?

Richard
 
ennfurno said:
when i said the a1 looked sharper, cleaner,and represented better colors downconverted to sd, i never said that as fact but only to my eye.also when i recorded i used the noise reduction and got a grainless picture.
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Hi ennfurno. I understand that this is all subjective, so it is important what you use as the reference when you do the comparison. To say the A1 is better than all SD cameras is a generalisation that I believe is not always correct.

By the way, if the A1 is so clean, why are you using noise reduction? If you need this, it sounds like your AGC might be on.
 
This is a reply to the 2 posts mentioning letterboxing of 16x9 video on the output of the H1....and sadly this is a new feature that Canon added to the HV10 and the XH-A1. The H1 does NOT have this. I know....I lamented over this missing feature. The H1 has no capability to compensate for aspect ratio whatsoever.

Kudos to Canon for adding this....but too bad they did it a little too late for me.
 
That's too bad Marty. I take it the projector setup menu doesn't include anything on letterboxing widescreen video inputs?
 
jaegersing said:
That's too bad Marty. I take it the projector setup menu doesn't include anything on letterboxing widescreen video inputs?
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The truth is that they want it to fit the screen anyway. You know...they are stuck in the "I hate those black bars" mode. I would have liked to shoot this in HD and have them use only the "4x3" portion of the frame. But....in actuality the setup was rather lame and the footage was going to come oh "ho-hum" anyway due to lighting issues and poor planning on their part, so making an HD version would have been useless. Bad lit HD footage is worse than bad lit SD footage.....it's just higher res. Sometimes you have to suck it up and just give the client what they want. But in all honesty for the settings I used, I might as well have shot with any old DV camera. The H1 was complete overkill.

But......the size and form factor of the H1 helped to get the gig and that is why I got paid a premium. Sometimes business people have weird ideas......
 
Wendt said:
[SIZE=-0]Once the video from the A1 is down converted and burned to a DVD is there much difference from the same video shot with a DSR 250? I only do video jobs two to three times a year ($10-15K) for a few select customers using my DSR 250. The final output is DVD so I do not want to tell them about the how great this camera is if they will not be able to tell the difference. How much HD can fit on a regular DVD? Will the A1 be better for displaying video on the Web?[/SIZE]


Thanks
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What do you mean "will the A1 be better for displaying video on the Web?"

If the source is of equal fidelity they will look the same when downresed for the Web.

If the orginal images looks like crap then you will most likely get crap.

If the original images are fantastic and the compression/resizing goofs. Then Crap.

But, if you have a good footage to begin with and your resize and compress for the web with care the A1 footage should be fantasticamismolistic!

HTH
 
Have any of you guys tried downconverting with MPEG Streamclip into a better SD codec like DV50 or PhotoJPEG, animation codec etc.?

Streamclip gives me phenomenal results, and the key is downconverting to a better SD codec than plain-jane DV. When I downconvert to 16x9 SD with the PhotoJPEG codec at 100% quality I get color very close to 4:4:4. THAT is where shooting HDV for SD really pays off.
 
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