T2i Blown up image doesn't look great

K

kevinkt

Active member
I recently took some footage with my t2i, and when I blew it up onto a 27 inch screen, it didn't look very good.

Well I understand that it probably has a lot to do with my lack of cinematography skills. But overall there were some compression artifacts that were noticeable.

My question is, is there anyway to get rid of these compression artifacts and get a much higher quality HD image? My iso was also pretty low, at 200.

Also if it doesn't look good on a 27 inch, I'm assuming it looks a ton worse on a bigger screen. Is this normal (because I'm looking at it close-up), I'm assuming that on a bigger screen if you sit further away it becomes harder to notice the compressions.
 
kevinkt said:
I recently took some footage with my t2i, and when I blew it up onto a 27 inch screen, it didn't look very good.

Well I understand that it probably has a lot to do with my lack of cinematography skills. But overall there were some compression artifacts that were noticeable.

My question is, is there anyway to get rid of these compression artifacts and get a much higher quality HD image? My iso was also pretty low, at 200.

Also if it doesn't look good on a 27 inch, I'm assuming it looks a ton worse on a bigger screen. Is this normal (because I'm looking at it close-up), I'm assuming that on a bigger screen if you sit further away it becomes harder to notice the compressions.
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my footage looks fine on my 50" tv have you not checked out the footage on the footage section.
 
kevinkt said:
I'm assuming that on a bigger screen if you sit further away it becomes harder to notice the compressions.
Click to expand...

Likely so. The hollywood folks was "blown away" at the zacuto shootout (and then they even had film as direct comparison). So yes, projection might hide stuff you see on your monitor.

Also notice that the 1080p from these cameras is an upscale from a lower resolution (1600x900-isch is the talk, i dunno, who cares really...) but it's for sure a baked-in 1080p you got in that .h264 file from the camera. Which casues the infamous aliasing.

I looked at some old HV30 footage exported as x1920p 50mbit and it looks a lot better then what these cameras put out... but then again that's 1.33 anom. and not 1.0 upscaled resolution. Oh man, old shi*ty DV-camera is better?! let the flaming start :beer:
 
You need to understand proper workflow and finally a correct compression format. What is you are exact workflow from filming, to editing , to creating a final copy?
 
I just edited in final cut using the files straight from the camera. It was 1080p 24fps.

But also, I'd like to say that what I talked about applies to the footage as taken out from the camera, without editing.
 
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kevinkt said:
I just edited in final cut using the files straight from the camera. It was 1080p 24fps.

But also, I'd like to say that what I talked about applies to the footage as taken out from the camera, without editing.
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The files straight from the camera are h.264. This is not and editing codec, by any stretch of the imagination. Furthermore, while other NLEs do offer native h.264 editing, FCP is not known for its support of the h.264 codec. And even for the NLEs that do offer h.264 native editing, it's still not recommended. Study up on what h.264 is and how it works.

You really need to transcode your files to an editing codec, HD flavor of your choice, and ProRes is the usual rout. It's the difference between a GOP codec (h.264) and an i-frame codec.
 
I understand now about the problems editing in fcp, however, my observation of artifacts and overall quality of the images stems from the original files taken out of the camera
 
kevinkt said:
I understand now about the problems editing in fcp, however, my observation of artifacts and overall quality of the images stems from the original files taken out of the camera
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You can ONLY help those that want to be helped......


Good Luck/
 
Download mpeg streamclip or 5DtoRGB to convert your footage to prores and your footage will be clean and ready to edit
 
hey guys, I read all your replies.

I meant just the footage straight from camera played with quicktime, not my finished footage edited with final cut.

Am I missing something? is this footage going to look better if I convert to prores? I understand it's gonna be easier to edit, but will it look better as a prores file rather than a h.264?
 
i've seen my 7d footage on a 40' screen playing thru a 2k projector and it was beautiful. same goes on my 42" plasma at home, even close up.
 
kevinkt said:
I meant just the footage straight from camera played with quicktime, not my finished footage edited with final cut.
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And there's your problem.

QuickTime Player is not the way to view your footage for critical judgment. Period. And a lot of this has to do with watching your GOP codec footage.

Try hooking your camera's HDMI up to an HDTV set. That's, at the very least, a better way to view your camera's footage before you transcode.
 
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Hmmm, I've played my 7D Footage on my 42" plasma like cheezweezl and while it wasn't as sharp as the average NFL game in HD, it did look awesome. Slightly softer than a TV show like "House". also I've seen HDV footage blown up on a 40 Foot screen native 1440 x 1080 and it looked awesome. I have no doubts about the 7D as the 7D already beats the HDV footage I shot. Even thought this is &D and not T2i, they are pretty much the same.
 
Cheezweezl > How did you playback your footage on a 2k projector ? Server ? And what type did you render your 7d file ? Did you upscale into 2k or just used a 1080p file as is and in what file format was it used for screening ?
 
kevinkt said:
hey guys, I read all your replies.

I meant just the footage straight from camera played with quicktime, not my finished footage edited with final cut.

Am I missing something? is this footage going to look better if I convert to prores? I understand it's gonna be easier to edit, but will it look better as a prores file rather than a h.264?
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Kevin > Ive regularly first preview my raw footage from the camera on my PC. But quicktime is a horrible player. From what ive experienced. I play my raw canon files in Windows media player and they look very good. They also play incredibly smooth. Try installing some codecs (try Klite Codec pack) that would support HD MOV playback on your PC and then run the cam files. They will look good. Dont despair. My 550d footage looks very very nice. Like 1080p is supposed to look. IMO.

No amount of transcoding will make your footage look BETTER. They can make your video look smoother. video smoothing. softening. Which is actually a side effect when converting to some formats. Whether that works out to your benefit is another story. Even when you transcode to .wmv it will soften your video a bit. Its in the nature of the wmv codec. A mpeg2 clip will look sharper comparitively. But first ensure the footage is really what it is. By playing it back using the correct player. Ive seen players which dont support the codec playing back horrible versions of a file by trying to cope. The transociding is only to make your video editable on your NLE. Keep in mind that the transcode can only lower the quality from the orginal but mpegstreamclip will transcode to a very high bitrate and almost visually lossless quality which will hold up well in editing and rendering out of those. The files will however be 5 times larger than the orginal cam file :). But transcoding to a more system friendly format will help you to also review your footage properly in WMPlayer and edit those files equally well.
 
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