Converting 24p HD footage to SD for Television (30fps Interlaced)

ripupthehwy

Well-known member
Whats the best way to do this? I'm running premiere 5.5.0. I have an HD project (AVCHD 1080p/ 23.976fps
I want to record it to DV (DVCPRO) Tape for Television Broadcast, which means it has to be 720, 60i. (DV). Everything I do looks horrible, studdery, bad aliasing, jaggie edges. I thought Premiere did the 3:2 pulldown automatically (In Sequence Settings/Playback Settings is a "24p Conversion Method" window, I chose Interlaced Frame 2:2:3:2 option.) I made a new sequence with theses settings as a DV project (I tried both as a interlaced and as a progressive project and same results).

What about Adobe Media Encoder? Is there a way to just simply export the original HD file and convert it as an interlaced DV file with proper pulldown?

I have done all this successfully in Grass Valley Edius but there doesn't seem to be a pulldown option in Adobe Media Encoder.

Thanks for any help.!!!

EDIT: Okay, the best option seems to be exporting straight from the HD (1080p/23.976) project timeline and choose NTSC DV. Then taking that file and putting it on an SD timeline. It's not perfect but far better than placing the HD files on an SD timeline and printing to tape without exporting.
 
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I'm not sure what workflow you're using but the "proper" way to do it would be to edit it in HD, on a 24p timeline which matches the settings of the clip.

When you're done, File-->Export-->select MPEG2-DVD--> and away you go.

You could also transcode before editing...what workflow are you using? I make DVD's from AVCHD 24p all the time with media encoder and rarely have issues.
 
Thanks.
But not for DVD's. It's for Broadcast Television as a DV file output to video tape. But anyway that's similar to what I mentioned in the EDIT part of my post. Same workflow, just choosing DV NTSC option instead of MPEG2. I think I did do the pulldown okay but the footage still looks nasty with jaggies on thin edges, more and aliaising.
 
First update Premiere to 5.0.3 (5.0.4 for Mac).
Try exporting with Frame Blending on in the export settings.
 
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I wouldn't do any frame blending. You're not trying to convert to 30p (which you shouldn't try to do with 24p material anyway); you're trying to convert to 60i, so you want to insert a simple 2:3 pulldown -- which exporting to NTSC DV should give you.

However, the aliasing, etc., probably has much more to do with scaling from 1080 to 480 than it does with inserting pulldown. I'd suggest an intermediate step of 720/24p before exporting out to NTSC.
 
The MPEG2-DVD setting is your standard NTSC 480i output...I would definitely turn off any frame blending.

If you're already doing this and are not happy with the quality, two things come to mind:

-if you're viewing it on a computer monitor, you're going to see artifacts and quality degradation that you probably won't see on a TV...TV's are forgiving, but LCD computer monitors are not as they are much sharper.
-if you absolutely want the absolutely absolute best quality downconversion, you'll probably need to research some open source software such as avisynth and virtualdub.
 
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