down converting DVCPRO HD to DV

[angelicolaa]

I'm trying to convert my DVCPRO HD 24p720 project to a DV NTSC project. I've tried dropping my HD sequence into a DV NTSC 23.98 timeline and although it does work, the image looks kind of crappy, it seems like there are artifacts and other oddities. Is there a better way of doing this, maybe using Compressor? The project will eventually have to be put on dvd.

Thanks,
Anthony

 

[kwoff]

There are a number of threads on this topic. Is there some reason you need to transcode to DV? If not, you likely will get a better quality DVD by editing in 720p in FCP, then exporting using Compressor to MPEG2 for your DVD authoring. If you do have reason for converting to DV, I would still follow the above workflow for creating your DVD. You can always export your edited timeline to DV (using Compressor for best quality) after editing the 720p footage (but also export your MPEG2 from the edited 720p timeline, not from the DV export) or you can export a DV version of your original footage, but then edit in a 720p timeline.

To my mind, probably the worst workflow for creating a DVD from 720p footage would be to transcode to DV, then edit, then export the edited DV footage to MPEG2. That approach would create an extra level of encoding with the loss of quality that would entail.

Kevin

 

[wahrez]

As said before not sure why you'd want to go to DV. If you're mixing footage I understand but consider downrezzing to ProRes so you keep the colourspace associated with HD and then up-rez your dv footage to ProRes too, this will have the benefit of also rendering out titles and effects into the higher colourspace.

Use compressor to convert and pay attention to the resize filter, this will give you huge improvements in quality as you scale/downscale.

Good luck!