HD 1080p to SD DVD workflow

C

cinolatino

New member
Hi guys,
few weeks ago I shot a short film with a new XDCAM EX1 in HD, 1080p. It is my first experience in HD, since I am a DVX100 owner.
I used FCP studio2 for editing and post-production. The screening needs to be done through a SD DVD version of it.
I tried doing that changing the sequence settings in fcp, but the result was terrible .
I got something better exporting the full HD mov sequence from fcp and importing in DVDstudiopro and let it do the job for me. Have you some experience on that or a good workflow?
Thanks for your help
 
Most problems that people experience going from a large resolution down to DVD is the down sampling methods built into the NLE or Compression software you're using. For example, if you do a downsample in Adobe Premiere Pro using the Adobe Media encoder, the results are less than stellar.

The reason isn't that the encoders built into the software are bad, since I've encoded many SD files into Mpeg-2 and have gotten great results. The problem lies in the downsampling.

Right now I'm experimenting with a scripting software called AVIsynth in Windows, however the workflow is extremely complicated.

Right now I'm finding that for downsampling native 1280x720 video game footage, that the Spline36 resizing filter built in is the best. However I've yet to explore it for DVCProHD (1280x1080) to be downsampled to SD-DVD (720x480). As far as I know, AVISynth is the only software that has this downsampling method built in. Most Compression software tries to hide their methods behind the program so they don't really tell you what you are, or aren't getting.

Pre-Processing makes a huge difference in how good your material turns out when it's encoded. Basically what you need to do is figure out a good way to take your video from your editor and downsample it properly to 720x480, and then run it through your encoder. This means creating intermediary files which are very space and time consuming.

In short: Compression isn't as simple as dialing in the right settings, espically if your software doesn't do all of the necessary pre-processing to get a clean image. Try to consult with a professional compressionist. You'll need to pay them for their time/space since it is long, technical, and complicated process.
 
Demistate said:
Try to consult with a professional compressionist. You'll need to pay them for their time/space since it is long, technical, and complicated process.
Click to expand...

I have a lot of projects that are very similar, so if I were to do as said above, would they 'hand over' their compression secrets for me to use on future projects, or would I have to pay them to do it for me every time?
 
Most compression experts are going to have you send them the source material (DVCProHD 1280x1080 1.5 AR) and they will do the resizing, De-noising, and final rendering to Mpeg-2 or h.264.

Even if they did tell you how to do it, it would be a nightmare to support, since you use several applications with several different passes to achieve the final product.

For example, my intermediate for an 82 minute feature film was 492Gigabytes in size. I made h.264 and Mpeg-2 outputs for BLU-RAY and DVD from that file.

I'm currently doing the encoding job for an independent movie shot on HVX200, and the results I'm getting are very good. I may possibly do Processing for future HVX200 Projects, but right now my schedule is so busy I could not possibly take on any more jobs until November.
 
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