HVX200 HD to SD settings. HELP!

[Juan Carlos]

Hello everybody:
First post here after reading and trying to find threads about my inquires and don't seem to find one close except the nice help of Barry Green.. I hope somebody can help here. I'm in South America doing a project and can't find any resources where I'm at right now:

I have shot footage in NTSC 720pNative and 1080i on my HVX200 at 24p and as I see it on my PC it is shot fine and the cam was set correctly.

My problem begins when I try to edit it and export it to a one clip for DVD authoring or any format to watch it nicely on a normal SD TV and still maintain the nice 24 to 30fps film-motion and look on screen like any normal hollywood film movie transfered to video.

I know both need to be edited on a 24 timeline but what settings more should I keep in mind before putting these clips in what timeline? What settings should I use to export to to see it move nicely and crisply in SD? (color space, compressor, 29.97 or 23.976, pixel ratio 0.9 or 1.0 or else to maintain the letterbox in 4:3, use any pulldown or not and which, progressive or upper/lower field first, etc.).

I have tried already 720pN at 24p and exported it in Premier Pro 2 to SD with these settings:
* 720 x 480
* 23.976fps
* DV (24advanced)
* pixel ratio 1.0
* Microsoft DV AVI

So far these settings show the footage beautifully with that film-motion on a normal SD TV, although im having trouble in how to configure to look letterboxed because when I chose DV widescreen on my export settings in Premiere Pro 2, the end result on my DVD video looked kinda warbly and with artifacts in my 4:3 TV (exporting in regular DV in 0.9 pixel ratio did fine though).

And anybody know what settings work fine to downconvert 1080i 24pA to SD and also maintain a beautiful letterbox and film-motion without artifacts or interlace errors?

I know it's a lot of questions my friends, please excuse....but I've tried it all for days ...and I mean all settings, but the combinations are so many that I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I use Premier Pro 2 and After Effects 7 for editing and color grading with Raylight as a codec.

Any nice detailed help and light is truly and tremendously appreciated.
Thanks to you all that read and help in advance!!
-Juan Carlos

 

[Huy Vu]

Your pixel aspect ratio is wrong. 720x480 is only 4:3 when PAR is .9, and widescreen when PAR is 1.2. Use 1.2 and on a 4:3 TV it should letterbox automatically.

I wouldn't export using MS DV avi either. That's a crap codec that will soften your image. For best result, import your HD project file into a 16:9 SD timeline, and scale the footage down (you may need to right click on the clip and uncheck Scale to Frame size). Then you can either do an uncompressed avi render or go straight to MPG with Media Encoder. Result should be stunning.

 

[Juan Carlos]

Thanks for the tip Huv Vu.
One thing I notice though is that when I exported in 1.2, burned a DVD of it and watched it on a SD TV it showed wrong (motion and interlace artifacts like a worble around fast moving objects) and it didnt letterbox quite, but when I chose 0.9 (odd, 'cause I though it only serves for regular 4:3 footage) it showed all my footage fine, with a letterbox and motion was like film with no artifacts. Dont know why because ur tip sounds very logical to me and I support it and also I did it first too, but it didn't work for some reason (I even checked my DVD player to play progressive and in letterbox or pan-scan) but these last option worked better....odd.

I tried your scaling tip also and it worked beautifully, thank you. I didn't get to see any 24pA option anywhere, but one in "Interpret Footage" and it was grayed out.

Do you happen to know any tip on how to downconvert nicely from 1080i 24p to SD with a letterbox also without any artifacts?

Thank you again Huv Vu, your tip was of great help!