Panasonic hmc150 footage to dvd

P

Peter Lelievre

Member
The hmc 150 footage is great but when i capture my footage to my Mac
imovie 09 it still looks great but when i burn a dvd the Quality looks like
vhs.
What am i doing wrong?
Thanks
Peter L
 
The DVD will look nowhere near as good as it looks on your computer at full resolution. The footage will look around the same as a DVX100 to DVD. It could be that the major difference in resolution is making you think that it looks VHS quality.
 
So how do video people supply a client a hd dvd with the quality i see
on my computer?
This always bothered me you spend all this money for equipment to get the best quality and then it gets compressed and loses quality buy the time you
deliver it to a customer.
 
You can maintain the high quality of your footage as long as you use a good encoder like tmpeg encoder or even better the CCE encoder. Expensive but its worth it, movie studios usually use that for DVD distribution of their products.
 
Never heard of the cce encoder, where can I see it? i get very good quality by watching my settings carefully, but access to a better one would sure be a nice deal.
SW
 
i too have found it challenging to deliver quality ntsc dvd footage. its not just the resolution, but the color and contrast too.

the codec has lots to do with it i've found. adding a filter or too to increase contrast or shift gamma can go a long ways to restoring the beauty you edited in HD.

i wish had the final answer! keep experimenting with your exports. you may find that exporting straight to dvd from your HD project results in a better image...or you may find the opposite true, that downconverting from a master HD export is better.
 
I was disappointed with the encodes to SD from the HMC150 for SD DVDs.

It was really the only thing I was disappointed with.

My comparison was identically shot DVCProHD footage from a 170. The 150 footage somewhat fell apart in post.
 
David, could you be more specific as to what fell apart. I am looking at the HMC150 and HPX 170 for projects where final output is to SD DVD. The HMC150 looked to be my first choice until this thread came along. Do you think the avchd format is the problem or finding the ideal workflow for this format? Also, do you think shooting in dvcpro50 with the HPX170 would yield sharp, crisp and superior SD-DVD results compared to down sizing issues to deal as with dvcproHD?

Thanks,
 
Last edited:
method of conversion

method of conversion

Hi David,

We just did 2 method of conversion ( SD dvd ) for HMC through mac system

FCP studio
( log and transfer through fcp, follow by compressor to change the resolution to SD Pro Res)

Toast
( Convert to dv quality )

By comparison, u could see the quality in fcp is so much better. As you can adjust the preset in fcp to be Pro Res but for toast is only DV Pal. Hence i suspect the conversion is really important as well
 
Yeah... I can't imagine why any HD-capable camera wouldn't produce jaw-dropping SD footage. My money's also on the conversion route - it could well be "ruined" in that phase.
 
TigerFX said:
Yeah... I can't imagine why any HD-capable camera wouldn't produce jaw-dropping SD footage. My money's also on the conversion route - it could well be "ruined" in that phase.
Click to expand...

I think you may be missing what I am saying and comparing.

We shot identical footage with the 150 and the 170.

We encoded the same way.

The SD DVD footage from the 170 looked qualitatively better than the 150.

All things being equal, the 150 to SD DVD broke up more than the DVCProHD footage from the 170.

I tried seven alternative workflows for the 150, and nothing improved on this conclusion.

I've been doing desktop DVDs for about 10 years now with thousands of replicated DVDs.

We have used in the past everything from procoder on a PC, to BitVice, Compressor, Sorenson, Adobe Media Encoder and CC.
 
Wow - I didn't realize, sorry.

It just seems odd because I understand the 150 and 170 use essentially the same imaging sensors, and I've also heard AVCHD is supposedly a "better" compression algorithm than DVCPRO HD.
 
David S. said:
I think you may be missing what I am saying and comparing.

We shot identical footage with the 150 and the 170.

We encoded the same way.

The SD DVD footage from the 170 looked qualitatively better than the 150.

All things being equal, the 150 to SD DVD broke up more than the DVCProHD footage from the 170.

I tried seven alternative workflows for the 150, and nothing improved on this conclusion.

I've been doing desktop DVDs for about 10 years now with thousands of replicated DVDs.

We have used in the past everything from procoder on a PC, to BitVice, Compressor, Sorenson, Adobe Media Encoder and CC.
Click to expand...


one interesting thing to try would be doing a live capture with the blackmagic to dvchd pro to see if the problem is in the avchd codec or the camera itself...But as of now I don't know of anyone that has a hpx170 a hmc and a blackmagic (and of course time)....
 
FWIW, I do get very good results from the HMC150 when going to SD DVD production. My workflow to do so is pretty simple, maybe too much so.
I have no 170 to compare output with, but I do have an XHA1. They are fairly close, but 150 is better.

I first transcode files using the Main Concept transcoder from Panny.
Next, edit in Adobe Premiere CS3.
Out put to Adobe Media Encoder.
Select "Widescreen Progressive High Quality" setting.
Under video tab in Encoder, slide all the way to "5" for max quality.
Under "Multiplexer" select DVD.
Burn the MPEG file, and presto--pretty decent quality.

Hope this helps
 
Barry_Green said:
I wouldn't say that. AVCHD is 4:2:0 and long-GoP. DVCPRO-HD is 4:2:2 and intraframe.
Click to expand...


I guess we get that idea from pannys HMC150 DVD and website.

"What is the main difference between AVCHD vs. HDV?
AVCHD offers a number of significant benefits over the HDV format.
Better Compression. AVCHD utilizes MPEG-4 AVC (H.264) compression, which is far more efficient than the much older MPEG 2 (used by HDV) compression. All new compression refinements are occurring at the MPEG-4 AVC (H.264) level. This means increased image quality moving forward. Development of the older MPEG-2 format has ceased. Compression is the name of the game in HD. AVCHD uses future-forward compression. HDV does not."

ftp://ftp.panasonic.com/pub/Panasonic/Drivers/PBTS/papers/AVC_HDpaper.pdf

I'm not exactly sure the difference of HDV and DVCPRO-HD
 
AVCHD stomps HDV, yes. But then again so does DVCPRO-HD.

HDV is used in $300 to $6,000 prosumer camcorders. DVCPRO-HD is used in the VariCam, the HPX2000, HPX3000, HPX3700, etc. (It's also used in the HPX170/HVX200A range, yes, but it extends way higher up the line than HDV does in any other manufacturer's range).

HDV is limited to 15% of a program's acquistion and isn't allowed for ANY editing or mastering at Discovery HD, whereas DVCPRO-HD is accepted for unlimited acqusition, editing, and final delivery.

DVCPRO-HD is Panasonic's equivalent to HDCAM. Sony has many formats that they consider lower quality than HDCAM. HDV is the lowest-quality HD recording format ever produced. Formats that Sony ranks inbetween HDCAM and HDV would include AVCHD, XDCAM-HD, and XDCAM-EX.

DVCPRO-HD is about as good as it gets in common use in the HD world. To get better than DVCPRO-HD, you'd have to go to HDCAM-SR or HD-D5.
 
Hey guys:

I'm not saying the 150 footage wasn't good; it was.

However, we shot footage side by side 150 and 170 with the same settings, scene files (close) of the same subject.

Then we encoded each to SD DVD with the same settings.

The 170 look better in the details.

My guess is that AVCHD breaks up more in this process due to its original compression at aquisition than DVCProHD.

I love the video, but when you deliver to SD DVD so often, we had to look at the best tool for the job that we could afford.

Great cam. Love it. Playing the SDHC in our Panasonic blu ray looked fabulous.

I just wish we could have maintained that look when going to SD DVD.
 
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