mboedicker
New member
I have a Panasonic HVX200A and shot my last feature on it using 720 24p. I'd like to shoot my next project in 1080 24pA on the same camera, but after running tests I'm alarmed and wonder if anyone can shed some light on the problem. In a nutshell, DVD versions of the tests look far worse from the 1080p source material than from the 720p.
I shot identical tests in 720 24p and 1080 24pA, imported them into Final Cut Pro (using Raylight to remove pulldown on the 1080 footage), put them on a 24p timeline in FCP, then outputted them with native settings (DVCPRO-HD) as Quicktime files. I used Compressor presets to burn the tests to two Blu-rays and noticed higher picture quality in the 1080p footage (as expected). However, when I burned regular DVD versions (again using Compressor presets) of the same tests, the 1080p footage looked substantially WORSE than the 720p -- lots of "stairstepping" on edges, for example, and just generally poorer clarity. The 720 footage exhibited none of this stair-stepping.
I tried using Toast for the DVCPRO-HD to MPEG2 conversions, and the results were a little better on the 1080p (not as much stairstepping), but the 720p footage still looked far better. Finally, using Compressor again, I transcoded the DVCPRO-HD files to ProRes 422 HQ Quicktimes and used Compressor to encode the DVDs from that, and the results were MUCH better on the 1080p source footage: no visible stairstepping and far fewer artifacts -- although (unlike the Blu-rays) the differences between the 1080p and 720p footage were harder to spot.
So has anyone else had this problem? It seems like the 1080p DVCPRO-HD codec falls apart when converting to SD via Compressor, while the 720p holds up really well. I'd like to shoot the new project in 1080 24pA and wonder if anyone has suggestions besides converting the sources to ProRes 422, which uses quite a bit more hard drive space. Thanks.
Mike
I shot identical tests in 720 24p and 1080 24pA, imported them into Final Cut Pro (using Raylight to remove pulldown on the 1080 footage), put them on a 24p timeline in FCP, then outputted them with native settings (DVCPRO-HD) as Quicktime files. I used Compressor presets to burn the tests to two Blu-rays and noticed higher picture quality in the 1080p footage (as expected). However, when I burned regular DVD versions (again using Compressor presets) of the same tests, the 1080p footage looked substantially WORSE than the 720p -- lots of "stairstepping" on edges, for example, and just generally poorer clarity. The 720 footage exhibited none of this stair-stepping.
I tried using Toast for the DVCPRO-HD to MPEG2 conversions, and the results were a little better on the 1080p (not as much stairstepping), but the 720p footage still looked far better. Finally, using Compressor again, I transcoded the DVCPRO-HD files to ProRes 422 HQ Quicktimes and used Compressor to encode the DVDs from that, and the results were MUCH better on the 1080p source footage: no visible stairstepping and far fewer artifacts -- although (unlike the Blu-rays) the differences between the 1080p and 720p footage were harder to spot.
So has anyone else had this problem? It seems like the 1080p DVCPRO-HD codec falls apart when converting to SD via Compressor, while the 720p holds up really well. I'd like to shoot the new project in 1080 24pA and wonder if anyone has suggestions besides converting the sources to ProRes 422, which uses quite a bit more hard drive space. Thanks.
Mike