Procedure for uprezzing 4x3 letterbox to 16x9

Oh, I can see differences between the different algorithms (spelled it right, that time :grin: ), and I think the Mitchell and Lanczos3 are much better than the others....but mainly I see that different methods do different images...um...differently. Like Lanczos3 making a crisper image than the Mitchell, but it puts a lot of artifacts around high-contrast edges.
 
It didn't do anything spectacular with my images for some reason. Anyway, do you think you can make it as crisp as the default settings in PhotoZoom Pro? :)
 
Don't have PhotoZoom...

But, even if I did, I'm not a graohics programmer, and haven't a clue how to write/rewrite algorithms for that. I just snagged the code from somewhere else and plugged it in. :grin:
 
Okay, GenJerDan said it didn't work well with TIFF, and I believe him now. It simply won't make the resized image.

When I tested it earlier with my own TIFF-frames it actually resized some of them properly. Not this time.
 
I still have a couple of questions that remains unclear.

1. I exported my letterboxed PAL-footage from my NLE (Premiere 6.0) to TIFF-frames with a 720x576 resolution and uprezzed them with PhotoZoom Pro to a resolution of 720x768. I then started a PAL DV Widescreen project in Premiere and imported the uprezzed TIFF-frames.
The problem is, the letterbox is still there so the hight of the image gets squeezed in the widescreen project. I would have to crop the picture in Premiere and I don't know how to crop in Premiere to maintain the right aspect ratio. Am I doing this the wrong way or have you forgotten to mention this step in the tutorial? I mean the final cropping in the NLE?

2. If I were to crop the letterboxed footage (or whatever 4:3 footage) in Premiere before the uprezzing, how do I crop it to get a 16:9 resolution? 16/9 = 720/405 so the resolution I want is 720x405. Because the hight is 405, I can't devide it into 2. I need to do that or else I can't crop the 16:9 center out of the frame. I will have to crop 85 pixels off the top and 86 pixels off the bottom (or vice versa) to make it work. How do you people crop the center out of the 4:3 frame?

3. I can't seem to remember my third question.
 
The third question is actually:

3. 3. When I export the TIFF-frames from my NLE before uprezzing, what should the pixel aspect ratio be? D1/DV PAL (1.067) or Square pixels (1.0)?
 
Just read a part of this uprezzing discussion. I recently did a DVX100 PAL 25P filmproject, which I shot in 4:3 letterboxed widescreen. Editing was done in Vegas 6. I wanted to have an anamorphic 16:9 output on dvd, as I discovered my Sony dvd-player connected with component cables to a widescreen LCD tv didn't playback letterboxed video from dvd in the right image proportions (a couple of digital zoom functions in the tv are bypassed when you use the component connection, BTW: the component connection gives a much richer/nicer dvd-playback compared to scart). Anyway, I studied some Photozoom topics on this board for getting 'smart' uprezzing to anamorphic, but it was too much of a hassle for me. So I dediced using Vegas 6 to uprez to widescreen anamorphic, rendering in Best Quality setting as I think Vegas does a better conversion in that mode compared to Good Quality. And the results speak for themselves, after watching them on the tv and also on the big screen in a local art cinema (digital cinema playback). Checkout a screendump to judge for yourself: http://www.orphicfilm.nl/html/uprez.html
 
Barry_Green said:
This is a process for converting the letterbox portion of a 4:3 image into a full-screen anamorphic widescreen image. It will look "stretched out" unless it is played on a widescreen TV. The TV does the "unstretching" to make it look like a full-screen widescreen picture.

This technique should not be used if your final display device is a 4:3 TV.
Click to expand...



Sorry if this is already answered, but isn't there a way to still do this uprez for a 4:3 tv? Isn't is possible to shoot 4:3, and have the photozoom produce a 16:9 image.....Then can't you simply add a letterbox mask over that, and output to 4:3?
 
I posted a few questions earlier that haven't yet been answered. I'll post them again because I would really like to know how you people do this.

1. I exported my letterboxed PAL-footage from my NLE (Premiere 6.0) to TIFF-frames with a 720x576 resolution and uprezzed them with PhotoZoom Pro to a resolution of 720x768. I then started a PAL DV Widescreen project in Premiere and imported the uprezzed TIFF-frames.
The problem is, the letterbox is still there so the hight of the image gets squeezed in the widescreen project. I would have to crop the picture in Premiere and I don't know how to crop in Premiere to maintain the right aspect ratio. Am I doing this the wrong way or have you forgotten to mention this step in the tutorial? I mean the final cropping in the NLE?

2. If I were to crop the letterboxed footage (or whatever 4:3 footage) in Premiere before the uprezzing, how do I crop it to get a 16:9 resolution? 16/9 = 720/405 so the resolution I want is 720x405. Because the hight is 405, I can't devide it into 2. I need to do that or else I can't crop the 16:9 center out of the frame. I will have to crop 85 pixels off the top and 86 pixels off the bottom (or vice versa) to make it work. How do you people crop the exact center out of the 4:3 frame?

3. When I export the TIFF-frames from my NLE before uprezzing, what should the pixel aspect ratio be? D1/DV PAL (1.067) or Square pixels (1.0)?
 
Originally Posted by Barry_Green
This is a process for converting the letterbox portion of a 4:3 image into a full-screen anamorphic widescreen image. It will look "stretched out" unless it is played on a widescreen TV. The TV does the "unstretching" to make it look like a full-screen widescreen picture.

This technique should not be used if your final display device is a 4:3 TV.




Sorry if this is already answered, but isn't there a way to still do this uprez for a 4:3 tv? Isn't is possible to shoot 4:3, and have the photozoom produce a 16:9 image.....Then can't you simply add a letterbox mask over that, and output to 4:3?
 
all you need to do, as stated b4 by someone else, is put the up rez'd version on a 16:9 dvd then everything should be ok. it will play in fullscreen on a widescreen tv and add bars on the top and bottom on a 4:3 tv.
 
Did you interpet the uprezzed footage as 16X9? Right click(in Premiere) on the footage in the project window and interpet it as 16 X 9 . If you exported it from a widescreen project you won't lose the bars either. Export from a 4 x 3 timeline and uprezz then back into a 16 x 9 timeline and interpet footage.(Thanks to disjecta for this information he helped me). I personally have chosen to use the Adobe media Encoder (windows media) and set the Audience settings to 16 X 9.

I have found using the Adobe Media Encoder and the unsharp mask I can achieve similar results to Photozoom without all the extra work. Good Luck
 
bigmagic,
sorry, were you saying to export from a widescreen project or a 4:3 project? my end project will be viewed on a 4:3 tv.
 
I'm sure that PhotoZoom uses unsharp mask. No 'magic' at all.

Original:
DVX_original.jpg


PhotoZoom:
DVX_photozoom.jpg


Unsharp Mask (with Corel PhotoPaint)
DVX_unsharp_mask.jpg


I think this uprezzing is unnessesary and time consuming. Same results with letterboxed 4:3 with unsharp mask added.
Some DVD players and TV sets have similar algorithm for 'sharpening' video and most picture editors have this effect.
Even MPEG2 encoders like TMPGEnc, Canopus ProCoder, Adobe MediaEncoder can do this alot faster than Photozoom.
And more: when we export TIFF files from editor then (lossy) DV codec is unpacked. After processing in PhotoZoom we
have to pack this again to DV (if MPEG encoder doesn't support image sequencies)... meaning quality loss.
Maybe I missed something?
 
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