Quality of DVX

maarten_smeenk

maarten_smeenk

Active member
Hi,

***UPDATE SEE ATTACHED GRAB, for the quality issue!***

A comparison between the way VLC player / virtualdub shows a clip and PPpro2.0 (same in adobe after effects, vegas and premiere pro 1.5).

Uncompressed Tif
http://www.brainstorm-studios.nl/dv_compared.tif

dv_compared.tif


DV AVI clip
This is the clip i have in my timeline, please see if you get it clean or messed up!

http://www.brainstorm-studios.nl/original_dv.avi


My solution?
Make a roughcut in ppro2.0. Export it as dv-avi (don't recompress).
Use virtualdub to convert the dv-avi to uncompressed RGB video (color depth RGB 24 bit RGB888)

Import the uncompressed into Adobe After Effects for CCing. Then export as??

Makes me confused! Why cant i edit the material in pppro and ae so that it looks the way as vlc player/virtualdub shows it! The quality is in the avi, but gets messed up somehow! It seems to have something to do with RGB and YUV.

Who knows?

***Original post****


I found a huge quality issue with my DVX102BEN (pal model from asia). When i capture with PP2.0 (tape mode, so i capture a feed directly from the dvx firewire port) it looks stunning in the capture window. But when i import the video in the timeline its horrible. Take a look at the screengrab. (settings are 25p cinelike_V, line thin)

http://www.brainstorm-studios.nl/edge_problem.tif

The orange siccor and red marker for example get horrbile jagged edges! When i saw it in the capture window it was clean, but maybe a tad bit less sharp, but without this "red/orange" problem!

When i use vegas it looks terrible, same like what pp2.0 captures! What can i do to capture in the same quality as the feed from pp2.0?

Hope you guys know an answer!

Maarten
 

Attachments

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Strange, when i view the recorded clip in VLC player it looks great again! Whats wrong with pp2.0 and vegas that i shows such a shitty resolution?
 
Not sure, but I would guess that there's probably a setting in there to change preview quality...
 
not sure if this is at all linked.. problem-wise, But i recieve my working footage rendered off a mac, and I edit with PP on a pc and the resolution is shocking and looks like your screen grab! really murky resolution but after I render out it looks clean and sharp. I think this is somesort of mac to pc thing... dont think its related to PP, because the smae occurs in A.E.

have u sorted it out?
 
watch your footage on a monitor. see if it has the same issues. Sometimes Vegas shows all the flaws of an image. While watching it on an Interlaced monitor somehow manages to correct the image.
 
The mac to pc thing is definately the problem. My buddy has a mac which we captured to, edited quickly, and then dumped back on a mini dv (During the edit straight cuts were done, no effects, no render) I then captured the edited footage to my pc to do some CC and VFX only to realise the footage I captured looked terrible. Like I said... gotta be a mac pc issue.
 
The capture window shows you de-interlaced footage. PPro is junk with field options so I'd try changing some settings in there to start with.

This is one of the reasons I still use Premiere 6.5.
 
Your screen grab looks fine.

every single prosumer camera has this problem (some more noticeable than others). The blocking is a result of the 4:1:1 colour sampling.

you notice it more in progressive footage because the image has more resolution per 'frame'.

the three primary colours of light (Red, Blue, Green) will have it the worst. Red especially on the DVX.

this is a simple fix in post... use a 4:1:1 colour smoother filter. might makes things a tad bit fuzzier, but it will look good.

for every 4 pixels of luminosity data, there is 1 colour sample, so your bound to have problems with colour at some point. Welcome to the limits of DV video.

PS: This isn't a Mac to PC issue, it is a codec issue. NLE's like Avid use a DV format that smoothes things out on import, it may be similar for PPro, Vegas etc... FCP keeps the image completely unaltered on import.
 
@Loki how can you say it looks fine? I mean it is a huge difference! How can i push a NLE to show it the way vlc/virtual dub renders it?

Maarten
 
mastertee31 said:
The mac to pc thing is definately the problem. My buddy has a mac which we captured to, edited quickly,
Click to expand...

If you edited using a Mac based on the computer monitor, it will not look the same as it will on a pc monitor. The gamma is different.

That's got nothing to do with the red, though. Red is evil on dv no matter what the platform.
 
Thanks for helping guys, I found a solution! Magic Bullet has a dartifacting filter, i use it in Adobe after effects, bad thing is... it's extremly slow, takes like 6 hours for 45 seconds of dv material! But the footage is crisp. I export it uncompressed or tif's for hd uprezz!
 
Loki said:
Your screen grab looks fine.

every single prosumer camera has this problem (some more noticeable than others). The blocking is a result of the 4:1:1 colour sampling.

you notice it more in progressive footage because the image has more resolution per 'frame'.

the three primary colours of light (Red, Blue, Green) will have it the worst. Red especially on the DVX.

this is a simple fix in post... use a 4:1:1 colour smoother filter. might makes things a tad bit fuzzier, but it will look good.

for every 4 pixels of luminosity data, there is 1 colour sample, so your bound to have problems with colour at some point. Welcome to the limits of DV video.

PS: This isn't a Mac to PC issue, it is a codec issue. NLE's like Avid use a DV format that smoothes things out on import, it may be similar for PPro, Vegas etc... FCP keeps the image completely unaltered on import.
Click to expand...

yeah it look good. just the color a bit off.
most to red. just remember to color correct.
 
VLC's DV codec is currently "expirimental" which may have something to do with it. Also, I am assuming its some sort of 3rd party codec that was homebrewed and is perhaps better is some way shape or form.
 
Yeah... There is definitely something to this, take a look at this comparison, same DV file, same size, a 'slight' difference.

What is it about VLC thats makes DV look so good?
(srry about the couble post)
 
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when previewing in pp2.0 there is an option to have full settings. Also, im curious, how are you editing in 720x260 in premier?
 
you open a new project and do windows video

then chose well, actually to get proper 2.35:1 even though its not mathimatically correct, its 720x270, but maybe you want something even wider.
 
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