Question for Barry about downconversion

John, I've posted lots of downrezzed SD from the H1, or just do your own downconverting of the many HDV H1/A1 files posted.

Cable systems in particular are notorious for starving some channels of needed bandwidth. Some channels, maybe even "The N" from your provider, could be simply more compressed than other channels.

Broadcast SD from cable or satellite is no way to judge the true quality of any professional camera. Too many variables
 
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With the variables so strong in broadcast, you could make a dvx look better than super 35 HD blah blah and so on.

I know the executive producer/writer for SON, Tommy Lynch, (he just produced a feature length documentary a friend and I did) and know some people on the crew, and they all rave and rave about the quality and performancen of the canon HDV stuff. And have also heard they are extremely unhappy with the broadcasted output of the show. Im not sure if this answers anything, but I know there is something going wrong during the compression/bandwidth/broadcast stage. I think it was the D.P. of the show that said he would rather shoot on his camera phone than a DVX.

So clearly its all about preference. With the amount of control many of the newer cameras have, you can make any camera match another camera for the most part.
 
Thanks guys.

Elton, I'm on dial-up but that'll change soon. If you can point me to some small files, I'll try them out. I've downloaded some of MacGregor's files and burnt them to DVD. His FX1E stuff came out soft but interestingly the car commercial he shot, where he forgot and left the cam on DV, burned sharp. The JVC stuff came out soft, noisy, and with the famous split screen effect. I haven't found any small A1 or old H1 files to try.

Keegs, thanks a lot for posting your info. It's good to hear the people behind SOUTH OF NOWHERE are raving about the "quality and performance of the Canon HDV stuff" and interesting that they are "extremely unhappy with the broadcasted output of the show". I'm glad I'm not alone. Any information on what they do with their footage in post would be welcome. If I remember correctly LOVESPRING INTERNATIONAL took their footage and immediately put it to HDCAM(?) to get it out of the HDV realm as quickly as possible. I wonder what's "going wrong in the compression/bandwidth/broadcast stage", and what can be done (if anything) to improve it. If the S.O.N. people find something out to improve the broadcast quality, please post here and tell us what was done.

I'm not putting down the Canon at all. Elton's proved again and again it has excellent quality. But HDV itself??? I know I'm repeating myself but broadcast standards are what they are - and ONLY the HDV shot shows look this way. And on various channels. No other video stuff I've seen gets soft the way HDV does. I don't think I'm exaggerating this either. I found a picture someone took with a Tiffen Soft/FX 5 and it looks like SOUTH OF NOWHERE looks.

SOUTH OF NOWHERE is on primetime and late tonight and maybe every night this week (guessing their running the season) leading up to the finale this Friday, with probable re-broadcasts throughout the weekend (nights). If anyone wants to check it out.

I want to thank this forum for not dismissing my questions, attacking me, closing my thread, or deleting my posts. There isn't another place where you can ask what is probably an "unpopular" question and get treated decently and actually communicate with someone who knows people, who work on the show mentioned.
 
John Trent said:
If I remember correctly LOVESPRING INTERNATIONAL took their footage and immediately put it to HDCAM(?) to get it out of the HDV realm as quickly as possible. I wonder what's "going wrong in the compression/bandwidth/broadcast stage", and what can be done (if anything) to improve it.
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It's most likely what the cable folks like to call "rate shaping" which is a nice euphemism for compressing the hell out of a channel.

I have Dish Network satellite service and I've seen S.O.N. and Lovespring through their transmission standards and my experience has been different than yours. They didn't look any different in terms of softness than MTV shows I've seen shot with the DVX.
 
Kholi said:
Is the 4x3 letterboxed image safe to compare to what DVD compression would yield?
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Yeah, I'd say so. Of course, like anything else, not all DVD encoders are created equal. Bit Vice does a spectacular job. Compressor is pretty good too if you know what you're doing.
 
Elton said:
MPEG Streamclip does a fantastic job of downscaling. I can easily take an HDV edit, and then tell it to give me an SD 16x9 PhotoJPEG QT output @ 100% quality (RGB 4:4:4 setting) and it is actually giving me more chroma info in the SD frame than I could even achieve in DV50 4:2:2 SD. And it's razor sharp too.

An oversampled image with a good scaling algorithm can go a long ways.
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i've tried mpegstreamclip, after effects, final cut to downscale a footage but i've got some sharpness issues. for example, look at the signboards in this video http://homepage.mac.com/WebObjects/...tefn=RootSite.xml&aff=consumer&cty=US&lang=en
the downscaling is messing the letters. is there something to do, like softening before, etc .....?
 
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