Uprez SD to HD using Davinci Resolve

[Nikhil Kamkolkar]

OK, not RED-related, but I have a specific question regarding Resolve I'm hoping someone can offer me some pointers on.

I have a SD version of my feature shot on 35mm film on a digibeta - that was digitized as a 720x486 16:9 Anamorphic uncompressed file. I brought this into Davinci Resolve and scaled it up to HD. I'm expecting artifacts ofcourse, and I see them. But the most offensive ones are dancing moire patterns. Very distracting.

I did do a inverse telecine before I brought it into davinci but that didn't do much to reduce this.

Question is : is there anything in the full version of Resolve or Resolve 10 that'd help me? Lopass filters, NR, etc? Any other tips? I either do this or spend money to scan the IP at 4K - but that's seems to be pretty expensive from what I've seen so far.

Thanks for any tips!
Nikhil

 

[Jaakko Rinne]

There's NR in the full version of Resolve, but I doubt that would help much with moire patterns. There's really no software solution in the world that's going to get you the same image quality from an SD file as a 4K or even a 2K scan.

 

[Nikhil Kamkolkar]

Is there a hardware solution perhaps? Not looking for perfection, just something that handles this situation even a little bit better. Thanks!

 

[Marcus Struzina]

I would give After Effects a try as a comparison.

 

[Craig Parkes]

If the project has any sort of future life I would go back to the original, even for a 2K scan or HD telecine. 720x486 is these days low resolution even for a display on a phone or ipad. There is no future display device that it's going to look good on, and it's going to look WORSE with age as more displays get higher resolution - and any opportunity to transfer the film to those formats in future is only going to get harder/more expensive, not easier/cheaper.

If it's just for a deliverable and cost is really something you are trying to avoid and there is no inherent future value you can eek out of the material, I'd try After Effects as suggested and Red Giants Instant HD plugin/software I have seen do a pretty good job in the past, so I'd look into that.

 

[Jeremy Newmark]

If uprezzing is your only option, then I'd run it through a Teranex or Alchemist, as those will give you much better results than doing it in resolve or after effects. Not sure if it will help with the moire though.

 

[Marc Wielage]

I either do this or spend money to scan the IP at 4K - but that's seems to be pretty expensive from what I've seen so far.

Spend the money and do it right. Otherwise, anybody who sees the uprezzed film will never see it the way you intended, and there's always a risk it'll be rejected by QC and won't air (which is standard for cable networks and broadcast these days).

Even a 2K scan and a quick (one week or less) color correction will be better than what you propose. And there are budget-conscious scanning companies out there.

 

[Nikhil Kamkolkar]

Thank you all. I'm exploring scanning options now. I welcome any leads. Thanks!

 

[Freya]

Can you not scan the camera negative?
You are obviously going to lose quality scanning the IP.
If you are set on using the IP you could look into telecine on a spirit at 1080p or something as a budget option I guess.

Freya