Challenge to Red: HD to SD...

[Gavin Greenwalt]

February 2009 analog TV will stop transmitting but there will be NTSC dubs going to TV stations for many months, perhaps even years after at many stations that will be trasmitting in digital but only up converting all their local content because they can not afford to convert their whole facility, news and production, to HD.

ATCS doesn't mandate HD. Most of my ATSC channels are 480p and I doubt that will change for a while. The only upscaling that'll happen is at the TV itself if they only have SD footage.

 

[Mark Linthicum]

My expierence Compressor is a better solution for scaling, you just need to enable the advanced scaling option in the inspector.

Mark

I agree with Mikey P... After Effects has one of the better scaling engines out there, so DEFINITELY give it a try. It should give you fine results in a hurry.
BUT...
If you have a little time and you want the absolute best image rescaling you can get, export the final sequence as frames into a folder, then create a resize macro from within photoshop (basically, you hit record, open an image, resize the image, save and close the image, then you hit stop. You will then apply this to the entire sequence folder).

It's not that hard, and Pshop's subpixel image rescaling alogrithm is pure gold.

Theoretically, all Adobe software should be using the same rescale code in all their products, but in the rare occasion that AE fails me , processing the same frames through Pshop applies that extra bit o' imaging magic to save the day.
SO. AE will save your butt 99% of the time, and is far faster and easier to manage, but Photoshop is still imaging's best friend.
Peace,
Skitch

 

[Leo Ticheli]

Hello Leo,
I gave your sample a try and converted it to NTSC using Algolith (largely unknown conversion software). Algolith uses motion interpolation and has anti-alias features, no blurring or sharpening is used. I posted the result to your ftp site for your review ("Red Test NTSC Algolith.mpg"). What do you think, does it pass? George

Thank you very much, George, for trying to help solve this very thorny problem. Unfortunately, the Algolith converted files you provided look much worse than the hardware solutions we've tried.

I've been away from the facility for several days, but now I'm back and will be addressing this problem in earnest.

We have or are arranging a few demo units of hardware down-converters, including Ensemble and Evertz. Meanwhile, we'll continue to edit HD and down-convert with the Panasonic HD deck.

Best regards,

Leo

 

[Filipo]

Thank you very much, George, for trying to help solve this very thorny problem. Unfortunately, the Algolith converted files you provided look much worse than the hardware solutions we've tried.

I've been away from the facility for several days, but now I'm back and will be addressing this problem in earnest.

We have or are arranging a few demo units of hardware down-converters, including Ensemble and Evertz. Meanwhile, we'll continue to edit HD and down-convert with the Panasonic HD deck.

Best regards,

Leo

Leo,
Did you try
http://www.aja.com/html/products_rackmount_FS1.html

I saw it in several places working very well for downconversion of HD to SD, it was a little better then using HDW-M2000..

Regards

 

[Leo Ticheli]

Thank you for the suggestion.

I could be mistaken, but I recall someone at AJA telling me their down-converter was the same as in the Kona 3 card, which gives unacceptable results to me.

If this device is superior, I would certainly add it to my list of options.

Best regards,

Leo

 

[Filipo]

Thank you for the suggestion.

I could be mistaken, but I recall someone at AJA telling me their down-converter was the same as in the Kona 3 card, which gives unacceptable results to me.

If this device is superior, I would certainly add it to my list of options.

Best regards,

Leo

What I know for sure is that downconversion on BMD multibridge extreme when working as a stand alone convertor is far inferior to HDW-M2000 (i have both of these devices and I use them for HDCAM online for downconversion).

 

[Leo Ticheli]

Thank you!

Best regards,

Leo

 

[conrad gaunt]

I`ve written/writing a downsampling tool for windows (but it will work under linux using `wine` or mac equivilent). At present it can batch process folders and can read many image formats, including 8bit/16bit tiffs, jpgs, pngs, psd etc, which it decodes to 8bit bitmaps before resizing (in floating point).
It can also process 16bit data directly from some uncompressed tiff files, sort of. It does this by assuming the image data is at the end of the file and is 16bit interlaced RGB data, which it isn`t always, obviously. You also have to select the RGB order manually for each folder if its wrong ie, RGB GBR BRG , but it does detect if the tiff is intel/motorola data (reading the first 2 bytes of a tiff header I can manage, but I don`t care to dig deeper than that!). I`ve been testing it by downsizing folders of images down to 720x432pixel (ignoring smaller images), which it then displays 1:1 in the preview. I shall add 8bit export function tonight and try and work on some kind of 16bit tiff output in the next couple of days, and the ability to change export resolution as well as adding some filters.
As I said, its all floating point, and it seems pin sharp to me, and I can`t detect aliasing whatever I throw at it, satellite stuff, oceans, trees 6k,4k, 3k, test charts. I have other resampling methods I want to try too, but this is my favourite. If anyone has a HQ jpeg from Leo`s difficult footage they can send me (RC won`t work on my laptop and I`d like test with it) or wants to try the program themselves (it`s free) please send me a message and email address.

 

[Paul Leeming]

We've had success exporting 720x486 (NTSC) letterboxed from RedCine to the Final Cut timeline then applying the deinterlace filter with it set to anti-flicker filter.

Paul

 

[Leo Ticheli]

We've had success exporting 720x486 (NTSC) letterboxed from RedCine to the Final Cut timeline then applying the deinterlace filter with it set to anti-flicker filter. Paul

Thanks, Paul,

We, and others, have had no success exporting 720x486 from RedCine; depending, of course, on one's definition of "success." Yes, we can export, but, no, it does not have acceptable image quality to me; far too much aliasing.

I find the Flicker Filter in FCS terribly destructive to the image.

Perhaps you are doing some things differently and more successfully; please share your settings with us and we'll give them a try.

I have tried many combinations of the OLPF Compensation and the Filters, Quality, and Process settings. Can't seem to find the magic combination that produces acceptable results.

The only acceptable results have been obtained with hardware down-converters. This is not the panacea one might imagine. We often edit spots using both SD and HD material; since it's not a good idea to bump up the SD material in an HD sequence and then knock it back down, we edit these spots in SD. This means we've got to run the Red HD material through a hardware down-converter before the edit.

It's just awkward.

Best regards,

Leo

 

[simonfilm]

Virtualdub

Virtualdub

Virtualdub is a free, but good application. I use the included filter "resize". It has bilinear, 3 bicubics and the best of all: Lanczos3. (I dont have a RED, I use it with 1980x1080 HD.)

You have to export the HD video to uncompressed (or lossless) .avi, because Virtualdub can only open .avi files.

Simon.

 

[conrad gaunt]

Virtualdub is a free, but good application. I use the included filter "resize". It has bilinear, 3 bicubics and the best of all: Lanczos3. (I dont have a RED, I use it with 1980x1080 HD.)

You have to export the HD video to uncompressed (or lossless) .avi, because Virtualdub can only open .avi files.

Simon.

Or you can download the lossless HUFFYUV codec for use in VD. You should try my free tool for pin sharp batch downsampling of 4k 16bit images straight to SD. I do love VD, and lanczos3 is OK. I`d write a plugin for VD, but it only handles 8bit RGB and YUV, so I can`t. I started a thread called FREE DOWNSAMPLER.