Downconvert

Champson wrote on 3/15/2015, 4:27 PM
Hi, I recently recorded some HDV1080i footage on my Sony Z5U with a MRC1 recording unit. After checking the footage I found that it was distorted and poor quality. I looked at my camera and found that somehow the I link had been set to on and the down convert squeezed my video and recorded my footage as DV. Is there any way to get the footage back to HDV1080i or at least make it look better?

Thanks,
Daron

Comments

VMP wrote on 3/15/2015, 5:45 PM
You can convert the footage to HDV1080i by placing the DV file on your Vegas and exporting it as HDV1080i.

The anwser to your second question would be the same as to the next question:
Can you pull out a small postage stamp to A4 size and make it look good?

It only scales up the image. Due to the DV footage not having enough resolution and information for HDV it will only degrade at a larger size.

Now you could 'redraw' a post stamp manually with more information on to a A4. In the video world that would be 'upscaling'. There are software that do that, but I haven't witnessed any software doing it better than Vegas. (The first anwser I gave you).

You could do some stuff like sharpening and de-noising the footage with Neat video plugin.

You could go through this thread for some tips: http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/Forums/ShowMessage.asp?Forum=4&MessageID=800385

In short: what you put in is what you get out.

VMP
musicvid10 wrote on 3/15/2015, 6:20 PM
Your DV contains only 1/6 the data of HD.
You can make it bigger, you just can't make it better.

Tim L wrote on 3/15/2015, 7:12 PM
Is it possible that the iLink "down-convert" was for the capture to the computer only? It seems like one of my Sony cameras had an option like this, but I don't recall for certain. That is, that you could record the original video in hi-def, but have the camera convert the video to DV on the fly while capturing (uploading) to the computer.

So, you may have HDV high def recorded on the tape -- you might simply need to recapture it to your computer again, with the down-convert option turned off so that you are uploading the original HDV. (Does anybody here with Z5U experience know if what I'm saying makes sense?)

[I]Edited (after johnmeyer's post): I changed some of my wording to hopefully make my post less confusing, as I'm not 100% sure of the terminology. By "capture" I mean the process of uploading a tape to the computer, via an IEE1394/FireWire connection.[/I]
johnmeyer wrote on 3/16/2015, 1:12 AM
Tim,

I have a Sony FX-1 which I think is a distant, prosumer ancestor of the Z5U. With the FX-1, you could do two things: you could capture in the older DV format, in which case your tape (or memory card in the case of the Z5U) contained standard definition video. Once you set up the camera this way, it operated just like an older SD camcorder, and the video you captured was standard definition. In this case, Musicvid's excellent advice is as good as it gets: "You can make it bigger, you just can't make it better. (I will refrain from making any frat boy comments.)

The FX-1 also has another mode where you can capture in HD (well, HDV for the FX-1) but then when you capture the tape, you can have the FX-1 downconvert to SD. When HDV first came out, we all thought this was really neat because our computers were struggling with HD, and many of us were still delivering SD. However, after experimenting with this feature, most of us realized it was a really lousy workflow, and abandoned using it.

So, if you are lucky, perhaps you simply use this downconvert feature when you captured your tape and, as already mentioned by Tim, all you have to do is turn off that feature and recapture your tape, in which case you will get HD.

If your tape really was captured in SD, don't bother to try to increase the resolution. It will yield no improvement and will simply slow down your editing. You certainly can render to HD if you must deliver in that format, or if your project is using HD from other sources. However, your SD will still look like SD, no matter what you do.