HD 1920x1080/60P (not 60i) to a SD DVD resolution?

KelvinWorks wrote on 8/19/2012, 11:23 AM

I’m sure this has been discussed before but it seems very difficult to find by doing searches and understanding if what I’m reading applies, so please excuse me if it has and please send me to the right place with clarifications and thank you in advance.

This is the first project that I have completed in HD it is a 70 minute film and I want to put it on both Blu-Ray and DVD. I’m using Vegas Pro 11. My primary source video is 1920x1080p60 (59.94) from a Panasonic TM900. The film also has clips from different cameras in 1280x720p30 and 848×480p30, plus many stills that use pan and scan and a few animated graphics at 1920x1080p24 from AE.

I have a few questions.

What are the best settings I should use for making the Blu-Ray?

I want it to be MEPG-2 1920x1080p24 and I plan on using DVDA 5.2. I have used the default render settings but I’m a bit confused on what the settings should be used when going from 60p/30p to 24p?

Should any of the settings be changed, for example the I-frames? Should my project properties be in 24p or a custom 60p? I’m thinking that it should be 24p because that is what I want for the final product. Should anything else be changed like the pixel format, de-interlace method (even though there isn’t any interlaced footage)? Disable resampling on the clips?

Now the next major problem is the DVD. I rendered the project using the MPG DVD Architect 24p NTSC widescreen and the results were, to say the least, awful! Unfortunately most of the people that want this film only have DVD players with HDTVs. Go figure? My old Panasonic GS250 footage on DVD looks better that what results I have now.

What do I need to do to take HD 1920x1080p60 to a DVD resolution and have it look decent?

I have read about putting it out to AVI to resize it, but what settings should I use? Then should I use a different program or can I use Vegas to resize it?

Sorry for all the questions but hopefully, there are some answers that apply to these conditions because my head is spinning from what I have been reading, different resolution or it is referring to 60i, etc.

Thanks again.
Kelvin

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Comments

musicvid10 wrote on 8/25/2012, 10:28 PM

"Is the solution to render the 60p to 30p (again with resample off) and then render it all as 60i?"

Well, it's one solution that works. The trick is to do an intermediate render of your 60p source to 30p, with resampling off, as always. Then use it in place of the 60p source on your 30p timeline. Then when you render it along with your native 30p source to a 60i DVD Architect template, the results will be indistinguishable. Problem solved, and best of luck.

The problem with treating the native 60p this way is that it leaves some little field jaggies, altering its playback appearance on a BluRay or DVD from the native 30p source.

John_Cline wrote on 8/25/2012, 10:41 PM

Take the 60p footage and change the sample rate in the clip's properties to "0.5" and turn resampling off, this will make the clip true 30p because Vegas will throw out every other frame. Your 60p will now match the frame rate of your 30p footage perfectly. No need to render an intermediate.

musicvid10 wrote on 8/25/2012, 11:09 PM

Aww, you beat me to it, John. I was rendering while you were posting.
And yes, it looks like a better method,
'Nite, all . . .

KelvinWorks wrote on 8/26/2012, 3:08 PM

My results when I tried the 30p in a 60i render and then looked at the results in AE, it says that it is interlaced and I could see interlaced artifacts (staircase look on diagonal lines). With resample off, I tried 0.5 vs. 1 undersample rate, but it did not make much difference concerning being interlaced, nor did I see a difference when played on my computer, it had noise on the diagonal lines. I have read that viewed via DVD or BD player it will appear as 30p but I think that it is still interlaced. Bob (frass) said this in another thread:

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/Forums/ShowMessage.asp?Forum=4&MessageID=718970

“I'm assuming you'll deliver 30 frames per second, either as 30p or 60i and in both cases for a 180degree shutter, the shutter speed should be 1/60. Vegas should do a perfect job of converting 60p to 60i, it simply converts each frame to a field”

To me that means that it will take a frame and convert into a field i.e. half of the information/odd lines of the frame and the next field would be the rest of the information/even lines, and then when viewed from the DVD player they would be combined back together to make the whole frame. In a sense it is 30p but still interlaced all the same, that is my thinking so if is wrong, oh well, I will just accept it as that, thanks anyway.

I also did a test with a custom render at actual 30p and it is sharper than the 60i played back on my computer and in AE no artifacts. While I was at it I also did a test a render at 24p both undersample rate at 0.4 and 1.0. The both the 24p with the two different undersample settings look pretty much the same when played and when looking at frame per frame in AE, definitely a different cadence than 30p of course.

From this article I think that possibly the undersampling properties switch has more of an FX effect if you are using a different rendered frame rate/project properties frame rate from the undersample setting.

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/creating_a_stutter_video_effect

I also read from another forum for the Panasonic tm700/900; that it eliminated artifacts seen on his burned BD when he did not use the 0.5 undersample rate setting when going from progressive to interlaced i.e. 60p to 30p to 60i; therefore when going to interlace it may have more importance. I’m not sure.

After all of this, I still think that a 24p BD is the way to go for this project. The clip that I did my test at 24p was very acceptable. The clip with resample off compared to smart resample on is clearer for the 24p render. I will try some additional testing in the areas that I saw ghosting on other clips in the project. The test clip that I was using did not have any ghosting in these last tests. I originally chose it because that it is where the down res to DVD results are really bad of which I haven’t resolved yet. Mabye the 60p to 30p to SD 60i would be better for the DVD results.