MiniDV upscaling to BD format

ideomatic wrote on 3/23/2011, 11:24 AM
Hi!

I own Vegas Movie Studio 10, and I'd like to convert some old family movies into Blu Ray discs. The original files are mini DV ones, 720x576.
I create a project using the 16:9 BD disk template, and I put the clips on the timeline, cropping them to fit into the screen without stretching them.

I'd like to know it there is some setting to have a better upscaling when rendering the final movie.

Thank you!!!

Comments

Steve Grisetti wrote on 3/23/2011, 11:47 AM
No. "Upscaling" miniDV to hi-def just by scaling it isn't going to work, ideo. You are, after all, quadrupling the number of pixels -- so it's going to look muddy or fuzzy.

You'd be much better off outputting a standard def DVD of your miniDV project. Most likely your disc player has a built-in upscaler that will do a much better job making your DVD look good on a hi-def TV.
ideomatic wrote on 3/23/2011, 1:03 PM
Yes, this is the way I follow usually, my BD player has a good upscaling function.

Thank you!
Chienworks wrote on 3/23/2011, 4:42 PM
You'd probably get better results if you didn't crop. When you crop you're only using 720x418 pixels of the frame so it has to be upscaled 2.584x. Leaving it as 4:3 format will use the entire 720x576 and will only have to upscaled 1.875x.
Rainer wrote on 3/24/2011, 3:30 PM
Ideomatic, I guess you are thinking BRD because you get more on a disk? BR can handle 25i 4:3 720X576, just burn at those settings.
ideomatic wrote on 3/25/2011, 11:50 PM
No, I'd like to preserve my family movie as best I can. I tought I could to upscale my DV clips in BD format, but now I understand that it's better to play DVD on a good BD player with upscaling hardware.

I wanted to put movie on 16:9 format because I own a 16:9 TV, and in the future it will be the same.
TOG62 wrote on 3/26/2011, 12:50 AM
If I do that I stretch it a bit, crop it a bit and move the image up or down to avoid losing main parts of the scene - usually faces.

BTW Cyberlink claims to do good upscaling, although I haven't tried it. Of course the best quality solution would be to get the film transferred on an HD system - if the originals justify it.
gogiants wrote on 3/26/2011, 9:49 AM
In my opinion, you'd be better off leaving it in its original aspect ratio rather than trying to crop and/or stretch it to widescreen. You can only lose quality or lose pixels trying to get it to widescreen, and hey, it's old family footage.. having it non-wide screen is part of the charm!
Chienworks wrote on 3/26/2011, 8:05 PM
Not to mention that there will be scenes where you don't want to lose part of the picture!
ideomatic wrote on 3/28/2011, 7:41 AM
Ok ok! I will burn my family movies on 4.3 DVDs!!! :-)

Thanks to everyone!
gogiants wrote on 3/29/2011, 12:06 PM
Appreciate your humor there, and certainly didn't mean to lecture!

One other thought: you could turn those black bars into some kind of background, or maybe use the space to add text that describes who's in the picture, the event, etc... might work well for some of the footage, or, maybe do a sort of picture in picture effect where you mix in stills along with the standard def footage...
Iacobus wrote on 3/29/2011, 12:30 PM
One trick I've done is duplicate the original video track (with the original track on top), stretch the duplicate out to fill the 16:9 ratio (by simply not maintaining the original ratio) and apply a severe gaussian blur. This gives the effect of the original video "reflecting" off the sides and it's not distracting at all.

(This, of course, requires more rendering/processing power.)

Iacobus