Soft focus on SD DVD with HDV-60i footage

kunal wrote on 10/4/2009, 10:57 AM
I have HDV 1080-60i footage captured with the FX7.

I edited using the HDV template with resolution set to best for rendering and 8 bit pixel format and deinterlace method set to blend.

I rendered as an MPEG-2 using a CBR of 8Mbps and field order set to upper field. I import that into DVDA and play the DVD over a 720p LCD projector.

The problem is that all scenes appear to be slightly out of focus. There's soft-focus on every scene. If I hook up the FX7 to the projector (over component video), and play the original tape, the scenes are perfectly in focus, so something in the render/DVDA process is apparently causing the soft focus.

Laurence suggested that I try rendering as 30p (keeping deinterlace method to blend). I tried that but the soft focus is still an issue. It's not as bad of a problem if I play the DVD on my laptop.

Any ideas? This is a short 5-min clip, so file sizes are not a limitation (are there other codes I should be trying besides the MPEG-2)? I'm not sure if the problem is in the render process or when DVDA is making a DVD.

Thanks for any help....this has me really worried.

Comments

musicvid10 wrote on 10/4/2009, 11:28 AM
By going from 1920x1080 to 720x480 you have lost almost 85% of your pixels. And that is before your video is rendered to 8Mbs.

That is why HD is sharper than SD. No getting around it.
kunal wrote on 10/4/2009, 11:35 AM
Well, it was actually 1440x1080, but yeah, it's still a significant pixel loss.

Short of burning blu-ray DVDs, what other options do I have to improve sharpness? (different codecs, bitrate settings, interlace vs progressive etc). Thanks...
musicvid10 wrote on 10/4/2009, 11:38 AM
"Short of burning blu-ray DVDs, what other options do I have to improve sharpness?"

Not much, other than a little unsharp mask on the timeline, and a $2,000 Cinecraft encoder.

The limiting factor here really isn't your medium, but your 720p projector.
With a 1080p projector, you could play HDV or AVCHD right off your computer, probably with stunning results.
johnmeyer wrote on 10/4/2009, 12:12 PM
This is a very common complaint. Some of the problem is certainly due to fact that you have fewer pixels. However, most people who complain about this are not comparing the results to their original HD source, but to other projects they have created which originated with SD footage. The footage from HD looks worse than the the footage from SD.

This definitely should not be happening.

The usual solution suggested is to add the Sony Sharpen fX to the project (so it affects all footage). Set the sharpen to 0.0. That's right, to nothing. As it turns out, it still adds minimal sharpening. I have found that this completely fixes the problem.

I tried to search for this problem, and I'm pretty sure that in the past 12-18 months someone suggested another, different solution to this problem, but I can't find it and can't remember what was suggested.

Take about 2-3 minutes of your project and render it without the sharpening, and then render the same sequence using the sharpening. Burn them both to a rewriteable DVD and play them on your target playback system so you can A/B back and forth. Make sure the sharpened result doesn't look artificial (I don't think it will).

So, in summary, this is a problem in how Vegas renders HD to SD, and LOTS of people have reported this.

P.S. Some people have suggested that doing the resizing outside of Vegas (using lanczos resize) eliminates the softness without the need for the sharpening filter.
Coursedesign wrote on 10/4/2009, 1:03 PM
The expensive Cinemacraft encoder is only "best" for progressive footage.

Resizing is a very difficult task if you want max. quality, there are specialized tools that can do a very slightly better job than what John suggested. His suggestions will get you within a few % of what is possible, with no extra cash outlay.
kunal wrote on 10/4/2009, 1:56 PM
Thanks John. Adding a sharpen filter with a value of 0 did make an improvement.
johnmeyer wrote on 10/4/2009, 3:16 PM
I'm glad that helped. I wish I could find the thread where other techniques were discussed. I think the external resizing (that I already mentioned) was the other technique, but I'm not 100% certain.
Laurence wrote on 10/4/2009, 5:31 PM
You could do a few test renders with various amounts of sharpening to see what looks best on your projector.

Also, you could try using the http://www.mikecrash.com/modules.php?name=Downloads&d_op=viewdownload&cid=13Mike Crash smart deinterlace[/link] instead of the standard Vegas deinterlace. This will give you a little extra sharpness as well.

To use the Mike Crash smart deinterlace, in the project properties, choose "none" for your deinterlace method. Now add the smart deinterlace filter as Media FX rather than as a track or clip effect. This is important when you are resizing. The effect you need will be available as "smart deinterlace" Start with one of the presets and temporarily select "show motion areas only". This will show you the areas of the frame where the interlace comb patterns exist and the filter is actually changing something. Deselect "show motion areas only when you are happy with what is being deinterlaced. If you made any changes save it to a custom preset.

Now go to each clip you are using and add this "smart deinterlace" filter as Media FX and apply your preset. This extra work will give you a noticeably sharper image than the stock Vegas deinterlace.

I only found out about adding deinterlace filters as Media FX recently. Before that I couldn't use deinterlace plugins on video that was being resized. That is why I didn't mention this when you first posted this problem.

Note that the smart deinterlace will only help you on a 60i to 30p (or 50i to 25p) DVD render.
GregFlowers wrote on 10/4/2009, 7:35 PM
Make sure when you render you set your quality to "Best". Leaving it at the default "Good" setting when rendering HDV to SD will result in less than optimal results.