stills in HD

Widetrack wrote on 3/17/2010, 10:08 PM

Okay, I'm gradually getting this under control, but here's several things I can't figure out, even though they probably seem totally obvious to everyone else, so please excuse my ignorance.

If I put a bunch of stills on the timeline and render them to some HD format, will they look better than if I render to regular DVD MPEG? (assuming I make sure the original images have an HD pixel-count.)

On progressive scan footage, does each line contain different information, or do they repeat, like interlace?

If I render SD DV to HD, will it look:

a. better
b. the same as would a DV render
c. worse?

Would it depend on what kind of monitor I view it on?

If i have a still, 1920 x 1080 image that will be rendered to HD, and I zoom in on it, how will it look in the final render,

a. while zooming
b. after it's zoomed?

What if I make the image double, e.g., the 1080 pixel count?

Can you burn an HD file to a DVD? If not, why not? If so, will it play on a DVD player? If it won't, why not?

(I assume it won't play on a bluray player.)

I still don't have any HD gear, but am trying to figure out if I should start planning to shift over to complete HD production.

Thank you to anyone patient enough to answer these basic questions.

Comments

PerroneFord wrote on 3/17/2010, 10:24 PM

Whooo man that's a buncha questions right there! :) So let's see

Q. If you put a bunch of stills on the timeline, will they look better rendered to an HD format than DVD Mpeg?

A. Yes. HD has higher resolution (more pixels) and generally better compression (less loss going from source to final.

Q. On Progressive Scan footage, does each line contain new information.
A. Yes.

Q. If you render SD DV to HD, will it look better, worse, or the same
A. Worse. You are stretching the image out to a much larger size. Imagine taking a small photo, and blowing it up poster size in a copy machine. Same deal.

Q. If you zoom in on a 1920x1080 still how would it look?
A. While zooming it will look ok to fair. After zoomed, depends on how far you go. You are doing that blow-up thing again. Just a little zoom and it won't look too bad. A lot of zoom, and it's not going to look so hot.

Q. What if you make the image double
A. Not really sure what you mean by this.

Q. Can you burn an HD file to a DVD?
A. Yes. If you do this at normal DVD size, the image will be just like any other DVD. If you burn an HD file to a DVD pretending that DVD is a BluRay disk, then it won't hold much, but you can put it on there. However, most BluRay players won't play it back (it's not a BluRay disk), and no DVD players will play it.

willphil wrote on 3/18/2010, 5:33 AM

PerroneFord is correct than many Blu-ray players will not play Blu-ray on DVD. Many will play AVCHD on a DVD. I have a Panasonic Blu-ray that would not play the DVDA disks, so after some research I tried AVCHD format. It will play that format on disk and on an SD card.

Check out the free program multiAVCHD. It creates a compliant format that more Blu-ray players will recognize. Panasonics do not let you do menus, but other players will according to the information at multiAVCHD.

http://multiavchd.deanbg.com/

Widetrack wrote on 3/18/2010, 9:44 AM

Thanks, PerroneFord. that clears up a lot of foggy areas for me.

What I meant by "make the image double" was to put it in Photoshop and change its size to two times1920 by two times 1080= 3940 x 2160 pixels, so I could zoom in to 1080 x 1920.

I wouldn't try this with a pic that was smaller than that to begin with. I have no idea how Photoshop would handle it, but I can't imagine it would look good.

But a lot of the images I have are bigger than that and I have to shrink and/or crop them anyway. So I guess the question is if I shrink it to 3940 x 2160 will that let me zoom in til it's showing 1920 x 1080, or would some other size do that too.

I asked about how it would look while zooming because when I zoom SD DV, I often get lots of little sparkly points go off and on. It's a nice effect for a star field, but lousy for anything else.

Thanks again for the help.

rs170a wrote on 3/18/2010, 9:49 AM

So I guess the question is if I shrink it to 3940 x 2160 will that let me zoom in til it's showing 1920 x 1080, or would some other size do that too.

2X your project size is the standard recommendation so anything close to that is fine and will look OK when zoomed in.

...I often get lots of little sparkly points go off and on.

Try a very small amount of Gaussian Blur.
Adjust Horizontal to 0.0.
Adjust Vertical at 0.001 to 0.003

Mike

Widetrack wrote on 3/18/2010, 10:08 AM

Thanks Mike. I'll try that soon as I get a new mobo installed in my production machine. the disk controller died (at least I think that's what it is)

Laurence wrote on 3/18/2010, 11:18 AM

Photoshop doesn't uprez particularly well unless you have some kind of uprezzing filter like http://www.ononesoftware.com/detail.php?prodLine_id=7genuine fractals[/link]. I use http://www.benvista.com/main/content/content.php?page=ourproducts&section=photozoompro_1PhotoZoom Pro 3[/link] which is expensive but that I absolutely adore. The uprezzes it does are just unbelievable and you can batch uprez using it as a standalone program or export to it from Photoshop.

They also have a less expensive http://www.benvista.com/main/content/content.php?page=ourproducts&section=photozoomclassic_1PhotoZoom Classic[/link] which I haven't tried but looks good.

I bought PhotoZoom Pro years ago when it was a lot less expensive and have kept up to date with the versions. I use it all the time. It is quite common for someone to want a video with a particular logo or artwork that they only seem to have low resolution versions of. I can uprez it and tweak it in Photoshop and make it the look the best it can. Absolutely indespensible IMHO.

Widetrack wrote on 3/19/2010, 5:04 PM

Thanks, Laurence.

Ill look into that soon'sI get my cptr fixed. My production machine's mobo went south, so I'm just waiting for a new one coming from China (brrr)

I'll probably get to upgrade to a quad 4 in the process, though. silver linings everywhere.

MTuggy wrote on 3/19/2010, 11:44 PM

I have a cheap 1 year old Sylvania BD player that plays back DVD with Blu-ray files on it without any problems. If your BD player doesn't play it back, it would be worth looking for a firmware update since many companies are updating their devices to accommodate such files. I have nice collection of short BD format movies all stored on DVD's since they are under 18 minutes in length and they are maxed out in resolution so they look great.

Mike