Using SD material in a HD project

Indy wrote on 2/14/2016, 8:02 AM

Hello!

I set up a project using the "match media settings" function in Movie Studio Studio 13 platinum with my source footage mainly being AVCHD 1920x1080p50. However, in this project I would also like to use older DV footage, which is I think 720x576i50. To preserve the quality of this "smaller" footage it should be inserted in its original size and not streched to the frame size of the project of 1920x1080. More or less like a picture in picture effect with the background being visible around the DV clip. However Movie Studio keeps streching the DV clips to full HD. How do I prevent this?

Thanks,
Indy

Comments

musicvid10 wrote on 2/14/2016, 8:37 AM

First, your DV clips will never be HD.
How they would look upscaled to 1280x720 is mostly a matter of the original clarity on your tapes.

1920x1080 upscaling of SD would be out of the question in one of my projects.

That said, I had reasonable success getting to 720p with the Handbrake CLI (not the GUI).

The aspect controls you need to restore aspect are in the Event Pan/Crop window for each "clip."
You will be faced with black bars or cropping since your DV is 4:3.

Indy wrote on 2/14/2016, 10:38 AM

@musicvid10

Yes, you're right. DV will never be HD. That's why I don't want it to be scaled up to 1920x1080. However, that is what Movie Studio does automatically! Wenever I place a DV clip on the timeline of a HD project, the picture is scaled up to fill the complete frame. What I would like to achieve is that the DV clip appears in it's original size (that means 576px height) within the frame of the HD movie and yes, leading to black bars around the clip. I did suspect the function "Strech to fill frame" in Pan/Crop to do the trick, but setting it to No simply changes nothing. I'd prefer a numerical method to dial in the dimensions of the DV clip to get the exact same size for every DV clip.

Any ideas how to achieve this?
Thanks!

musicvid10 wrote on 2/14/2016, 4:11 PM

You could use a basic pan/crop tutorial; ther are a few on Youtube.
In the pan/crop window, set the width at 1920 and the height at 1080.
Then there are context menu choices to match source aspect or output aspect

Eagle Six wrote on 2/14/2016, 4:26 PM

Indy,

If you add a 4:3 SD to your 1920x1080 (16:9) timeline, the SD footage should appear pillar boxed. Black space on both the right and left sides, and the top and bottom should fill the full height. If this is correct.....

Try Track Motion.....
I took a 4:3 620x480 SD and placed it in a HD 16:9 1920x1080 timeline. Then I adjusted the size with Track Motion. It looks like this.....

Assure you have the same settings as I have in the boxed area. In the Width and Height you should have W=1920 and H=1080. Change your Height to 504. That is 1080 pixels less your SD footage height of 576 = 504. DO NOT change the width. NOTE: In my example I changed the Height to 600, because I used a 640x480 NTSC clip (1080 minus 480 equals 600).

That should get you very close to your original SD appearance.

You can also move the SD video around using Track Motion and create Picture-in-Picture if you wanted to lay another track under the SD track.

Hope this helps.......

Best Regards....George

musicvid10 wrote on 2/15/2016, 1:00 PM

George, he said he wants the DV "to appear at its original size," which means not upscaled to 1080.
Thanks.

Indy wrote on 2/15/2016, 2:38 PM

Hi there!

Thanks everybody!

First of all, I should add that the DV footage is not only 720x576i50, but also 16:9. From my understandig in a 1920x1080px HD project with square pixels this material has to be displayed either in 1024x576 or in 720x405 to produce the correct aspect ratio with the latter being more closely to the original size.

@musicvid10
Apart from the fact that, as a raw recruit, I will most probably never ever understand how to use Pan/Crop or what the advantage of a tool like this is... This solution works! When I dial in 1920x1080 the DV footage looks like it is displayed with 720x405 (width is less than half of the HD frame). However, when I select to match source or output aspect ratio the footage becomes resized and it then looks like it is displayed with 1024x576 (width is more than half of the HD frame). The width automatically changes to 1349.8 whatever that means or how it is calculated! But I guess both options would be possible to use, right?

@Eagle Six
I think this solution is also very well working! I can set the height to 576 or 405 (correct values for 16:9 footage?) which apparently gives the same results as above using Pan/Crop.

So, thank you again!

Indy

Eagle Six wrote on 2/15/2016, 2:40 PM

musicvid10..."George, he said he wants the DV "to appear at its original size," which means not upscaled to 1080."

I thought I read he had a 1920x1080i project of his main footage and wanted the SD to appear windowboxed at the same resolution as the SD! I guess I'm maybe misinterpreting!

Best Regards....George

Eagle Six wrote on 2/15/2016, 3:05 PM

Indy....."First of all, I should add that the DV footage is not only 720x576i50, but also 16:9. From my understandig in a 1920x1080px HD project with square pixels this material has to be displayed either in 1024x576 or in 720x405 to produce the correct aspect ratio with the latter being more closely to the original size."

Sorry Indy, I missed the 720 part of your 720x576 (16:9) in your first thread. Otherwise my explanation would have been much clearer I'm sure.

Glad you have it worked out so you can finish your project.

Indy......"Apart from the fact that, as a raw recruit, I will most probably never ever understand how to use Pan/Crop or what the advantage of a tool like this is"

Just my opinion and I could easily be incorrect.....the Pan&Crop and Track Motion are a heritage thing. Not sure which is the chicken or the egg. I think they both have similar features and probably they are used in favor by those who have had to use either, or...and are used to which ever they favor to continue use.

Although I was introduced to Pan&Crop first, I quickly favored using Track Motion. I'm not sure which Vegas likes better than the other as far as previewing smoothly, or if there is any difference. I mostly use Track Motion.

Best Regards....George

Former user wrote on 2/15/2016, 3:27 PM

One of the main differences between Track Motion and Pan/Crop is how the resolution is handled. In track motion, the event is treated at Project Resolution, meaning if you enlarge using track motion, the quality will diminish. (For example, if your original sill image is at twice the resolution of your project, it is treated as if it is the same resolution as the project).

In Pan Crop, the event is treated at original element resolution.

Eagle Six wrote on 2/17/2016, 2:25 PM

@DonaldT....."In Pan Crop, the event is treated at original element resolution. "

Thanks Donald, that is good to know.

Best Regards....George

Chienworks wrote on 2/18/2016, 4:55 PM

Yes, Pan/Crop is exactly the right tool to use for this. Simply set width & height of the frame to match the output resolution of 1920x1080. You can then position the smaller SD frame wherever you wish inside the larger frame.

If you used Track motion then the image would be resampled up to 1920x1080 first, then resampled back down. Two transformations could blur the image slightly. True, Pan/Crop will resample once since the SD material isn't 1:1, but this transformation always happens with all SD material when played back or used anywhere. And, one transformation is better than two, especially since it's only in one dimension. Track Motion will resample in both dimensions twice.