paulpost
Contributor
Do you have any experiance with up-convertion?
dvd v. up-convert
- Thread starter paulpost
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Let me rephrase, in an article in Popular Mechanics magazine they tested side by side the new HDDVD player and a regular DVD player with upconversion and according to them is not much of a difference in picture quality .
My question is , will our underwater DVDs look better if up-converted?
Did anybody out there tried?
My question is , will our underwater DVDs look better if up-converted?
Did anybody out there tried?
Haven't tried it, but I have also heard some impressive results from the home theatre crowd with upconverting. That said, the up-conversion process needed to produce really good results uses expensive, specialized chipsets and algorithms. I don't know that simply upconverting the video in your editor is going to produce the same results.
Then there's two other things to consider. First, it may look better than DVD, but there's just simply no way to insert material that was not there in the first place. Sometimes you get lucky and it looks better, other times you don't. And second, you still have to consider your output destination. Unless you have access to Blue-Ray or HDDVD players, you are still most likely outputting to DVD. In that case, you would spend time and effort up-converting to HD only to go and downconvert it back to DVD resolution. I have to think that would not produce the results you're looking for.
So unless you are preparing your video for a one-time showing, in a location guaranteed to have either a very good quality upconversion DVD player (which does the upconverting for you) or a high-def player, only the latter could *possibly* justify the upconversion process. Else you'd be better off going to DVD as usual and letting the really good upconversion players do their job.
Then there's two other things to consider. First, it may look better than DVD, but there's just simply no way to insert material that was not there in the first place. Sometimes you get lucky and it looks better, other times you don't. And second, you still have to consider your output destination. Unless you have access to Blue-Ray or HDDVD players, you are still most likely outputting to DVD. In that case, you would spend time and effort up-converting to HD only to go and downconvert it back to DVD resolution. I have to think that would not produce the results you're looking for.
So unless you are preparing your video for a one-time showing, in a location guaranteed to have either a very good quality upconversion DVD player (which does the upconverting for you) or a high-def player, only the latter could *possibly* justify the upconversion process. Else you'd be better off going to DVD as usual and letting the really good upconversion players do their job.
wags
Registered
Hi there
Here is a few facts to think about.
DVD mpeg 2 specs can go to a max bitrate of 9.8 mbps but normally DVD's are around 8mbps. They have a res of 720/576 (pal)
Mini DV 720/576 (pal) are 25mbps so you can see DVD's are alot lower quality than normal Mini DV.
HD DVD's can be like 1440/1080 res @ 25mbps.
So you can see upconverting a normal 8mbps 720/576 (pal) DVD to 1440/1080 res @ 25mbps HD DVD specs will not look very good. Then you have the 4.3 to 16.9 problem.
I have upconverted 4.3 mini DV to 1440/1080 HDV and even though you can get away with it, you can certainly pick the difference.
You also need to watch the footage on a high res screen or there will be not much difference if the TV can only output 720/576 etc between the two.
Here is a tip, if you want to make your normal DVD's look better, encode out progressive files and not interlaced mpeg 2 ones.
Have fun
Here is a few facts to think about.
DVD mpeg 2 specs can go to a max bitrate of 9.8 mbps but normally DVD's are around 8mbps. They have a res of 720/576 (pal)
Mini DV 720/576 (pal) are 25mbps so you can see DVD's are alot lower quality than normal Mini DV.
HD DVD's can be like 1440/1080 res @ 25mbps.
So you can see upconverting a normal 8mbps 720/576 (pal) DVD to 1440/1080 res @ 25mbps HD DVD specs will not look very good. Then you have the 4.3 to 16.9 problem.
I have upconverted 4.3 mini DV to 1440/1080 HDV and even though you can get away with it, you can certainly pick the difference.
You also need to watch the footage on a high res screen or there will be not much difference if the TV can only output 720/576 etc between the two.
Here is a tip, if you want to make your normal DVD's look better, encode out progressive files and not interlaced mpeg 2 ones.
Have fun
KiiY
Contributor
Paulpost,
AviSynth and VirtualDub are free video tools that will do de-interlacing.
Wags,
You wrote, "Here is a tip, if you want to make your normal DVD's look better, encode out progressive files and not interlaced mpeg 2 ones."
What capture format and output device/monitor are you using?
I'm just starting to venture into HDV capture and don't yet have an HD TV/monitor... but my experience with SD was that footage shot as interlaced video and shown on an interlaced display looks best when the video signal is kept as interlaced.
Capture in an interlaced format, then software conversion from interlaced to progressive, then DVD player conversion from progressive back to interlaced for SD display (sometimes done to achieve the "film look") just appears choppy and usually suffers a resolution loss, IMO.
But I do hope to move to HD/HDV editing and get an HD TV within the next few years... so if the interlace/progressive situation is different there, maybe I should start keeping EDL's so that I don't have to rebuild my edited footage from scratch if I later want to do an HD version.
Thanks.
AviSynth and VirtualDub are free video tools that will do de-interlacing.
Wags,
You wrote, "Here is a tip, if you want to make your normal DVD's look better, encode out progressive files and not interlaced mpeg 2 ones."
What capture format and output device/monitor are you using?
I'm just starting to venture into HDV capture and don't yet have an HD TV/monitor... but my experience with SD was that footage shot as interlaced video and shown on an interlaced display looks best when the video signal is kept as interlaced.
Capture in an interlaced format, then software conversion from interlaced to progressive, then DVD player conversion from progressive back to interlaced for SD display (sometimes done to achieve the "film look") just appears choppy and usually suffers a resolution loss, IMO.
But I do hope to move to HD/HDV editing and get an HD TV within the next few years... so if the interlace/progressive situation is different there, maybe I should start keeping EDL's so that I don't have to rebuild my edited footage from scratch if I later want to do an HD version.
Thanks.
split0101
Contributor
It all depends on what your shooting in. If your camera can support full MPEG 2 (720 x 576 pixels) then you can only really up convert to 1080 to be displayed on most HiDef TV's and the such, but why would you if it was 720p? I rather have a 720p over 1080i. Now if you were going to go 1080p, then thats a different story. Just remember if your video has a lot of problems, then up converting is going to make it look worse. Plus the display your going to look at it with will have a lot to do with it as well.
wags
Registered
If you are on a PC and you use Premiere Pro 2 and Aspect HD 4+ plug in you can convert the HDV 1080 interlaced material as it comes in to a progressive cineform 1080/1440p AVI file and then just edit in a progressive timeline then encode out the progressive mpeg 2 file with Procoder.
If you cannot do that then you can edit normal DV or HDV then if you have Procoder you can encode out a progressive Mpeg 2 DVD file straight from the timline in one simple go.
I have watch both progressvie and interlaced DVD's on normal TV's and ever there the progressive one's look better and ofcourse watching it on a progressive screen like a computer monitor they look heaps better. All the DVD players now days can read a progressive DVD.
AviSynth and VirtualDub can convert it to progressive as well but time consuming. Prodcoder can do it quick and simple but it does cost $$$.
If one of you guys try it, let me know how you go.
Cheers
Wags
If you cannot do that then you can edit normal DV or HDV then if you have Procoder you can encode out a progressive Mpeg 2 DVD file straight from the timline in one simple go.
I have watch both progressvie and interlaced DVD's on normal TV's and ever there the progressive one's look better and ofcourse watching it on a progressive screen like a computer monitor they look heaps better. All the DVD players now days can read a progressive DVD.
AviSynth and VirtualDub can convert it to progressive as well but time consuming. Prodcoder can do it quick and simple but it does cost $$$.
If one of you guys try it, let me know how you go.
Cheers
Wags
split0101
Contributor
paulpost:
Depends on the quality of the DVD, up conversion is going to do nothing more then try to add data where there isnt any. So if you have a lot of noise on your DVD, or bad quality encoding, then the DVD will look worse.
If you have a DVD that you bought from Best Buy (MPAA movie) and upconvert, then it "might" look better depending on your DVD player, and your display. Usually most TV's will just scale the picture to fit the display's native resolution.
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