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HDV --> SD DVD Workflow (DebugMode FrameServer, AviSynth)

Explorer ,
Jul 02, 2008 Jul 02, 2008

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While the old thread contains a wealth of great information, I've decided to break away from it. It's too old, too long, too confusing... In summary:

Many users are aware that Premiere/AME/Encore does a "less than stellar" job of converting 1080i HDV to interlaced SD DVD. I (and others) have tried every conceivable combination of options and found none that provided "professional quality" conversions. This is largely due to the way that Premiere handles scaling of interlaced material ... Example #1 ... Example #2 ... and Premiere's failure to convert from the HDV color matrix (Rec.709) to the SD specification (Rec.601).

In an effort to solve these problems, I developed a workflow (using several third-party freeware tools) that achieves results far superior to that of Premiere and/or Encore by themselves.

I have written a guide for this workflow, including step-by-step instructions and links to download all the required tools.

This page also contains a link to a more advanced option for doing these conversions (using mostly the same tools). Please do not attempt the advanced version unless you have already implemented my "basic" workflow!

The page and linked files will be updated frequently. It is a work in progress, but should already provide excellent quality. I look forward to comments and suggestions from this community (as always).

Enjoy! -- Dan

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New Here ,
Jul 03, 2008 Jul 03, 2008

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Hi Dan,
I've read just about every post on the old thread. I'll certainly monitor this one.
Howell

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New Here ,
Jul 03, 2008 Jul 03, 2008

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Dan, I'll be actively using your workflow, so I'll be monitoring this thread as well.

Thanks,
Kevin

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Community Beginner ,
Jul 03, 2008 Jul 03, 2008

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Fantastic guide, Dan. Thanks for much for taking the time to put it together. The results are definitely worth it. Now if only there were a PPro Mac workflow so I don't have to use bootcamp...

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Contributor ,
Jul 03, 2008 Jul 03, 2008

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What is a Mac user to do? I am using a mac at work and really miss debugmode. Any frame serving alternatives out there?

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Community Beginner ,
Dec 20, 2010 Dec 20, 2010

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Buy VMware Fusion and run your Windoze PC

in tandem with your workflow.

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LEGEND ,
Jul 03, 2008 Jul 03, 2008

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>What is a Mac user to do?

See the light...Buy PC! :)

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Contributor ,
Jul 03, 2008 Jul 03, 2008

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Chances are good there are equivalent utilities out there for Macs, but you'd have to ask in a Mac-centric community.


Cheers
Eddie

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Explorer ,
Jul 03, 2008 Jul 03, 2008

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Jim's right (I can't believe I said that!) : There are just more options for doing things like this on PC. The whole "freeware coommunity" is more or less PC based.

(Is there an emoticon for that "Sad Mac" face like you get when their OS crashes?)

> Chances are good there are equivalent utilities out there for Macs

Yeah, but can you run AviSynth on Mac? I think not... I don't know about "bootcramp" or whatever it is. I could be wrong.

To my knowledge, DebugMode is the only frameserver output that works with CS3. There is no Mac version. Somebody please make a post here if you find one (or any other frameserver that works with CS3, Mac or Windows -- I'd love to test it out!)

NOTE: I freely admit to my anti-Mac bias. Sorry Mac users: No hard feelings, right? I simply cannot abide an OS that only recently saw fit to use two mouse buttons 🙂 Truth be told, I am a freeware junkie which precludes me from ever going back to Mac.

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LEGEND ,
Jul 03, 2008 Jul 03, 2008

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>I simply cannot abide an OS that only recently saw fit to use two mouse buttons

Well said, brother!

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Community Beginner ,
Jul 03, 2008 Jul 03, 2008

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>Yeah, but can you run AviSynth on Mac? I think not... I don't know about "bootcramp" or whatever it is. I could be wrong.

You can and I have. One advantage of the Intel-based Macs is that you can also install Windows and choose which OS to boot into using "bootcamp". My Mac Pro is either a native OS X or Win XP system, depending upon which I choose. To test your workflow I used PPro CS3 running in Windows, loading an HD project I had edited with PPro Mac on the same machine. It worked fine. Of course, those running PPro Mac only don't have this option...

The freeware workflow is great, but I sincerely hope Adobe's engineers can improve Premiere so we don't have to go down that road anymore.

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Community Beginner ,
Jul 03, 2008 Jul 03, 2008

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Interestingly enough, I read a thread today on another forum where Final Cut users are experiencing the same HDV to SD quality problems using Compressor.

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Explorer ,
Jul 03, 2008 Jul 03, 2008

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> To test your workflow I used PPro CS3 running in Windows, loading an HD project I had edited with PPro Mac on the same machine. It worked fine

Cool! I'm glad to know this. Other "footclamp" users will be glad also 🙂 But I guess you need to own a Mac + a license for PPro CS3 Windows. That may be only a small crowd of folks, no?

> Final Cut users are experiencing the same HDV to SD quality problems using Compressor

I love it! I really do... It's great when freeware works better than the so-called "pro" tools.

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Community Beginner ,
Jul 03, 2008 Jul 03, 2008

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>But I guess you need to own a Mac + a license for PPro CS3 Windows. That may be only a small crowd of folks, no?

True. I have a license for PPro Win primarily for use on my laptop in the field, with a second installation on my Mac Pro Windows partition. I much prefer OS X to Windows, but there are definite advantages to keeping XP available.

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Explorer ,
Jul 03, 2008 Jul 03, 2008

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> I much prefer OS X to Windows

To each his own, Bob. I've no particular allegiance to XP or Microsoft. Hell, if I could run what I needed to on a Timex Sinclair I'd probably go that way.

Again, I am glad to know it works for you (and hopefully other Mac users).

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New Here ,
Jul 03, 2008 Jul 03, 2008

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I have to say that Dan has been unrelenting in his quest to educate people on the benefits of his workflow in going From HDV to SD DVD. I did some testing some months ago using his technique and the results looked pretty good but it was really difficult to judge just how much difference there was between an Adobe Media Encoder (AME) generated DVD file and the Frameserver/Avisythn process. To get a better means of comparing the two techniques, I recently used both work flows within CS3 to generate two DVD MPeg2 files from the same HDV source.

I then imported both files into a PP2 DVD NTSC 16x9 MPEGPro project. I laid the two video files on top of each other, in synch and then using the motion effect, split the screen so that the Avisynth-generated video and the AME-generated video were displayed simultaneously showing the lower half of both video files. I then exported the split screen to a DVD MPeg2 file and subsequently burned this onto a DVD.

Using a non-upscaling Sony DVD player (DVP-NS75P) and a 30" Sony Wega (KV-30HS420) Hi-def CRT based TV, previewed the split screen results. I can assure you that when viewing the two images directly, there is no question that Dan's workflow produces a sharper image with better colour and less motion blur. The difference is quite significant and I can assure you that I will be using his workflow from this point onwards to produce SD DVDs from HDV Premiere Projects.

You have done a great job Dan, not only in developing this workflow but also in having the perseverance to keep this in front of the Adobe forum folks. Thanks again for the help you have provided me in getting this process up and running.

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Explorer ,
Jul 03, 2008 Jul 03, 2008

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Thanks so much, Ron. I agree that this process highlights some critical weaknesses in PPro -- and it is certainly my intention to keep these issues in focus. Many users "don't know what they're missing" -- and they should. This is professional software and professional results are to be expected.

As Hugh Hansard pointed out in the other thread, Premiere's problem with HD -> SD conversions is a function of several limitations:

1.) colorspace conversions
2.) aspect ratio conversions
3.) scaling algorithms

.. and I'll add to this list:

4.) the lack of a decent deinterlacer. Preferably a "very smart" adaptive and/or motion estimating deinterlacer with framerate-doubling capability.

It appears (from posts made by Wil Renczes on this forum) that aspect ratio and color matrix conversions will be fixed in CS4. Let's hope that they plan to improve scaling algorithms and provide a decent adaptive bob-deinterlacer also. (well, we'll see about that).

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Explorer ,
Jul 03, 2008 Jul 03, 2008

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As Dan mentions, deinterlacing is a key issue You can not properly scale without deinterlacing. In my previous post, I bundled deinterlacing into scaling, but it is really an issue in of itself. When I got access to my final workflow, we were using a predictive-motion algorithm prior to scaling. This was the primary fix for the frame/field artifacts and haloing. Dan is correct, it is key.

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LEGEND ,
Jul 03, 2008 Jul 03, 2008

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OK. Now if only we can get Dan to figure out how to convert standard 30i NTSC into 24p, then back to 30i for display - without creating any artifacts!

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Explorer ,
Jul 03, 2008 Jul 03, 2008

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Well, Jim. 30i -> 24p is easy enough. But going the other way without artifacts and/or duplicate fields is impossible. However, if you seriously want to look at ways to convert 24p -> 30i, try the Doom9 forums. I am certain that someone (smarter than I am) would help you find the best way.

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LEGEND ,
Jul 03, 2008 Jul 03, 2008

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>going the other way without artifacts and/or duplicate fields is impossible.

I'm not worried about duplicate fields. Even real film source shows this when frame stepped on DVD. I am trying to get rid of the artifacts.

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Explorer ,
Jul 03, 2008 Jul 03, 2008

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Start a new thread and ask the question... I'll do my best for you.

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LEGEND ,
Jul 03, 2008 Jul 03, 2008

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Was just thinking the same thing.

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New Here ,
Jul 04, 2008 Jul 04, 2008

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well -- after reading these posts for many months I decided to try it. Seems that I got much nicer color, but the field renedering must have weirded out the video.

1) I exported an m2v file straight from premiere using MPEGPRo pluging as a baseline for comparison.

2) I did the 'basic' workflow that Dan presented, then burned both timelines to a DVD in Encore CS3 (no transcoding was required in Encore because I did so in ProCoder first).

The AVISynth workflow looked very choppy - almost as if frames were missing or if somehow the whole field order thing was jacked.

My source was an m2T file from a canon HV20 straight to the timeline. A few cuts for fun, then output as described above and in Dans workflow guide.

Should I NOT be doing upper fields first?? I know you want UFF in HDV - which I did for the MPEGPro export and it looked fine.

Ed

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New Here ,
Jul 04, 2008 Jul 04, 2008

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Ed, I have an HV20 that I use for my HDV work. I have had tremendous success with Dan's workflow doing the following:

1. export movie from PP3 with Upper Field First selected in the Video tab of the Export dialog.

2. use the parameter "OutputBFF=true" in the AVS script, if you are using Dan's advanced script. I tried both ways (upper/lower), and it only looks excellent if you use this parameter with BFF=true.

Otherwise, I see the same chopiness that you are describing.

When I export from Adobe Media Encoder, I noticed that the default was Lower Field First, so it prompted me to try it with Dan's workflow when I didn't get great results the first time.

I have encoded several DVDs using clips from my HV20 and they look great - much better than standard Adobe Media Encoder based DVDs on my 50" plasma HDTV with a standard (non-upscaling) DVD player.

I also purchased the Cinema Craft Encode Basic ($58) which I load AVS files into - works great and can be purchased online here:
http://www.visiblelight.com/cinema%2Dcraft/

As mentioned on another thread, I am seeing that it takes about 1 hour of 2-pass VBR encoding time, per minute of video from PP3. So a 10 minute video project in PP3 takes about 10 hours total (across 2-passes) to encode with Dan's workflow and CCE Basic.

The results are outstanding!

Hope this helps,
Kevin

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