Goal: Stream SD footage from YouTube so SD has sharpest clarity.
I would appreciate feedback on the following process.
I have a library of SD 720x480 (4:3) miniDV tapes.
Edit them in Premiere CC.
Encode to MP4 via Adobe Media Encoder.
Upload to YouTube.
Display on a Full HD (1920X1080) TV streamed from YouTube.
The original SD footage is clear and sharp because in the old days, it would play on an old CRT TV and look sharp and clear.
The following are different sequence settings and the results:
Sequence: SD 720x480 (4:3)
If I edit and encode as a SD 720x480 (4:3) sequence, the Full HD (1920X1080) TV scales it, and creates a pillar box. Unfortunately, the result is jaggy and blurry. I would assume this is due to the large amount of scaling and the fact that SD uses rectangular pixels while the TV uses square pixels.
Sequence: Full HD 1920x1080 30p
Since TVs are Full HD (1920X1080), it seems that the best approach is to create the sequence as 1920x1080 30p. Then drag the SD 720x480 (4:3) AVI files into the sequence. The result is black surrounding the SD footage. Since the SD pixels are rectangular, I assume Premiere converts the rectangular pixels to square pixels so the inserted SD is no longer 720x480 (rectangular), but 640x480 (square). It seems to work. The end result gives a clearer picture than having the TV scale the SD footage.
Sequence: 1080x720 30p
Using a 1080x720 30p sequence seems to result in the SD footage looking a bit more jaggy than using a 1920X1080 30p sequence - possibly due to scaling the 720p to the native 1080p of the TV.
Are my observations correct?
Is the 1080x720 30p sequence the best approach?
Is there a better process?
Thanks in advance.
Honestly, I don't think you'll do any better than having the device do the scaling. If your TV doesn't do it well, try a Blu-ray player, Roku device, Amazon Fire TV, etc.
Just keep your expectationsin check. It is standard def media.