Upscaling Software Comparison

"Integrating DV Source Footage into HDV Projects, Part 2" by Jan Ozer

Need to incorporate some standard-def footage into a high-def project? Then check out this article. It compares results of upscaling standard def footage to HD with 5 different packages, including FCP. The long and short of it is that it looks like spending $99 on Red Giant Software's Instant HD provides some nice improvements over the built-in scaling of FCP and Premiere Pro.

The article has some very handy comparison shots of the results from different packages. Click on the image with this post to see a larger view of a comparison of Instant HD and FCP. The image shows at the top, Instant HD, and below it, FCP. The handy red circles gives you points of comparison. Instant HD doesn't help with every shot though, and it doesn't create miracles, i.e., make your SD look as sharp as if it was actually shot in HD.

Not included in the comparison is a workflow mentioned by the author in another article that I posted about earlier--using Compressor. I think a good deinterlace from Compressor would have helped with some of the jaggies that showed up in all of the FCP examples of up-rezing. On the other hand, Compressor's good deinterlacing is very slow and the workflow is more complicated than just popping on a filter, like Instant HD, right in Final Cut.

The clear winner in the comparison, Algolith by AlgoSuite, is no longer available. The company has decided to discontinue the software to focus on dedicated hardware that does real-time processing. Not tested in this article is hardware-based upscaling like the AJA Kona 3 does or the Terranex.

iPod as Control Interface

This is a cool demonstration of beta software that uses the touchscreen of an iPhone or iPod touch to control ProTools. Who knows, maybe someday you'll be mixing your audio on your phone or audio player? More info over at FreshDV

Scaling Up your Video

Integrating DV Source Footage into HDV Projects, Part 1 By Jan Ozer

This is a good article on the basic issues on scaling up footage for high-definition video. Goes over frame resolution, pixel aspect ratio, and interlace. One good tidbit mentions an advantage to using Compressor with interlaced footage:

On the other hand, when converting from interlaced DV to progressive HD, deinterlacing is a huge component of the quality equation, which could and perhaps should change your workflow, particularly for Final Cut Pro editors. That’s because Final Cut Pro deploys different deinterlacing algorithms than Compressor, which uses the glacial but ultra-high quality Optical Flow algorithm from Shake. If converting from interlaced source to progressive, you may produce noticeably better quality by scaling and particularly deinterlacing in Compressor. This means creating a separate sequence for your SD footage, rendering it out through Compressor, then re-importing the file back into Final Cut Pro. On the other hand, I found scaling quality relatively close between Final Cut Pro and Compressor, so if you don’t need to de-interlace, scaling in Final Cut Pro should work just fine.

This article says that FCP and Compressor do an equivalent job of scaling-up video. But early this year I wrote about a tip for getting better-quality uprez with Photoshop. A tricky workflow, but if quality really matters then it's doable.
[via FreshDV]

Tutorial on Setting up Drives for Editing

Formatting & Partitioning a Hard Drive in OS X - Tiger and Leopard
By Ken Stone

A short tutorial from kenstone.net that covers the basics on setting up a hard drive for editing. Goes over formatting and partitioning. I sometimes will partition a hard drive. A hard drive's performance drops as the drive fills up, so I will often split up a disc in a faster partition and a slower partition. (One reason I like G-Raid's is that you can get good performance out of the drive even when it is full.)

Article also covers good things to know about permissions and journaling.

[via StudioDaily blog]

Breaking Stereotypes about Muslims

The One Nation, Many Voices film contest is looking for films that break stereotypes about Muslim Americans. They are offering $50,000 in prizes, including a $20,0000 grand prize. Deadline for entries is 12/31/07. So hurry up and make that film.

Adam Wilt on Sony's EX-1

"EX-1 Experiments: Shooting with Sony's XDCAM EX System"
By Adam Wilt

Adam Wilt takes a look at an engineering sample of Sony's totally-tapeless camera the PMW-EX1. Sounds like the video is very good, but he says it's really hard to hand hold the camera. Here's his summary:

Overall, the EX1 is a very promising camera: pin-sharp, sensitive imagers with what looks to be considerable latitude, variable frame rates, the benefits of solid-state recording, HD-SDI and lots of tweakability. It's painful to handhold, and the analog I/O cabling is sub-optimal, but those problems have to be set against what may yet be turn out to be the finest images in the sub-$10k field. I'll be very interested to put a production model EX1 through a rigorous evaluation.

[via hdforindies.com]

MacWorld Looks at 20" LCD Monitors

I remember when a 20" monitor was a big deal, and 2 years ago they cost around $500. Well, seems like Moore's Law is working its way into LCD displays, and prices are dropping. But there are so many models and manufacturers, it's often hard to find that sweet spot between quality and value.

MacWorld has just done a series of reviews on six 20" widescreen LCD monitors. These aren't the uber-expensive monitors for graphic professionals, and the review doesn't even include what has been my monior-mainstay: the Dell UltraSharp line. So I guess these would be considered value monitors geared more towards the consumer. Personally, I'm more worried about having a quality monitor for my video and less for my computer work-space. As long, as the color is decent, and the graphics crisp, I'm usually fine with my computer display.

With that philosophy in mind, it looks like they identify a couple of good monitors with words like "affordable", "inexpensive", and "effective" featured prominently in the reviews. The NEC MultiSync LCD205WXM monitor scored highest with a rating of 4 out of 5. The Dell E207WFP LCD monitor (not an UltraSharp) and the Samsung SyncMaster 206BW LCD monitor both got a rating of 3.5 out of 5. Also below I've thrown in some links to a HP 24" monitor (rating:4) and a ViewSonic 22" monitor (rating:3) that MacWorld has reviewed in the last 6 months.

NEC MultiSync LCD205WXM monitor 4 mice

Dell E207WFP LCD monitor 3.5 mice

Samsung SyncMaster 206BW LCD monitor 3.5 mice

BenQ FP202W V3 monitor 3 mice

Envision G2016wa LCD monitor 3 mice

HP w2007 monitor 3 mice

ViewSonic VA2026w LCD monitor 3 mice

HP LP2465 flat panel monitor4 mice
Large wide-screen LCD display offers good value

ViewSonic VX2245wm ViewDock monitor 3 mice

NEC Multisync LCD225WXM
Mac Life looks at the 22" NEC (the bigger brother to the 20" NEC that MacWorld likes) and gave it a 3 out of 5 rating. Good for office use, but not much beyond that. Complains about banding in gradients--ew, that's not good. Makes you wonder if the 22" performs worse than the 20" or if Mac Life has higher standards than MacWorld.

Firewire 800 on Mac Towers

"REVIEW: Sonnet Technologies Tango Express 800 PCIe Card"

An interesting new product review here with lots of good tidbits about a number of different factors that have been affecting firewire on the Macs with PCI Express slots. Bare Feats says that this Sonnet card brings a new level of performance to its product class after some disappointing products from some other manufacturers (I think I have one of those disappointing products.)

Final Cut Studio Gets New Features, Leopard Support

Apple updated all of the apps in Final Cut Studio with official support for OS 10.5 today (the updates also work with 10.4.11, also out today.) But wait, there's more! If you call now, you'll also get support for some of the new high-def cameras.

The XDCAM EX format is now supported under FCP 6.0.2. So footage from Sony's PMW-EX1 is now supported. AVC-Intra, which Panasonic is using on its high-end cameras, is supported. And JVC's HDV recordings in 720p60 and 720p50 are supported. There looks like there is also more support for progressive recording from Canon's cameras and Sony HVR-V1. Check out the release notes for all of the details.

I looked at the release notes for the other products and nothing jumped out at me. It looks like Color got a lot of bug fixes based on the release notes.

Mike Curtis offers more detail and some commentary on the new features at HDforIndies.com.

Sony Officially Names Removable-Lens Cams & Announces New HDV Products (Updated)

Information is trickling in today about Sony's big new steps in HDV. First off, the new cameras that I mentioned in September now officially have names HVR-S270 for the shoulder-mount and HVR-Z7 for the handycam size. Lots of stuff coming along with it too. How about a new deck, the HVR-M35. The main feature addition seems to be 24P and 30P recording on this deck as well as HD-SDI output and more support for JVC and Canon HDV recordings. There's also a flash memory recording unit for both of these cameras the HVR-MC1 that records to Compact Flash in HDV, DVCam and DV.

Unfortunately, the only official announcements are from Europe and Japan and not for the US market. The Japanese I can't read (help from my Japanese readers?) and the European models don't have 24P support (they are all about 25P over there.) Official announcements from both Europe and the U.S. are out. Here are links to more info available now:

"SONY UNVEILS NEXT GENERATION OF PROFESSIONAL HDV PRODUCTS"
Official U.S. press release on these products. Also includes link to those super hi-res photos of the deck and the 2 cameras.

"Sony refreshes HDV line- HVR-S270U and HVR-Z7U"
Good coverage here with some analysis from the IEBA Tech Thoughts blog.

Sony: The Next Generation Of HDV Products
Sony's Europe page on the new products

Frank's thought on HDV
Info on HVR-S270, HVR-Z7, and HVR-M35

More on Sony's New DV-Compatible HDV Camcorder and Deck
StudioDaily has US-focused info including some comments from Sony and prices:
HVR-S270U $10,500
HVR-Z7U $6,850
HVR-M35U $5,540

These products should be in the States in February '08.

Seems like Sony's HVR-Z7U is really very competitive with it own PMW-EX1. The $6,900 PMW-EX1 doesn't have an interchangeable lens and doesn't record to tape but has larger 1/2" sensors and the variable-bit rate 35 Mbps recording mode. The HVR-Z7U has 1/3" sensors but interchangeable lens and with the HVR-MC1 can record to flash memory as well as tape. I'm not sold on the solid-state memory recording as the only media for a camera personally.

The new cameras come with 12x lens with optical image stabilization.

I'll need to keep up with this. I'm not really sure if there is some new flavor of HDV that Sony is using for progressive-frame support. The V1 has 24p but records to 60i using 2:3 pulldown. Makes for easy compatibility but tricky to post as native 24p. (Update: This just got easier with the FCP 6.0.2 release.) I'm puzzled by the 24p and 30p modes for the HVR-M35 deck (which are visible on this photo) and what that means for these recordings compatibility with over Sony gear, like the HVR-M15, HVR-M25, and HVR-1500. Any difference in posting progressive recordings from this new gear? This progressive support on the deck may just be for displays, as 99% of HD displays (e.g., LCD & plasma) are progessive and not interlaced, so why send those display an interlaced image. The progressive displays have to have de-interlace, which causes a loss in vertical resolution.

Update: after thinking this over, I think a more likely benefit of the 24p and 30p playback mode is for using HD-SDI to capture and dub footage. HD-SDI signals support progressive video at 24, 25, 30 fps, as do capture cards like the Kona LH and Kona 3. So it seems like this opens up the option to capture without having to use your computer to remove pulldown to get to progressive video clips. Or it could be to dub footage to formats like HDCAM. Well, really I'll probably have to wait until this deck comes out, hopefully in February, to find out.

Update: There's a PDF of a brochure out for the European cameras and deck that make it clear that they can record in a progressive frame at 25 frames per second. Similary the HVR-M35E can record and playback 1080 progressive frames at 24 fps, 25 fps, and 30fps. So I'm guessing when more details emerge about the American models that we will see a different flavor of HDV that is 24fps, true progressive with no pulldown added. Canon is doing this with the HV-20, and the HVR-M35 is supposed to support tapes from that camera. So what happens if you try to put one of these tapes with 24fps footage into an older deck like the HVR-M10 or HVR-M25 or even the HVR-1500? I'm guessing you are in trouble. Also the HVR-S270 can record 4 channels of audio--a first for the HDV format. Will older decks support this format?

My Most-Used Freeware--Bitrate Pro

I don't know why Apple doesn't include something like this in Compressor and/or Final Cut Pro. The free Bitrate Pro will do a lot for you. How much space will 2 hours of DV footage take up? 20.95 GB. If I want to fit 1 hour and 45 minutes of video on a single-layer DVD what is the highest bitrate that I should use? 5.98 Mb/s. These are the kinds of calculations you can do with bitrate pro. Includes all kinds of handy info about how much data is on a DVD single-layer vs. dual-layer and what data rates different codecs use like ProRes, DV, DV50, and DVCPro HD.

AJA has a similar piece of freeware AJA Data Rate Calculator that is more geared toward figuring out storage for editing. They have presets for most of the editing codecs that their hardware has native support for.

I couldn't remember the name of Bitrate Pro, but I was able to track it down on this cool page that Apple has for video software downloads. You can always use versiontracker or macupdate, but I get overwhelmed by all the software on those sites. I think Apple helps make it manageable to explore freeware and shareware (although there's a lot of demo stuff thrown in there too.)

Free MacWorld Pass

Here's a deal from dealmac.com to get into the MacWorld exhibition hall for free. If you show up on the day-of and aren't registered, expect to pay $45 just to get into the exhibit hall--ouch. There will be other deals, but if you think you want to go then why wait. Just do it. Register now.

Here's one reason to go to the exhibit. Get your iPod battery replaced for around $20 while you wait. No shipping off and waiting to get your battery with more expensive services. Or even worse, trying to swap your battery on your own and breaking your iPod (I did that.)

MacWorld Expo
Jan. 15 - 18, 2008
Moscone Center
S.F.

Leopard Blogwad

Leopard/OS 10.5 has been for about a dozen days. I'm never an early adopter of OS upgrades because there are bound to be bugs. If you are in a rush to install Leopard, here's some suggested reading.

"Apple chastised for ignoring two Mac data loss issues"
Data loss bug in Leopard--also talks about suspect hard drives in MacBook's and MacBook Pro's

"Suggestions for a Better Leopard Installation"
Good advice here. I clone boot drives before I upgrade the OS.

"How-To: Know your APE status before upgrading to Leopard"
A version of Unsanity's APE (Application Enhancer) has been causing problems with Leopard installs--systems hang up for really long times after the install.

"Getting your Mac ready for OS X 10.5"
More reading before you install Leopard. Focuses on prepping the system for the upgrade by installing latest 3rd party updates, removing unneeded files, and using software with uninstaller libraries. For the advanced or fastidious.

"My Leopard (aka OS X 10.5) experience "
"Leopard stuff for editors"
HD for Indies posts on installing Leopard on the blogger's souped-up FCP systems. AJA has not issued drivers for Leopard. Blackmagic released drivers very quickly.

Security Warning: This Is Not a Test

"Mac Trojan prowls porn sites:
Changes DNS settings, shunts users to more porn, phishing sites"

With Apple's market share skyrocketing these days, I think we can expect to see more and more viruses and malware for the Macintosh. Well, there is a piece of malware out in the wild for the Mac. It takes over your web browser and redirects you to porn and phishing website.

The exploit works when users try to play what-they-think-is a movie. A window pops up and says that Quicktime doesn't have the codec to play the movie and prompts you to download and install the "codec". The codec is actually a trojan horse that can take over your browser. Obnoxious but doesn't sound deadly. The trojan horse is on porn sites.

So no surfing porn sites at the office. Ahem, you know who you are. (Just kidding.)

Codecs and Editing

"When to stay in the native codec of the source, and when to convert to something else."
by Philip Hodgetts

Good article by Philip Hodgetts over at kenstone.net. A pretty thorough run-thru of recommendations of what codec to edit in based on what codec you shoot on. Also talks about how to convert to other codecs using the batch export command.

I wonder about his recommendation to convert HDV to ProRes 422 though. The article says to convert HDV to ProRes 422 either during capture if you'd got the hardware or by converting in FCP after capture. I would probably edit in the native codec, but render to ProRes 422. I've never been through the lengthy conforming that he describes HDV requires when you master back to HDV. Then again, I've never even posted in HD. But my thinking is that I'd rather save the storage by keeping footage in the more compressed HDV codec. (HDV is 25 mb/s while ProRes 422 for 1080 footage goes from 140 mb/s up to 220 mb/s.)

The article doesn't mention a workflow that we use at Link TV. Shoot on HDV, but use the deck to down-convert to DV. I think Sony's gear does a really good job on the down-conversion. I think it's better than what FCP does. I've captured some footage at HDV and then scaled it down in FCP to standard-def, and I don't think it looks as good as HDV down-converted in the deck. The article also covers the problems with DV in respect to color space.

[via StudioDaily Blog]