HD For Indies

So I stayed up until 3am messing with a bunch of stuff, trying to upsample my footage from 720p24 to 1080p24 and keep it as clean as possible. I was loathe to use the FCP Media Manager route, because I suspected the upsampling algorithm wasn't going to be great. Compressor had done some sloppy working look I'd seen previously.

I tried a bunch of different tools, trying to upsample 720p24 DVCPRO HD footage up to 1080p24 BlackMagic codec 4:2:2, YUV color space. I also played with some other new toys and workflow ideas.

SYNOPSIS:

Discreet Cleaner - makes the footage substantially darker, especially shadow detail. Ick. But marches on through it.

Apple Compressor - makes the footage a bit lighter - I didn't verify, that played through the HD-SDI, that it actually looked different, but I didn't trust it. Plus it looked like it was running pretty damn slow

Sorenson Squeeze - tried this one just for fun. Only writes out Sorenson codec that I could tell. So bleh on them. Egotists.

PopWire's Compression Master - I was really hopeful about this one - I downloaded and installed the full function, time limited demo, but maybe I did something wrong, or perhaps it doesn't recognize the DVCPRO HD codec. In any case I got errors and never got anywhere with it. Drat. Was really hoping to use it. Will play with more.

Adobe After Effects - can get nice clean output from it, but even being clever with it, TONS of handholding involved. But it does offer the possibility of using additional plugins. I was looking forward to using some of Algolith's CAS (Content Adaptive Scaling) plugins to upsample, but I didn't get the chance. YET. I spoke to the developers at NAB, and they weren't in a hurry to provide FCP plugins since they heard everyone wanted realtime performance. But for this kind of upsampling, you're not going to do it but once during a normal project. Then maybe a few little times for pickup bits. But I don't think a long lunch or overnight burn to get a high quality upsample still within FCP is something I'd get too upset about. It's that or a long slow mediocre conversion...and who wants that?

Other stuff - doodled briefly with the BitJazz SheerVideo codec - just enough to recompress a 1080p24 clip from 2.7GB down to 0.9GB. Not sure I had everything set right, but to the naked eye it looked like a good match and still played back in realtime. Their claim to fame is tiny file sizes, mathematically lossless compression, and super fast performance...enough to capture straight to their codec from deck. Much more testing to be done, but looks promising. They handle 4:2:2 and 4:4:4 and even both of those with alpha.

I'm thinking the highest quality way to do this would be to use Media Manager as described at the end of my notes and Recompress To a new location. Those files would then be linked and working. Be sure to base file names on existing media. Then use a Copy function to make a clean set of 720p24 DVCPRO HD footage, then drag those and do a batch type operation using the tool of choice. Render to a third directory, then in FCP mark as Offline the footage in your new project, and relink to your better uprezzed stuff. A lot of work, hopefully it would look better. To be seen.

-mike

Here's all my raw notes:

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NOTES ON CODEC FLIPPING ATTEMPT:

I duped a bunch of media - about 3GB worth.

I tried to use Compression Master - it bonked, got an error - "Error: Unsupported media format" I guess it doesn't like DVCPRO HD-or did I set it up wrong?

I tried to use Compressor - it said it would take many many hours. Bail. Also, it was lightening the footage.

I tried to use Cleaner just cuz I knew how. Cleaner makes it darker. And it hung on quit. Shit.

So Compressor makes it lighter, Cleaner makes it darker, Compression Master doesn't work. Fuck.

Sorenson Squeeze - nope, it only wants to write Sorenson. A little too "me centric" in codecs

After Effects? How close to a batch process can I create?

-launch AE

-new project


-new folder

-drag in folder contents of "to be converted) source

-drag all folder contents to "make comp" icon

-in "New Comp from Selection" window, select Mutliple Compositions, don't both to click "Add to Render Queue"

-select any comp and Command-M to make movie

-select the desired output directory

-make sure the Output Module and Render Module are set to default to what you want - render to your codec.

-highlight all comps (view by type to make this easier) and under the Composition pulldown menu select Add To Render Queue (can be done with Shift-Command-/ (forward slash, same key as ?)

-batch render GO!

-you can either manually trim back the comp names, or use a batch renamer like ABFR (A Better Finder Rename) to trim the names.

Then use Media Manager in FCP to take the clips offline, relink to these clips using manual selection.

Dupe your prior timeline, and change the Sequence Settings to match your codec.

My switch from 720p24 DVCPRO HD to 720p24 BlackMagic 8 bit 2Vuy was almost successful - it got in there, apparently required no rendering (grey bar at top of timeline) but drops frames!

Only 42.3 MB/sec, but drops frames after about 2-3 seconds consistently.

Tried rendering to the straightforward 8 bit codec, I'll see how that does.

If that doesn't work, I'll run both sets through the "Flatten Only" preset in Cleaner.

The plain 8 bit codec had the exact same problem. Crap. Had this problem before at Martini Shot.

When I reconnected to the new media, it gave me a red bar - clearly didn't like the codec. Went into the sequence settings, that I had loaded from the list of presets, so clearly the 8bit2Vuy is the indicated preferred & correct codec.

Dammit.

So I'm going to try to use cleaner to Flatten both test files - the plain 8 bit codec and the 2VUY codec stuff.

one reason - the 720p24 footage is trying to play back at 60p in the timeline - so it freaks it out, since it thinks it should be playing at 60fps.

Duping Comps in AE, AE tries to advance the # if there is a number at the end of the comp/filename. BAD!

So don't trim the comp names in AE....yet.

Annoyingly, AE 6.5 does implement Shift-Command-S as a Save As... but it strips a keyboard shortcut away for use as Scale settings. Required to use "Size of Comp" for scale


Have to manually adjust comp size - what a pain!

So I run Compressor to make some new 1920x1080 files. They confirm as 1920x1080, 23.976 fps, 8 bit, 95 MB/sec files. But they come in too short, stretched horizontally, too dark, and stuck at DVCPRO HD aspect ratio. CAN'T SEEM TO FIX!

This is soooooooooo not good.

Looks like redig is the way to go...shit.

I'll try some other reconnection action.

A-HA! Right clicking on the aspect ratio lets me change it...but it doesn't seem to do anything. Hmm. Mess with some more.

Changing the aspect ratio on the clips in the bin, not on the timeline, then dragging them in fresh seems to help. But adjust on the timeline itself does NOT, they stay too wide. Hmmm...

So what to do? Replace'em one by one? Ugh.

So lose edit changes.

SYNOPSIS:

Since there is no 720p24 format to tape via DeckLink HD or HD Pro, uncompressed 720p24 footage is kinda worthless.

Compressor makes it too light. Cleaner makes it too dark. Compression Master doesn't work. After Effects is too much work.

However you do it, seems you have to manually reassign the aspect ratio...and if the clip has already been used in a timeline, it DOESN'T WORK!!!

What if I drag it out and drag it back to replace? That's a LOT of handiwork, and wouldn't want to do it for a large editing job. But...

THE KEY MAY BE TO ADJUST THE ASPECT RATIO IN THE MOTION TAB BACK TO ZERO INSTEAD OF -33.33 - play with that

The plain old Duplicate command under Edit makes a copy of the clip - if you rename the copy, the source gets renamed as well.

BUT, unlike I guessed, if you change the aspect of the copy, ONLY IT'S ASPECT IS CHANGED. It isn't linked that deep - only by name.

If you Duplicate As New Master from right clicking, you get to rename it as you wish, and change aspect etc.

DVCPRO HD 720p24 clips with reset aspect ratio drop into timeline just fine and can RT play back with FUBAR'd aspect

Well, duh. Noticed the Recompress option in the Media Manager, so trying that now - taking a 720p24 DVCPRO HD to 1080p24 (23.976) BlackMagic 8 bit 2Vuy codec. 691MB to 10.5GB. Slight file size increse. Yeah. CRAP! It's 2:45am, it was 12:15 last I noticed.

HEY! THAT TOTALLY FUCKING WORKED!

1.) Cool! Really fucking cool!
2.) Doh! I've been trying to re-invent the wheel, and it was in front of me the whole time. Shit. The only thing to verify now is what the quality of the scaling is - what's better:

FCP
AE
Compressor
Cleaner
Compression Master

FCP is clearly the easiest.
AE is probably the best quality (that works so far - Cleaner makes new clips dark, Compressor makes new clips light, Compression Master doesn't take in DVCPRO HD).

Clips that had wrong aspect ratio set came in with Red Line of Render Needed. But as soon as I fixed one aspect ratio to 0 from 33.33, clicked Copy, and used the Paste Attributes command all was made well. BAD ASS!!!

NEXT QUESTION:

RT CC:

Nope, gotta render if using the 3 way color corrector...what happened to my RT goodness? Where'd it go? Do I have to redig?

Testing that theory, I made a new 1080p24 comp from the HDTV 1080p24 8 bit preset, and imported some clips I captured from deck at 1080p24. Nope, looks like render city.

Need to read up on how to get RT CC in FCP using DeckLink RT stuff.

Checking settings, BlackMagic 8 bit 2Vuy and 8 bit 4:2:2 should be handled by Blackmagic for effects. Don't know what's up there.

Read the instructions, messed with it...didn't get RT effects. Will carefully document...later.

Oh yeah -I should install the GOOD card! I've still been working with the DeckLink HD, not the DeckLink HD Pro.

Install LATER. Must...crawl..to bed....[thunk]