Best way to go about capturing, rendering and authoring

[jupiter1]

Hi all,

being brand new to the whole movie sector, I have to face new issues.

Say that I have my footage ready, it's 1440x1080 canon HV20 footage, and I
want to stick it on a DVD. I own an HD ready plasma TV so I would like to
have a 16:9 PAL footage with the best quality.

I am planning to have around about 45 min footage and I am fine with
speading it onto 2 DVDs, even using divx if necessary.

I suceeded in cropping it a little, you know, to give it the sort of film
outlook (double black bands).

I am just confused on the whole capturing/rendering/authoring matter, what would be my
best shot to go about it?
There are so many options out there, you can even uprez it to 1920x1080 with Cineform when capturing;
then it's Vegas time and there you can set your projects in a thousands way, same when rendering.

... so much to learn!

ciao

[thecoalman]

I suceeded in cropping it a little, you know, to give it the sort of film
outlook (double black bands).

No need to crop or add anything unless the footage is shot in 4:3 and you want to make it 16:9. Can't give you specifics but if you recorded in 16:9 you only have to scale the resolution to 720x480(or PAL equivalent) and set a 16:9 flag during the authoring stage. The DVD player will see this flag and scale it accordingly.

720x480 is used for both 16:9 and 4:3 material on DVD, its the flag that determines the aspect.

For example this was shot in 16:9, the aspect is incorrect becaues it's being displayed at 720x480 or a 1:1 aspect. Note that the people appear slightly elongated:



Now if you authored this as 16:9 material and went to watch it on 4:3 TV and you have the DVD plyer set correctly to letterbox 16:9 material it will scale it to the proper aspect and add black borders top and bottom, the bars are created by the DVD player and are not part of the video file.:

[jupiter1]

thanks for the prompt reply, thecoalman.


So I assume that even if my original 16:9 recorded footage resolution comes at 1440x1880, I will have to render + author it as 720x480 (720x576 in my case, PAL).

Thing is that my current TV set is 16:9, so I will not have double black bars like "hollywood DVDs" (which would be sort of nice to have). It will just play right like I was linking my camcorder direct to the TV set.



The other stuff I am wondering about is:

CAPTURING
what if I captured it at 1920x1080 (full hd) with Cineform, what impact will it have? And have have to deinterlace?

BEFORE RENDERING STAGE
what if I changed my project setting in Vegas Pro before going to render the footage. There are tons of templates and options to choose from.. will I have to exactly match the setting I recorded in (HDV 1440x1080 50i in my case)

RENDERIGN STAGE
even if I chosed the right template there are sooo many project options when RENDERING ranging from filed order, pixel type, motion type.. and that's before rendering

[thecoalman]

Thing is that my current TV set is 16:9,

For 16:9 TV you just adjust the player for playing on a 16:9 display, blackbars are not added by the DVD player and it will disply full screen. For 4:3 material on a 16:9 display the exact opposite happens the DVD player will read the 4:3 flag and add pillarboxes on the sides of the video to maintain aspect.

All this is assuming your DVD player and TV is set up correctly.

so I will not have double black bars like "hollywood DVDs" (which would be sort of nice to have).

Since hollywood movies are generally filmed in a wider aspect than 16:9 they add black bars directly to the video file to maintain aspect. If your getting a a very wide bar o the top and bottom you don't have you DVD player set correctly or possibly a setting on your TV.

[jupiter1]

right, got this. I appeciate your help.

Do you have any answer about the other things I am womndering about (the last bit of my previus post).


thanks

[edDV]

Hi all,

being brand new to the whole movie sector, I have to face new issues.

Say that I have my footage ready, it's 1440x1080 canon HV20 footage, and I
want to stick it on a DVD. I own an HD ready plasma TV so I would like to
have a 16:9 PAL footage with the best quality.

I am planning to have around about 45 min footage and I am fine with
spreading it onto 2 DVDs, even using divx if necessary.

Save the HDV as HDV on tape for the future. Downscale to PAL DVD is possible but at the cost of picture quality (e.g. letterbox inside 720x576). Other formats are possible but these require special player support (not common). Divx-HD is for computer playback only.

Do you have a special target HD player? If so other possibilities open. A special DVD can be authored to play on HD DVD players in HD (limited playback time). Also Vegas 7 supports Blu Ray using a Blu Ray writer and Blu Ray blanks.

Be more specific on the player you want to use.

I suceeded in cropping it a little, you know, to give it the sort of film
outlook (double black bands).

I am just confused on the whole capturing/rendering/authoring matter, what would be my
best shot to go about it?
There are so many options out there, you can even uprez it to 1920x1080 with Cineform when capturing;
then it's Vegas time and there you can set your projects in a thousands way, same when rendering.

... so much to learn!

ciao

Uprez is a rich man's problem. This would be used if you have a high end HD capable workstation and other true 1920x1080 source. It won't improve HDV.

Cineform digital intermediate has value for heavy effects editing or for PAL DVD downscale but the Cineform goal is to reduce loss, not to improve HDV.

[jupiter1]

Hi edDV,

thanks for joining in.

Yes, I thought about editing the whole movie on Vegas and then reversing it back on HDV tape. I have first captured it on Cineform and got it into avi. I could handle *.m2t files but I don't know if that is going to make a difference.

So you say that authoring it to PAL DVD will impact on quality. Still unclear to me if I should opt for a simple PAL or PAL Widescreen rendered file thus this one should be the one.

My DVD player is an OPPO up-converting unit. I still feel that I could render a 1440x1080 MPEG2 and burn it straight onto a DVD media, no loss of quality and my DVD would be wild happy to play it.

Unfortuantely I still do not have some clues on whole process, like I pointed out on my previous posts.
Have I to set the project specifications according to my tape or should I match those of the rendered file? And further on this, do I have to render just by template (PAL/ PAL Widescreen) or should I set parameters more carefully?

thanks again

[Marvingj]

editing the whole movie on Vegas and then reversing it back on HDV tape is a good idea...