Movie- from 16:9 FHA to YouTube

[Anonymous4843434]

Hi all,

I have genuinely spent a few years trying all kinds of solutions before posting this.

I have a finished feature length movie I paid to have produced. The shooting was on a Sony Z1 in hdv. In the edit the finished film was exported onto a digibeta tape, at 16:9 FHA (full height anamorphic) 720 x 576 pixels. Which I understand is the optimisation back in 2007 for a film shot and edited in 16:9 to be broadcast in the UK (PAL) which required 4:3.

The digibeta tape is no more, but it was digitised in apple prores422 into a 20gig .mov file, again 720 x 576 pixels.

A couple of years ago I made a DCP from said master file and in a cinema it looked pretty good.

I’ve been trying for a *long* time to recreate it looking good on YouTube.

My latest attempt involves using a new Apple iPhone 15 pro which can work with the prores422 file directly and hopefully do a decent export for YouTube.

I’ve read that YouTube can take 422 directly, and that it favours a 1080p resolution.

So, please can anyone advise what I should be aiming to do with my pro res 422 file to make it look as modern as possible and as full screen as possible on YouTube?

Ps- prior to this the best I’ve managed on YouTube is this:



Many thanks,

Jake

[Bwaak]

I think the industry had done more harm than good with the "anamorphic" term, after all the regular 4:3 is also anamorphic of sorts as pixels are not square neither for PAL nor for NTSC.

Anyway, if I understand correctly, FHA means that a 720x576 frame represents a 16:9 image, or in other words, the video has PAR 1.42.

You've shot in HD, but transferred to SD, which became your master? Then you upload it in 1440? Hmm.

Did you shoot in prog-scan? I skipped frame by frame on Youtube, the motion looks free of combing. If you actually shot in interlaced, you may have lost one field out of every two fields, this is why it is squished vertically.

In any case, if this is the only source you have, just make sure the video has no hard letterboxing or pillarboxing, set frame AR to 16:9 and render in whatever format you like.

[Anonymous4843434]

>> You've shot in HD, but transferred to SD, which became your master? Then you upload it in 1440? Hmm.

Yes, HDV, but yes. The master is 25 fps by the way.

>> Did you shoot in prog-scan? I skipped frame by frame on Youtube, the motion looks free of combing. If you actually shot in interlaced, you may have lost one field out of every two fields, this is why it is squished vertically.

Shooting was in 1080/50i mode and converted 50i to 25P in post I think. I’m out of my level of understanding at this point but shooting was definitely in that mode. I can share a download link for the 20gig master if that will help?


>> just make sure the video has no hard letterboxing or pillarboxing, set frame AR to 16:9

Not sure how to do this on an iPhone 15!

[Bwaak]

You don't have an, um, "normal" computer besides the iPhone? I cannot help you here, and my smartphone is Android

[Anonymous4843434]

I did have a PC- spent a few years of using handbrake, da Vinci resolve, and reading lots of forums but never cracked it. I’m getting the iPhone 15 tomorrow specifically because it can read the source prores422 format directly in the iMovie software and presumably do a better job upscaling it while keeping the 422 format and uploading to YouTube in 422. Does that make sense? I’m just still not sure what I want to be exporting from iMovie as- a 16:9 HD resolution I think and hope the software will deal with the master being the 2007 SD broadcast standard that it is

[Anonymous4843434]

So- I was thinking the 1440 would give a better finish because YouTube favours 1440 with a higher quality processing. Also to lay people viewing, seeing something high res looks better, more modern etc.
I did try a 4:3 YouTube render but it only showed at 480 I think it was. I was wondering what aspect ratio etc to go for to keep with the 4:3- btw I think the master file shows as 1.33 on a pc .

So, could you take a look at the master file and come up with an ideal format up to aim for for YouTube, please?

[davexnet]

can you post to the forum a small sample of your source?

[Anonymous4843434]

Hi guys,

I’ve managed to make a 500MB sample of the master. I’m 99% sure this is exactly the same as the master prores422 .mov file (26gb) only 2 minutes long rather than 97!

Surprisingly iPhone iOS gives a different resolution of 1024 x 576 for both files (the 26gig and 500mb files). This compared to my PC running handbrake etc which would always say 720 x 576.

The link to the sample.mov is:

[Bwaak]

27G? No, thanks. But maybe iPhone 15 can handle it.

[Anonymous4843434]

Hi guys, I’ve posted a 500mb sample and some further info on the edited post above. Look forward to hearing from you about what to aim for / do to get a decent YouTube version uploaded!
Many thanks in advance.

[davexnet]

I uploaded your sample as-is to YT as a private video, looks OK.
I was going to suggest dropping into mkvtoolnix GUI and explicitly setting the A/R to 16:9
and creating an MKV file

Also I noticed the audio is pretty poor, sounds distorted or clipped

[Anonymous4843434]

Thank you. The audio is poor and mono- i normalised it in da Vinci resolve once which worked well but don’t have that option on this route

[Anonymous4843434]

Hi again guys,

I’ve made a start with the iPhone 15 pro, images app and iMovie app.
I’ve got a 4:3 made by using the images app to crop and enhance the picture sharpness, then iMovie to export in 720p.
It doesn’t have a deinterlace option which I think it needs:


This is based on the target audience being YouTube on smart HD TVs.
What do you think?

[Alwyn]

It looks to me like you've squashed your 16:9 video into a 4:3 frame. His head looks too elongated to me.

I'd get rid of those black side bars. YT does not need them. YT will display correctly whatever you give it: 4:3, 16;9, 8:3, whatever. The days of fixed frame 4:3 or 16:9 are over.

So, I reckon you simply need to export as 16:9 with your enhancements. I'd post it at the original video size as well. The bigger the better, especially if it was shot at UHD.

[Anonymous4843434]

Thank you- am on it

[Alwyn]

Like this.

[jagabo]

Just upscale to the 16:9 size you want after a smart bob deinterlace (50p). For example 2560x1440:

[Anonymous4843434]

That’d be great but I don’t have the hardware or software- I’ve only got my iPhone!

I used iMovie which did some auto compression (from 26 gig on to 7gig) but uprezzed to 720p (1280 x 720)- no picture enhancements, no deinterlace and no sound normalisation. But it’s done and uploading to yt public now.

So unless anyone cares to make and send a better version for me, all I need now is an audience!

[Alwyn]

Looks good now.

[Anonymous4843434]

Thank you all, much appreciated.
[Attachment 75690 - Click to enlarge]

[Anonymous4843434]

Hi again all,

I’ve found a way to upres to 4K in iMovie and I’m going to post 4 different versions:

Option 1 - 720p: import of 26gig original source to iMovie, compressed then exported as 720p

Option 2 -original source file: 26gig direct to yt.

Option 3 -4K: 1sec clip plus clean import of 26gig original source file to iMovie then export as 4K.

Option 4 -4K: 1sec clip plus cropped to 16:9 720x404 (automatic when I selected 16:9 crop, so maybe source is widescreen dimensions?) and auto enhanced and sharpened in photos app- imported to iMovie then exported as 4K

n.b. The “1 second clip” was to force iMovie to export in 4K.

As I’ve only got a 1080p tv to test them on (no monitor or 4K tv) I’d be really grateful if you could take a look at the 4 videos and let me know which looks best on your viewing setups.
As soon as the 4 videos are ready I’ll post them here.
Thanks in advance.

[Anonymous4843434]

Hi guys,
Could I get some feedback on the four videos options in the edited post above, please?

[Bwaak]

The second one.

The first has combing. See, for example, 9:20.
The third has too much contrast and combing.
The fourth is just bad overall: combing, wrong aspect ratio, black border, etc.

Now reading which one is which, I am surprised that the presumably original one looks better, well, cleaner, than the iMovie export. Why the iMovie export has combing and the "original" does not? Looks like the first one is in fact the original, and the second is the iMovie export, deinterlaced and smoothed.

Anyway, between smoothing and combing I choose smoothing. So, the second in the list above.

OTOH, if interlacing is still there, maybe you can recover more resolution than iMovie did?

Then again, if you want film look, you want 25p, not 50p, right?

[Bwaak]

I started watching it, the #2, and I am loving it so far! This is my dream, to make a movie. Not a fictional one, but a documentary. Props to you for doing it! And the topic is very important too, although I think we are f@#$ed, and the best we can do is prepare for the consequences, like Exxon started silently in the 1980s, raising its sea drilling platforms, bastards. U.S. Military is prepping as well. Too bad billions of wild animals won't survive. But I don't know what is worse: global heating, plastic pollution, forever chemicals pollution, or an all-out nuclear war. Fun times.

[Anonymous4843434]

Thanks mate

[Anonymous4843434]

The second one.
OTOH, if interlacing is still there, maybe you can recover more resolution than iMovie did?

Then again, if you want film look, you want 25p, not 50p, right?

Will anyone volunteer to make a recovery of 50i version from the source file, to add to the mix?

[dellsam34]

All your links to the sample are dead.

I'm not too familiar with Pro-res but I would get rid of the codec and strip it down to something well known to work with script software such as lossless uncompressed AVI or lossless compressed format such as HuffYUV. Then de-interlace with QTGMC and resize from 720x576 directly to 1920x1080, or 3840x2160 or even 2560x1440 for a better codec while still in lossless. Upload directly to YT if you don't have internet problems or limitations, Otherwise encode in high setting to h.264 and upload to YT to save on bandwidth .

At least that's how I approach it, But having the HDV version is way better if you can still get it, but chances are the company have gotten rid of it or taped over it, That is if they are still in business.

Edit: If you provide a sample I can give it a shot and post it to YT so you can see how it looks.

[Anonymous4843434]

All your links to the sample are dead.

I took them down when I realised it wasn’t a true sample:- I couldn’t get a program like winzip to split a chunk of the file on my phone- only the images app to trim the source movie to a couple of minutes, but insodoing it compressed the sample, changing the clip’s properties from those of the master 26gig file

[Anonymous4843434]

All your links to the sample are dead.

I'm not too familiar with Pro-res but I would get rid of the codec and strip it down to something well known to work with script software such as lossless uncompressed AVI or lossless compressed format such as HuffYUV. Then de-interlace with QTGMC and resize from 720x576 directly to 1920x1080, or 3840x2160 or even 2560x1440 for a better codec while still in lossless. Upload directly to YT if you don't have internet problems or limitations, Otherwise encode in high setting to h.264 and upload to YT to save on bandwidth .

At least that's how I approach it, But having the HDV version is way better if you can still get it, but chances are the company have gotten rid of it or taped over it, That is if they are still in business.

There are no other copies/ versions (including the rushes tapes) alive- only the prores422 .movie file at 26gig. Again I have no hardware so am looking for someone to offer to make a version like the one you describe (in support of the climate cause).

[Anonymous4843434]

Edit: If you provide a sample I can give it a shot and post it to YT so you can see how it looks.

I’ve got the master file on Google drive I can give you a link to download- and the space to upload the highest possible quality render back onto my Google drive. I’ll then post it on yt and post the link (I’ve no bandwidth restrictions on uploading and downloading).