Authoring for HDTV --> Progressive makes a diffrence!?!

[Trenton_Net]

Hi guys,

I have a HDTV, and I plan to author DVDs for it. The question I have is that I have a DVD Player which does not output progressive picture. Would I notice a big diffrence in picture quality when playing my authored DVDs on my TV? If the picture quality will look worse, should I spend the money for a progressive DVD player, or can the TV simply take the interlaced image and re-construct it?

I noted this because some movies are encoded at 29 frames interlaced, where some are 29 frames progressive. Does that mean even if my DVD player is not progressive, it can still output progressive because my authored DVDs are nativly progressive to begin with? (Ie, no extra processing needed to render it progressive)?

Thanks, I really appreciate it!

Alex,

[BJ_M]

well first get a progressive dvd player -- though it will not output hdtv signals unless you consider 480p as hdtv (i don't) .. but the picture qulity will be much much better anyway

i doubt you will find much 29.97 (30fps) progressive dvd 's though you could make one or from your own material..

[Trenton_Net]

Well, as it stands the picture looks pretty impressive inerlaced on a HDTV. Much more clear than regular TV.

So if I hooked up a Progressive DVD player, it would blow me away even more? By how much quality is lost from just interlacing alone?

[DigVideo]

OK, here's another project I'm thinking of doing:

How about using the PC as an HDTV player? The idea is to rip a DVD, re-encode and resize using TMPGenc at HDTV resolution (say, 1080i) and save it on the hard disk. Since I'm planning on keeping the PC in my home theater, I'd hook it up to the TV and use the PC to playback the HDTV movie. The hardware I'd use would probably be an ATI Radeon 8500 with the HDTV dongle.

Has anyone tried this? I've got everything else except the ATI video card/dongle. Just wanted to see if it'll work before I buy the extra hardware (~$300)

I'm guessing that the whole movie will be about 3 times the size of a DVD which I can either delete or save it on multiple DVD+/-R/W for future viewing (as data: mpg)

I don't really play games but I guess it can also be used as a gaming machine too.

Has anybody tried this?

[BJ_M]

well i do hdtv encoding every day but there is no real advantage to do what you want to do unless you are willing to resize in a program like shake , rayz or fusion first

you cant get something that isnt there in the first place (well its hard to) ... blowing a picture up to 1920 x 1080 from 720 x 480 is a tricky thing ..

if its interlaced - converting it to progressive is certainly a good thing - IF you can .. many times its best to leave alone ..

[DigVideo]

Not familiar with shake, rayz or fusion but in the past I've used Photoshop to resize stills (~200%) with little noticeable difference (using interpolation algorithms). I suppose Premiere might be able to do something like that.

What I'm trying to achieve is to use my HDTV's full resolution. I've seen the demos on the stores and I'd like something like that at home

I also do some 3d modelling/animation and will try to create short anim's using that resolution.

Found a cheaper ATI sol'n: 8500LE (~$100) + dongle (~$30). Might make a go at it.

[Trenton_Net]

Well, is a PC A good gauge of how a Progressive DVD would look on a HDTV? Im still wondering if I go blow money on a good Progressive DVD, that the picture won't give that much better image quality compared to the price of buying a whole new dvd system just for progressive

[DigVideo]

Personally, I'd definitely get a progressive DVD player (they've gone down in price). Depending on your HDTV, it won't necessarily reconstruct the extra lines ("doubling"). I've had Toshiba projection TV's in the past hooked up via component video (Toshiba calls it Color Stream) and the results were great. I've just bought a Toshiba HDTV but haven't gotten around to play with it's features (remodelling my home). I bought a Sony 5 disc progressive DVD player to hook up to this TV since I have several VCD's and SVCD's I'd like to play on it. You can probably get a single disc progressive DVD player for a good deal now as compared to before.

Babbling away here ... to answer your question: yes, PC monitors have always been superior to TV's and HDTV is sort of the catching up to PC resolutions. The difference is that I don't think you'll need to read a lot of text on TV, which is why PC displays have to be sharper. One thing I noticed before is even on a fuzzy PC video (not so clear text), images come out pretty decent.

Hope that helps!

[mickboss]

8) I don´t think resizing image will make any difference to the image quality. What you are doing is just adding similar/fake pixels where they don´t exist.

I make a lot of video/image processing and I don´t think your image will improve with that work. If you want to add some noise or sharpness filters and, at same time, encode at higher resolution, I think that could be an option. A simple resize to the video just won´t make a difference! What you are doing is something that a HDTV / DVD set, for itself, already does on hardware.

If you´ll do 3D processing and if you render at HDTV resolution, THEN you will notice the difference.
In already made movies, don´t lose time...

[BJ_M]

Premiere doesnt do such a good job of it -- if it did, companies wouldnt spend 10-15,000$ on good compositing programs, adobe after effects does a better job of it i understand.

though using Lanczos or bicubic (Mitchell-Netravali) resizing filters in vdub or avsyth will produce very good results (better than premiere anyway) .. you will sometimes have to use a unsharpen or smoother filter after if aliasing is to noticable ..

[BJ_M]

good hardware proccessors that do this on the fly are around 20,000 - 30,000$ on up ... though the Faroudja DCDi video processing scaler found in even cheaper video projectors and the Faroudja budget scaler ($4000) is amaizing for its quality.

[DigVideo]

"you cant get something that isnt thes(r)e in the first place"

Gave that statement much thought and saw the wisdom of it.

Then after reading the succeeding posts, I see that it's not such a great idea after all. Most of the movies I watch are prerecorded DVD's, I just couldn't wait for HDTV movies so I thought of making them myself. I guess I'll have to wait after all

Trenton_Net: the difference of real HDTV resolution vs DVD resolution is astounding.
480p vs 480i: there's a difference but you'd have to really pay attention. Kinda like setting your PC VGA card to 60Hz versus the higher freq (like 80Hz or so).

[ktnwin]

I dont' think that authoring progressive DVD will improve the quality on a HDTV.
I have an HDTV and a progressive scan DVD player (480p), the commercial DVD movies look great, I cannot see any horizontal lines in the picture. The same movies played on a regular TV (and a no progressive DVD player) show horizontal lines.
This proves to me that the DVD disc itself (however it is encoded) does not affect this aspect.

[crahak]

Well, you most definately want a progressive DVD player

As for converting your DVD from 480p to 1080i, you basically won't gain anything, it will not create detail that isn't there and make it look better. (Unless your TV does a crappy job at displaying 480p compared 1080i...) If you want 1080i stuff, you basically have to have it in the first place... Personally, I'd get a ATSC card, capture the 1080i stuff, IVTC, resize and all, then you can get better than retail DVD quality video... Mind you, it isn't a "standard" DVD spec, so most likely, it will have to play from a computer. You can then encode it as mpeg2 or DivX. Lots of people seem to do that and encode the captures in DivX format, and burn the movie onto 2 DVD-R's. I heard movie studios don't like the idea

[bhutchins]

Anybody have the tmpeg settings for the best picture from VHS - DVD? Should I Encode Mpeg2 at 352 x 240? I see some lines at 720 x 480 on my sony 36xbr400 TV (progressive scan) when played on my Sony DVP-NS700P progressive scan set top DVD player regardless if progressive scan is on or not.
Looks great on my lower resolution sets

[BJ_M]

your sony is not a true HDTV (not because it only is 4:3 ratio which is rather to bad in its self) but because the only progresive input it truly displays as progressive is 480p , which i guess is ok if DVD progressive is only HDTV your going to use - though all wide screen movies will still be letter boxed. 720p is converted to interlaced. and 480i (standard) is also upconverted to 960i but still keeps it interlaced instead of converting it to 720 progressive as most other HDTV 's do ..

got a great picture though ..

in other words .. if you convert VHS to DVD and don't de-interlace it .. no mater what you do -- you will see interlacing as the TV can only display interlaced input from 480i (DVd interlaced source) ..

you choice would be to de-interlace (but VHS de-interlaced looks not smooth in playback but no lines) or just reduce the scan lines .

encoding at the lower resolution also as you suggest would help as then you wouldnt be blowing up the pic. you can try 352 x 720 which is what i use for VHS source (1/2 D1)

[bhutchins]

your correct, the 36XBR400 is HD ready. The tube is the same width as the sony 40" HD that costs $1800 more! I can get the Sony satelite/HD reciever for $500. as I understand, the XBR doesnt scan the black bands in letterbox, so It maintains the resolution.

do you know what the native resolution of VHS, is it 352x240?

[Dodzzz]

8)If you´ll do 3D processing and if you render at HDTV resolution, THEN you will notice the difference.

that'll kick ass like watching a moving hi-res wallpaper at your 1600 x 1200 desktop