Upscaling SD to HD on DVD for HDTV ?

[yukon33]

I have noticed the wild variation of SD playback on modern TVs, and am concerned about client reception of my SD-produced DVDs - given the increasing sales of Plasma & LCD 'HD-Ready' TVs.

My home television is SD CRT, a few years old, and it looks just fine. When I have encountered newer Plasma and LCD TVs however, I have been rather confused about their picture quality. So much blockiness, motion-blur and artifacting!? This at least seems common with SD playback on these 'HD-Ready' TVs.

I suppose these TVs look great when receiving an HD signal, but I am shocked by their blocky and jagged SD playback. I understand the likes of SKY 'overcompress' [?] their SD signals, which will not help. But I have also tried some retail SD DVDs on an 'HD-Ready' TV and the resolution still looks rather bad.

Here is my main concern: My current DVD products are filmed and edited in SD, which is all I can afford at the moment. I do not like the thought of a client finding my DVD has 'poor quality' playback, just because he has a fancy new TV.

So far I understand that:-

1] You cannot 'improve' the quality of SD because the detail was not recorded in the first place [obviously]. However the 'pixel addition' with Subpixels in my Avid Liquid Classic 2D editor and the more advanced methods used by Magic Bullet Instant HD Advanced suggest that SD can be blown up with less loss of quality than I previously thought possible, by adding subpixels and even indentifying and smoothing out edges [Magic Bullet].

2] The positive results of upscaling SD to view on HDTV can be seen if burning to and viewing on High Definition BluRay disc.

But what about normal DVD playback on HDTV - will it improve the detail of my SD picture on HDTVs by changing my timeline to HD and upscaling everything to fit? From viewing within my Avid editor I do not see much difference in quality between normal SD and those same clips on an upscaled HD timeline with the added pixels. I understand that DVDs are limited to SD, but since I assume raw HD footage 'downscaled' onto DVD looks better than normal SD DVD footage on an HDTV, perhaps if I upscale and fill in the pixels then I can achieve better [some kid of 'fake HD'?] looking results on these large Plasma/LCD screens?

I have only limited access an HD-Ready TV to make tests, so would appreciate some information for anyone who knows more about this or have tried their own experiments ?

[filmboss80]

Blockiness, motion blur and artifacting may have more to do with the encoding process when making a DVD. Certainly, you won't have the full resolution when watching SD video on an HD monitor, but the artifacts you describe should not be all that visible, unless your DVDs are encoded and/or burned poorly.

As a producer and distributor of DVDs, my company has wrestled with the issue of product releases that will best serve the majority of viewers. More DVD units are sold than Blu-ray -- right now, but 16:9 HD television sets are all that is now sold. And so, for the moment, we currently release standard definition DVDs in 16:9 widescreen, which nicely fills the HD frame and is letterboxed on older TV sets. We have tested image quality on upscaling DVD players and are quite impressed. With the combination of a well-encoded DVD and a good upcoverting DVD player (with HDMI output), there are no "poor quality" issues like the ones you describe.

[yukon33]

Thanks for your reply.

The symptoms I described are how I have interpreted my various brief encounters with HD televisions clearly playing SD broadcasts or DVDs. I understand that some HDTVs deal with SD better than others, and of course there are the user settings to consider. But it seems widely known that SD generally looks poor on HDTV - though with most people happily sitting at home watching blocky television transmissions on their 50" screens, perhaps only the trained eyes are really bothered about it...

For my own produced DVDs, I encode correctly with a high CBR as far as the length of each video allows.

Nontheless, there are the inevitable blocking and jaggs visible as the HDTV displays my SD picture with on its more detailed screen. These are not disastrous, and I would say only marginally worse than with a retail studio-produced DVD, but they are there and I want to try and improve the picture.

To reduce the likelyhood of this during editing, I have heard of applying a slight blur to the picture and adjusting the luma/chroma, but have not found reports of any positive results so far.

I cannot expect clients to own upconverting DVD players by and large, nor make sharpness reduction adjustments on their HDTV to accomodate my SD, so I was wondering if upscaling to HD during editing and then applying a subpixel/motion prediction filter such as Magic Bullet would give better looking results on DVD for HDTV than just a standard SD DVD.

[manono]

But it seems widely known that SD generally looks poor on HDTV

That hasn't been my experience at all - at least not DVD viewing on the HDTV. Standard def TV broadcasts may look blurry, but don't exhibit the artifacting you're describing. But maybe US cable is somehow different in that respect than UK satellite(?).

For my own produced DVDs, I encode correctly with a high CBR as far as the length of each video allows.

I have yet to see a decent retail DVD that's used CBR encoding, and it shouldn't be used if the video is long enough (75 minutes or so and longer). Do you have a small sample of your correctly encoded DVDs to which you can link us?

Nontheless, there are the inevitable blocking and jaggs visible as the HDTV displays my SD picture with on its more detailed screen.

Once again, a sample might help. What kind of bitrates are you talking about here? Are these interlaced sources, or progressive? Blocking is often indicative of a max bitrate (or the bitrate in general, if CBR) being set too low. And interlaced sources may be prone to block sooner than will progressive sources as interlacing is much harder to compress. I'm inclined to agree with everything that filmboss80 said.

[yukon33]

Well I have seen a far more obvious 'digital' look with retail DVDs, which is understandable as the Plasma/LCD HD TV works to reproduce SD. I don't know how else to explain it - I can see pixels 'at work' underneath the film action, which I [obviously] cannot see on a CRT. Of course these new TVs operate in a different way, it's logical that there are these symptoms, and perhaps I am scrutinising the picture too much... but there you go.

Some UK SKY TV broadcasts are simply awful to look at - a football match for example can look like a 1980s computer game on the LG sets I have spotted them on. Yes technology is moving on to HD, but the backwards compatibility of some of these new TV sets doesn't look very impressive.

I have been advised on good authority to always encode with CBR when possible, but no doubt there are conflicting opinions I have been advised to try and reach 8000 CBR to reduce the chances of blocking on large HD TVs. Basically I am usually burning wedding films between 45 minutes and 1h 30 minutes long, edited in Avid Liquid. The source is miniDV [Canon XM2/GL2] interlaced footage.

I guess I could upload a clip to Vimeo, encoded both with CBR and VBR if it helps?

EDIT:-

I'm getting reports that upscaling my SD footage and applying the tricks with MAGIC BULLET INSTANT HD ADVANCED would only give me visual benefits if burning and playing on BLURAY in HD? It sounds like there can be no advantage to using this filter if burning so SD DVD, because of the downscaling?

[jagabo]

You cannot put HD video on a DVD. Well, you can but no normal DVD player will play it.

[yukon33]

OK, so I'm guessing the reason for shooting in HD if the end product is destined for DVD is that those cameras will 'pick up' more detail than SD.

But if it all ends up SD anyway, doesn't the downscaling of the HD footage produce an end result on DVD the same as footage filmed on an SD camera [the pixels of which do not change from capture to burn] because much of that captured detail is 'taken away' if it isn't burned to BluRay?

[manono]

I guess I could upload a clip to Vimeo, encoded both with CBR and VBR if it helps?

If you upload, just use a 3rd party file hosting site - one such as MediaFire - and then provide a link. 10-15 seconds of a sample with movement that shows the problems described should be enough.

http://www.mediafire.com/

[yukon33]

Thanks Manono, but the problems I am describing are only apparent when viewing my DVD on an HD-Ready TV - the bigger the screen size, the more bloated and unappealling the SD picture becomes.

They are not apparent via CRT TV, and though obviously we can see more pixel activity via computer screen I always know this will be the case so computer playback is less of a concern than on home HD TV.

Could you recommend a good VBR min and max for encoding a 45 - 75 minute film? I have heard there can be problems with high bitrates and some DVD players - but a high bitrate is what I need to reduce the chances of macroblocking etc.

And I guess I can fuse my timeline into an .avi and take it out of Liquid, into another more dedicated/better encoder if you could recommend one?

Thank you.

[zenzen1]

Just my 2 cents worth....
We have just upgraded from a Panasonic 32" CRT to a Panasonic 46" plasma in the same room. We have not noticed any jaggies, artifacts, etc. In fact, the picture quality can only be described as awesome.
Having said that, any TV display, CRT, LCD or plasma will look less than best if you are too close to it. Many people (checking out new TVs in shops), stand about 3 feet away from them and are disappointed. And, the larger the screen, the worst they look. Here in Australia, I have seen free to air SD TV that looks as good as HD and I have also seen free to air SD TV that looks like it's coming from a VHS player. Our cable TV always looks worse than SD free to air TV. Initially I upscaled my DVD movies to 1080p via a Pioneer DVD player until I discovered that my Panna plasma actually does a better job in upscaling. DVD movies look superb on this panel.

So there are all these variables. Your customers may own a CRT, or a flat screen. Your product will always look good on a CRT as they tend to hide many of the problems you describe. If your customer has a descent LCD or plasma, and sits at the correct distance from it, they will be happy. If they have an el cheapo panel.......

[guns1inger]

You are answering your own questions to a degree, but not realising it.

A few things to consider.

1. The bigger the TV, the more apparent any flaws and artifacts are going to be.

2. The quality of the upscaled image depends a lot on the processing engine of the TV, as well as any upscaling happening lower in the chain. Cheap players have no upscaling, or very poor upscaling. Ditto with cheap TVs. Generally, the more expensive, the better the picture, although not always.

3. No upscaler available to the consumer market makes SD look like HD.

4. The artifacts and compression problems are in your source, but the CRT has several tricks that hide them. The noise filters and better black levels of CRTs hide a multitude of sins that become far more apparent on LCD and plasma screens. Again, cheap TVs will often make these worse, rather than better.

5. I have been watching digital broadcasts since it was rolled out over here, on both CRT and HD LCD TVs. The artifacts that you are seeing in sport especially have always been apparent to me, on both types of screen. It is a function of the digital cameras, compression of signal and the fact that it is captured and encoded live, not at a leisurely pace that allows for greater quality.

As for encoding.

When encoding VBR, the average bitrate should be determined by a bitrate calculator. For 60 minutes or less, CBR at 8700 - 9200 should be fine. Remember though that the higher you go, the more chance of playback issues with cheap players.

As for max and min in VBR encoding - it doesn't matter much. Some report issues with very low bitrates, although I have never seen them. a min of 1000 kbps and a max of 9200 should be fine. As the point of VBR is to meet the average bitrate, there is only so much movement around this point anyway.

Ultimately, most of the problems you are concerned about are out of your hands. It is like worrying about the amount of red in the faces of people in your DVD. You have no control over how good or how crap the equipment is that people will playback your material on, and no control over how they set it up. All you can do it produce a disc that meets the standards, and has the best quality you can produce.

Beyond that, unless you are going to offer a service whereby you will personally go around and professionally adjust each viewers home video setup for optimum viewing experience, it is all out of your hands once the disc is.

[yukon33]

"Ultimately, most of the problems you are concerned about are out of your hands. It is like worrying about the amount of red in the faces of people in your DVD. You have no control over how good or how crap the equipment is that people will playback your material on, and no control over how they set it up. All you can do it produce a disc that meets the standards, and has the best quality you can produce.

Beyond that, unless you are going to offer a service whereby you will personally go around and professionally adjust each viewers home video setup for optimum viewing experience, it is all out of your hands once the disc is"


Very true. The quality of viewer playback seems to vary wildly, and you do worry sometimes that those carefully balanced colour grading and render-intensive effects you have applied are not going to look the same, or even cause distraction, on other people's screens. I think like many in video production I am wary about the ability of the general public have their home entertainment players optimised to view my work as it should be seen. But like you say, with my job done to a professional standard, then any below-par viewing quality is their problem and not mine.

That said, with the widespread sales of Plasma/LCD, it would seem wrong to ignore how my films are coming out on those screens. Black levels, like you mentioned above, seem very heavy on the Philips HD TV I can access for testing. Now I always like to darken my blacks a bit while I am editing to give the picture more punch, but while computer monitor and CRT look fine with this grading, I thought it all looked a bit too dark on the HD TV.

Question is should I tailor my final colouring to accomodate HD TV and lose some of the desired impact which looks nice on CRT, or say to hell with inattentive HD TV users for the time being - at least until I am able to shoot and edit in HD myself and it becomes my usual standard?

One thing I guess, at least many home HD TV viewers are used to seeing 'chunky' SD at the moment, so it won't just be my productions. It's a bit strange to see those huge expensive skinny sets in living rooms with EastEnders playing, looking as if it was shot on a mobile phone...

[zenzen1]

Apart from creating a CRT and an LCD/Plasma version of your work, it it were me, I would set up a good quality HD tv in my studio, and when the customer comes in to collect and pay for the vids, I would play it for them, so that they can see what they are getting. I would then explain to them that, depending on what sort of DVD player and what sort of display unit they own, it may look different.......Not my problem !!! At least they have seen the true value of my work in my studio, and if it looks bad when they take it home, they will probably call me and say "What was the brand-name of your panel? I'd better go out and buy one"

[guns1inger]

I grade to get the visual effect I want, not for someone else. My in-laws, for example, have the colour turned up so much that the new reader looks like a boiled lobster. If I were to cater for them, everything would be almost black and white for everyone else.

I like ZenZen1's idea of having a demo TV to show the buyer what they are getting. However you would have to make sure it was a good quality TV, and that it was professionally calibrated on a regular basis.

[jagabo]

Make your DVDs to spec. People with improperly calibrated or poor TVs are used to seeing crap. They don't know the difference or they just don't care.

[2Bdecided]

Good DVDs should look far better than low bitrate SD digital broadcasts - there are terrible examples on both sides of the Atlantic!

Most DVDs are from film, hence progressive. Your wedding footage is interlaced. It won't look as artefact-free; interlaced is harder to encode and harder to display well on progressive displays. However, unless you want the stuttery film look, you're stuck with interlacing, so do the best you can.


A hugely important factor is the choice of MPEG-2 encoder - these range from excellent to junk. An excellent one at 4Mbps will beat a junk one at 8Mbps.

The most important thing is your original footage. Frame well, light well, shoot well, and MPEG-2 coding problems will seem far less important. It might encode far better anyway - noise and wobbly camera-work are very difficult to encode. Clean stable footage is far easier for the MPEG-2 encoder to handle.

Cheers,
David.