Poll: are you down-converting to SD?

[Leo Ticheli]

I think it may be useful to know what percentage of Red projects will include down-conversion to SD and how it is being handled. I think we would all benefit from a recommendation from Red on this.

Best regards to all,

Leo

[bobbystone]

1313, we're doing almost all SD at this point

[Finner]

A SD solution is really needed for us.

[Kenn Christenson]

Down-converting in AE with proxies - right now. Quite happy with the results.

[Greg M]

We downcovert in Smoke...looks great!

[Shawn Booth]

Only down convert to SD when burning to DVD... It's hit or miss.

[Mike Prevette]

Like I said before I've been getting great results with After Effects.

Leo your footage posed some very specific problems that I haven't seen on any other footage so far. I know that isn't a helpful answer, but I just haven't hit any footage that was so stricken with teh jaggies.

[Leo Ticheli]

Thanks, Mike,

That car was designed specifically to test the down-conversion from HD to SD!

Just kidding, of course, but it's not atypical of the things we run into shooting sheet metal.

Our new media guy is at the console right now testing software solutions, including AE. We are also evaluating hardware.

I greatly appreciate all your help!

Best regards,

Leo

[Joe Walker]

I'm seriously amazed this hasn't become a huge issue; I mean am I the only person in the USA who hasn't upgraded to a 1080p HD Plasma screen?!

[Stacey Spears]

I down convert to HD using my own proprietary software.

[conrad gaunt]

Like I said before I've been getting great results with After Effects.

Leo your footage posed some very specific problems that I haven't seen on any other footage so far. I know that isn't a helpful answer, but I just haven't hit any footage that was so stricken with teh jaggies.

This should tell you that the majority of shots that do downsample without problems `could look better` with a full resample function capable of handling even difficult shots. In practice its not usually needed, but this is an important thread as we have access to difficult footage to test now and a usefull heads up. I`m afraid most edinting software tends to favour speed over quality, or to strike a pragmatic balance between the two, but throw 4k into the mix (years before its time :) ) and it doesn`t always hold up. Faster resamples are fine for upsampling but downsampling from 4k to SD is more of a challenge.
I guess what I`m saying is, find software that can downsample your difficult footage, and use that to downsample/upsample all your footage (unless time is extremely short).

[Paul Hazlett]

1313, we're doing almost all SD at this point

good name for the camera

[Häakon]

Nearly everything I'm shooting is going to Blu-ray now, though I realize that a good deal of it also ends up on SD DVD as the majority of the American public still does not own HD equipment in their living room. And I can absolutely say that while their is clearly a resolution hit when going down to SD, all of the other beautiful qualities of the RED (35mm DOF, fantastic range and color pallete, wonderful highlight rolloff and overall image sharpness) come across just as nicely in standard-def as they do in the bigger sizes. I have not witnessed any of the "jaggy footage" or other problems the original poster has been vocal about when converting my content to SD... it holds up to the best out there.

[Leo Ticheli]

Thanks for your post.

1. It makes NO difference how many American's have HD in their living rooms since very few local stations are capable of originating HD spots. Sure, they can pass through the network HD feed, but they don't even have HD spot equipment in house. If you make a living making spots, this is relevant, and in a major way.

2. The beauty of Red images can be ruined by poor down-conversion quality.

3. This is a new problem, a Red problem. Here's why; with film to SD we enjoyed high-end hardware down-conversion. No alias problems. With HD, we used the hardware down-conversion built into the decks. No alias problem.

If you're not experiencing aliasing in your down-conversions you are either shooting different kinds of subjects, perhaps lower contrast with few fine lines, or you're doing a better job of down-conversion. Maybe both.

I started this thread to determine the very best way to create my down-conversions and share that information.

Best regards,

Leo

[jimhare]

Hi Leo,

Doesn't it just mean that RED requires a costly down-conversion, just as HD and film do? With HD, you either need to own a $100,000 deck or use a post house.

Is RED disadvantaged, other than the fact that you have the option to try it yourself in software, unlike film and HD? I would think you could make a beautiful HD master and have it down-converted at a bureau.

Just trying to understand if we are actually disadvantaged when compared to HD or film.

I'll be working in SD for a while yet so it would be good to know you conclusions.

Cheers,

Jim

[Rob Gardner]

Everything we do is delivered in both formats, SD (Digibeta) and HD (HDcam 1080pfs). Astonishingly, the HD almost always looks a lot better...

Of course, the concern Leo has raised concerns us too. We are looking for the Red system to replace our Varicam system. We just have to wait like everybody else until we get our Red to find out how realistic that is.
Rob Gardner

[Häakon]

Thanks for your post.

1. It makes NO difference how many American's have HD in their living rooms since very few local stations are capable of originating HD spots. Sure, they can pass through the network HD feed, but they don't even have HD spot equipment in house. If you make a living making spots, this is relevant, and in a major way.

2. The beauty of Red images can be ruined by poor down-conversion quality.

3. This is a new problem, a Red problem. Here's why; with film to SD we enjoyed high-end hardware down-conversion. No alias problems. With HD, we used the hardware down-conversion built into the decks. No alias problem.

If you're not experiencing aliasing in your down-conversions you are either shooting different kinds of subjects, perhaps lower contrast with few fine lines, or you're doing a better job of down-conversion. Maybe both.

I started this thread to determine the very best way to create my down-conversions and share that information.

Best regards,

Leo
Hi Leo,

You're right - if I made my living making spots, broadcast HD would be relevant. I do not, however, make my living making spots. :-)

Nearly all of my content is delivered on disc - and certainly, it makes a difference if those who view it have the necessary equipment with which to view that disc, be it a client or someone in the general public. Since a small percentage of American households currently owns both an HDTV and a Blu-ray player, it limits the audience with which I can serve this content in the best viewing capacity. Therefore, much of the work I do must be downconverted to be displayed on SD DVD as well.

Certainly the beauty of RED images can be ruined by poor down-conversion quality. It's not hard to take a 22MP Mark III image and save it as a super compressed .jpg in Photoshop either. But if you take the right steps to create nice SD images, you will have good footage even on DVD (albeit at much lower resolution than the original RED feed). One could even argue that the downrezzing process actually helps the image, as it reduces noise, smooths out aliasing, and diminishes origination artifacts. There are several movies that I think look better on Blu-ray than they did on 35mm film in the theater for those very reasons.

I admit, I'm not doing a lot of shooting car grills so perhaps the content I work with is better suited to downconversion... but I have put lots of RED footage on DVD and have never been disappointed. I'm not sure why you are experiencing such frustrating results.

Best regards,

Häakon

[Mark Toia]

If we know we are going to finish in SD (final) we only cut / online using the 1k proxie. We were down converting from the 2k project but then found we never gained any image quality advantages down converting at all.
In fact we did a test in with AUTO DESK using Inferno down converting to SD from 4k, 2k and matched it against the standard 1k QT proxie and split screened the lot of them at 400 and 800%, you couldn't tell the difference, not one single pixel difference in sharpness, tone or contrast.

Working in the 1k project was a lot quicker than in 2k as well. (obviously).

To me SD looks look shite now that we have been doing almost everything in HD / 2k.
We edit / post and master 2k, and leave it to the client to decide weather they want a SD or HD master.

Life is good.

[Mark Crabtree]

I'm sure that Red is working on this problem. I think it's just one of the unexpected issues that happen when you dream as Jim did to do the impossible. I commend Leo for taking this issue by the horns, investigating all possible solutions. As proffessional image makers we must solve this problem by finding a high quality / cost effective down conversion fix, be it software or hardware. But having to spend $25,000.00 or more on a proper quality down converter may be a solution for the well heeled but it is not for the vast majority of Red owners.

[dave_garcia]

I can't remember if I saw this in the last thread with the same theme, but does the kona not give you good down converts? Forgive me if this has already come up, but this is what we use for delivering our HD originated spots on beta and what I'm planning to use for our red footage.

I'm figuring we'll be cutting 2K proxies then onlining from R3ds using crimson.

Does a Kona with Red look bad?

[jerryflf]

I have been using Kona to down convert and it looks great.

J

[dave_garcia]

Good 2 know.

[Nir Shelter]

In fact we did a test in with AUTO DESK using Inferno down converting to SD from 4k, 2k and matched it against the standard 1k QT proxie and split screened the lot of them at 400 and 800%, you couldn't tell the difference, not one single pixel difference in sharpness, tone or contrast.

I did a similar test albeit not on Inferno but the results showed quite a difference between the down-resed files and the proxies, check out the color pics:

http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=13006

I always recommend people to future proof their projects.
Now that the industry is ahead of it self, in a sense, we can deliver in what ever resolution and or quality the client wants.
Now that we can shoot 4k cut with proxies then down res to 2k in RC using Crimson, I supply a 2k (uncompressed QT). Then using compressor burn from the 2k file an SD DVD of the content have yet to see something wrong or even unsatisfactory with the results. Then using a separate post house I make a DigiBeta copy. They play it out of FCP through their Blackmagic Decklink and converter then feed it to a DigiBeta deck. I would also make an HDCAM copy If the client wants one. It greatly depends on whether or not the project will see a theatrical release or just broadcast. Though I haven't yet, if needed would export a Cineon image sequence from RC for a 35mm laser print. Would have to match up the colors and contrast for the print of course. Though I have found a post house in my area that has a Scratch system ready and waiting not sure if they can accept a FCP EDL or not, either way more experiments needed.
For the time being down-resing in RC seems to do a great job for SD/HD broadcast and DVD.

[10s]

Any idea if this would be helpful?

http://www.v4hd.com/

[Nir Shelter]

V4HD sounds great only draw back, compared to the Blackmagic products at least, would be the fact that it can't handle 2k. Obviously not needed for broadcast or DVD (yet...) but it does limit you to a 1080 workflow. So we would still have to down res to 1080 before pumping through it. Not to mention that in some cases for marketing purposes clients would love to hear higher numbers associated with their projects. Except that it sounds great.