d-bledsoe
Veteran
Location: Kirkland WA
| I thought i'd make this post to share my experiences recently into the HD realm and more specifically how to get and process HD video. I am making this as i found myself very confused about 1080i, 720p and what all that means.
First off this is what i am using for equipment.
Camera - Sony HC5, shooting to miniDV tape
Video editing - Final Cut Pro 6
Compositing - Shake 4
Computer - Custom built dual core intel 2.6ghz 2gigs ram running OS X leopard.
Helicopter - Joker 2 custom built for HD video
The first bit of important information you need to know is that most likely you are shooting interlaced video with your camera, unless you have a highend high dollar camera that can shoot progressive. Most likely you are going to be shooting 1080i. Why does this matter? Well it doesn't really until you start editing the video and more specifically applying motion effects to your video.
I dont want to take the time to explain 1080i vs 720p here as i am just starting to understand it, but if you are interested check this link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/720p#720p_versus_1080i
The first thing i do is capture my video using FCp 6. i capture it with a HDV setting. Once i have captured my clip i need to run it through shake 4 to apply all my post processing video filters like smoothcam, gamma correct, color correct ect.
As i stated above i am using shake 4 for my post processing of my video, i use the smoothcam node to smooth out the video, i also use other image nodes to clean up and make the image prettier. The first night with shake and smoothcam netted footage with wavy results seen here: http://www.derekbledsoe.net/airplan...ome1080iWEB.mov
For the life of me i couldn't figure out why my footage was getting wavy until i started researching more about the smoothcam node. As it turns out while shake handles interlaced video, like most compositing programs when you start animating the interlaced video like what happens with smoothcam(animates the frames so the image stays smooth) the half frames in the interlaced video start to confuse the animated node(this case smoothcam)
upon further research in the shake 4 manual they clearly state that for best results with the smoothcam node you need to deinterlace the source.
So ahh that makes since now i have deinterlaced my 1080i video and retimed it so its now 1080p in essence. Run smooth cam again and WOW big difference, see the video here:
http://www.derekbledsoe.net/airplan...nterlaceWEB.mov
No wavy lines or flikery video like before.
So now comes the tricky part getting the video out of shake and back into final cut. since i started with 1080i i could now turn the interlace back on an retime the footage again, or i can just stay in progressive scan. I choose the latter as progressive scan handles fast motion much better then an interlaced source does.
Since my deshaked video now is in essence 1080p i need to set my final cut settings for 1080p so its not getting confused that my video is no longer interlaced. Now i proceed with my edits.
Ok now i am done with editing and im ready to export so now what. Well right now i am working in 1080p. Thats fine i could export my movie at 1080p but there's a problem with that, most sets cant run 1080p and really no one is broadcasting 1080p over the air. 1080p isn't used all that much with exception of blueray. So i have 2 choices i can go back out to 1080i but since i removed the interlacing in the first place i dont want to do that, or i could go out to 720p. I choose the latter because 720p handles fast motion much better then 1080i does.
What this really boils down to and maybe i could have just said this is, to get good deshaked video from a 1080i source you should first deinterlace it for the processing part, once you have processed your smoothcam and any other video effects you can either turn back on the interlacing, or retime it to progressive scan. I choose the latter as it handles motion much better.
Since many tv's cant handle 1080p i then choose to export my final video at 720p
I hope this post makes some since as i am just starting to understand this whole crazy thing we call HD.
Interlaced video:
http://www.derekbledsoe.net/airplan...ome1080iWEB.mov
Deinterlaced video:
http://www.derekbledsoe.net/airplan...nterlaceWEB.mov
Derek Bledsoe
TRIAX
flyboyap.com
Joker 2 HD |
