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Integrating DV Source Footage into HDV Projects, Part 2

Dec 27, 2007 12:00 PM, By Jan Ozer

              

This month, I take on the daunting task of scaling DV footage to HDV for inclusion in high definition projects. In our last edition, I described what you need to know to produce high-quality results; in this edition, I share the results obtained with Adobe Premiere Pro and Apple Final Cut Pro scaling without third-party filters and those from three plug-ins: Digital Anarchy ReSizer2, Red Giant InstantHD, and Algolith AlgoSuite.

Just to let you know, at press time, I learned that Algolith had decided to take AlgoSuite off the market to focus on the company's realtime hardware products. Bummer. If you have it, keep it, because it’s the best. If you don’t, I’m leaving references in this article just so you know that.

Test Details

I used a nine-scene, 60-second interlaced 4:3 DV file with a horror show of high motion, sharp lines, and jagged edges. I scaled this file up to 1080i resolution and then rendered a file in HDV 1080i resolution and aspect ratio using Apple ProRes when producing on the Mac and the Apple Animation codec on Windows.

I produced separate files to these parameters in Premiere Pro and Final Cut Pro without the third-party filters, then tested ReSizer2 in Premiere Pro and AlgoSuite and InstantHD in Adobe After Effects. Then I exported frames from the respective files in Premiere Pro without de-interlacing and compared them in Ulead PhotoImpact. These composite files are those you’ll see at the end of the review. I also rendered each video file to 1080i resolution in H.264 format in Sorenson Squeeze to see if any motion related artifacts crept in. All files played normally.

I produced the file in Premiere Pro using a DV preset and outputting using the Make Movie function rather than the Adobe Media Encoder. I checked with Adobe representatives, who said that:

• The preset didn’t matter, although they said producing with the HDV preset was a bit more straightforward
• The same scaling algorithms are used whether you export using the Make Movie or Adobe Media Encoder function
• That the same scaling algorithms are used in Premiere Pro and After Effects, so the results produced by the programs should be identical.

I produced the file in Final Cut Pro using an HDV preset and rendering through Compressor. In this scenario, Compressor’s scaling algorithms don’t come into play because Final Cut is handing Compressor a file that’s already scaled. I tried producing the file with a DV preset and scaling in Compressor with the highest-quality scaling option selected, which produced equivalent quality. Because mileage may vary based upon source footage, you should try both of these alternatives to produce the best quality.

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