JOURNAL:
CaedenVintori
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Method to the Madness: HD vs SD editing
2010-04-21 01:51:02
So we decided to go with the DVD version of Darker than Black for several reasons. 1) it is cheaper than blue-ray, and we don't want to wait for the HD release. 2) up-scaling is easy and looks pretty good. 3)The HD rip I found online was more trouble than it was worth to mold into something worth working with, and even when I did it lost a lot of quality. 4)It is a great series and I wanted to buy it anyways!
We want our end product to be 720p because monkey521 has ideas that require some detail (and I think just as a personal challenge). But the big debate for me (as I am in charge of the bulk of the tech side of this project) is whether to upscale and clean the video before editing or after editing. So far as I can tell the upscaler that I am using does a very good job at keeping objects the same shape they were (ie smooth curves rather than getting blocky), but there is nothing that can fill in a texture with more detail than is already present. Now we are not sure just how much after effects we are going to be using on this project, or how much content will be created for it. But I have a feeling that there will be a fair amount, and that it will look better being created in its native resolution. So we decided to edit on HD footage.
Now this could all backfire on us. We may find that the graphics will look too sharp compared to the video (though I doubt it), and that we should have lowered our sights to and SD product. Another potential problem is that the editing will go faster in SD, and we could have done the whole project as 480p and up-scaled in the end to 720p with little difference in final quality, but taking much less time for rendering. If someone knows the answer please let me know, otherwise we will be doing some testing and will let you all know of our progress!
As a side note; we were able to get premiere pro v1 to work with HD footage through the VFW settings as opposed to a DV project. The video looked terrible at first until I realized that it was the playback setting on the monitor window being set to fast display. When set to a higher setting it looked very nice, and could even render some basic fades and such in real time! But it seems that we will be using Premiere largely to clip video we will not use, and put what we do use in order, not much in the way of editing. The bulk of the editing will likely be in After Effects.
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Progress
2010-04-21 01:27:07
WooHoo!
So my friend is finally on his work-study semester and has his evening off to work on the project with me. I found a set of tools made by AVS4You which could potentially have converted the Darker than Black footage that I had, but it was not as nice a conversion I would have hoped for, and to get their full un-watermarked software it would have cost $50. Unfortunately for AVS it is cheaper and better quality for me to just buy the series myself and follow the wonderful Everything AV guide to get my video.
DVD came today (2 days earlier than expected! Thank you goHastings and ups!).
For my own reference (and anyone else in my shoes) this is what I did so far:
1) Rip DVD
Used DVDfab5.2.5 (newer free version sucks and only allows you to rip the whole DVD) to copy VOB files to HDD. There were 7 eps per disc and the way it was set up it was easiest to do all eps as one movie. In DVD decryptor (DVDfab's previous incarnation that I used when backing up my DVDs) you use to be able to separate out the episodes as separate files automatically, but it does not work in win7.
2) Index VOBs
Used DG Index to create .avs file
3) Restore aspect, Upscale and Cleaned footage
Used AvsP to resize video to HD and restore the 16:9 aspect ratio. Also used a filter to clean up some noise created by the upscaling. The resulting frames look beautiful! Here is my AvsP script (it's nothing special, straight from the guide):
mpeg2source("D:My ProjectsTHE AMV ProjectDarker Than Black dvdMainMovieDARKER_THAN_BLACK_CS_D1VIDEO_TSDisc1 ep1-7.d2v",cpu=6)
Spline36Resize(1272,720)
TTempSmooth()
Thankfully the video was already 24fps progressive, and the TTemp was only used to be picky as the grain was not really noticeable in video, only stills. This is the first non-kungfu anime I have ever purchased and the source was very nice and clean, I was blown away that DVD could look that good even before I touched it!
4) Separate episodes and export as editable format
Lastly I am encoding 1 ep as Lagrith YV12, which will take about 2 hours and 7GB of space. Once done then I will check and see if Premiere will import my work. If not than I will encode Huffman which I already tested yesterday and worked.
If the Adobe gods love me and will take my file without complaint then I will que the rest of the DVDs to convert tonight and tomorrow, so we can pick out our footage and really plan this all out on the weekend.
*crosses fingers* wish me luck!
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and so it begins...
2010-01-28 00:13:46
so a friend and I have finally decided that cincinnati needs to represent on AMV.org, and so we are beginning a video project for the first time. For starters we are thinking Darker Than Black to the tune of Skillet's Hero. The concept should be simple enough to begin with, but we seem to be having difficulties getting out the gate.
1: I use to be spoiled with a real time editing card on my old P4 computer, but we want to go HD... unless I buy an HD rendering card... unless I somehow manage to get millions and millions of dollars this is not going to happen... so rendering hell is on it's way.
2. Running premere pro 1.0 isnt exactly utilizing the full potential of my core2duo, or my 4GB of ram... may need to upgrade. Also dosnt like my HD idea... upgrading may be worth the money.
3.1 Footage. I downloaded a rather good copy of season 1 (we do not intend on dignifying season 2's existence) that is HD (with great audio btw!) but it is not editable, and I do not know how to convert the video into something usable.
3.2 We could buy the blu-ray coming out soon, but I have yet to find a way of ripping it. Or we can buy the DVD's and upscale (easy to do now that I have read some of the forums), but we would really like to have a true 720 or 1080 source to work with... perhaps I should test some other anime that I have to see if the upscaling works will enough.
So, with said problems already at the front door here is the plan. Next quarter monkey521 is taking an aftereffects class. I am allready familiar with premere (though a highly modded version of 6.5 with an RT2500 card that I cannot use for this project), as well as audition (considering I have the first version adobe did a rather good job with it! Cant wait to see the new version!). So my job is to get an editable source footage while we work on a rough story board. Then after he takes his class then we will edit something together this spring/summer.
Assuming this all goes well then we have about 7-8 other ideas that could be fun ranging from thought provoking, to sad, to the downright sacrilegious. Wish us luck
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