Only one REAL HD mode?

[Kizzume]

Ok. What mode besides AVCHD offers REAL 1920x1080 resolution?

When I use HDV, it looks like I've blown up an image based on a 720p or even a lower resolution. I can see the stairsteps (the pixels) blown-up.

When I use Blu-Ray, it looks exactly the same way. It's like it's not really rendering it at the full 1080p resolution.

AVCHD, however, renders a beautiful full-resolution image, but as it has been said in other threads, AVCHD has some serious issues.

Am I doing something wrong, or is this actually the case?

[Ken Berry]

I have converted HDV to AVCHD (for a hybrid disc), and cannot tell the quality apart: both are excellent, with no artifacts. Moreover, my eyes are not that bad!

Although HDV is 1440 x 1080, the way it displays is equivalent to 1920 x 1080, and again, when comparing it to AVCHD, I cannot tell the quality of the two apart. (Indeed, there are some professional videographers who claim that HDV is in fact better quality than AVCHD, but as I say, I cannot tell the difference...)

My HDV also converts to Blu-Ray format perfectly... though I would expect that since it maintains the mpeg-2 format. Unfortunately, I have not tried burning AVCHD to Blu-Ray mpeg-2 format, so cannot comment.

[Kizzume]

I just made some test resolution images in photoshop and tested it (down to a pixel-per-pixel checkerboard pattern), and you were right. I apologize. I guess I've been struggling with the program all day and had become frustrated.

I guess I just don't understand why I see stretched pixels in my glasses (in a video pointing at my face) when I use anything other than AVCHD. It must be the way it does compression. When I saw the pixelation, I wrongly assumed it was being done to the whole image.

But still, it's puzzling:

AVCHD
http://kizzume.com/stuff/stuff/my-glasses.mpg

Blu-Ray
http://kizzume.com/stuff/stuff/my-glasses-blu-ray.mpg

HDV
http://kizzume.com/stuff/stuff/my-glasses-hdv.mpg

MP4 (link not working, my host provider is having problems hosting mp4 files for some reason)
http://kizzume.com/stuff/stuff/my-glasses-mp4.mp4

And again, sorry.

[Ken Berry]

Sorry, but none of those attachments appear to download properly. It takes some time, showing the Quicktime icon, for each, but then grays out and shows a ? over the Quicktime icon. Nothing plays, in other words...

[Trevor Andrew]

Hi

I have managed to download all 4 attachment/clips

Ken they probably show as Quicktime in your pc because you have Quicktime as the default player for those file types.
The clips are approximately 2.5 seconds, so download is very, very slow.

Kizzume
I cannot load or play the Mpg4 file using VS. (no video data is reported)

The remaining three files play ok in Video Studio, in fact I cannot see any difference in quality. I then played the clips in full screen and still cannot see any appreciable difference.

Originally VS generated Smart Proxy files for the clips, these I deleted these, just in case they were masking the quality.
Playing the files without SP showed the same quality.

Interestingly there does not seem to be any audio content as though the video is muted, shouldn’t make any difference to video quality.

I then took a snapshot of the video at 1 second, the resultant images looked identical.

[Ken Berry]

Trevor -- thanks for the hint. I hadn't thought I had set Quicktime as the default for anything, but recently downloaded the latest version, and it seems to have loaded a plug-in for Firefox, which is what was hijacking the download. Now corrected

But I now have all four files and all play perfectly well, at the same level of high quality on my full HD resolution (1920 x 1080p) 24 inch monitor -- although, if pressed, I would say the mp4 was just slightly fuzzy. No artifacts, and still very clear, but just not quite as clear as the other three.

X3 has no trouble accepting and playing all four, including the mp4 one. And on the smaller X3 preview screen, all four look to have the same quality -- i.e. I cannot detect any fuzziness on the mp4...

[Kizzume]

Look at my glasses. This next pic shows the corner of my glasses with the AVCHD format on the top, and blu-ray on the bottom.



EDIT: The results are identical between Windows Media Player, RealPlayer, and VLC Media Player.

[Kizzume]

Unfortunately, when I look at the details, that look that's on my glasses is on the whole video. I was willing to give y'all the benefit of the doubt at first, but after watching them several times and looking at the details, it's plain as day now.

It seems there's some sort of issue with it rendering at full resolution when taken from a video source. When I take from a high resolution photo/still, it always renders at full resolution, but not when a video is the source.

I guess I'm stuck using AVCHD if I want real HD.

[Natal]

I have converted HDV to AVCHD (for a hybrid disc), and cannot tell the quality apart: both are excellent, with no artifacts. Moreover, my eyes are not that bad!

Although HDV is 1440 x 1080, the way it displays is equivalent to 1920 x 1080, and again, when comparing it to AVCHD, I cannot tell the quality of the two apart. (Indeed, there are some professional videographers who claim that HDV is in fact better quality than AVCHD, but as I say, I cannot tell the difference...)

My HDV also converts to Blu-Ray format perfectly... though I would expect that since it maintains the mpeg-2 format. Unfortunately, I have not tried burning AVCHD to Blu-Ray mpeg-2 format, so cannot comment.

I thought that Blu-Ray and AVCHD were disc formats. The actual video files on those discs can be encoded using mpeg-2 or mpeg-4 in the case of Blu-Ray, and only mpeg-4 in the case of AVCHD. Since the mpeg-4 file would be the same in both formats the OP should be able to solve his problem by producing mpeg-4 Blu-Ray discs.

[Natal]

I just made some test resolution images in photoshop and tested it (down to a pixel-per-pixel checkerboard pattern), and you were right. I apologize. I guess I've been struggling with the program all day and had become frustrated.

I guess I just don't understand why I see stretched pixels in my glasses (in a video pointing at my face) when I use anything other than AVCHD. It must be the way it does compression. When I saw the pixelation, I wrongly assumed it was being done to the whole image.

But still, it's puzzling:

AVCHD
http://kizzume.com/stuff/stuff/my-glasses.mpg

Blu-Ray
http://kizzume.com/stuff/stuff/my-glasses-blu-ray.mpg

HDV
http://kizzume.com/stuff/stuff/my-glasses-hdv.mpg

MP4 (link not working, my host provider is having problems hosting mp4 files for some reason)
http://kizzume.com/stuff/stuff/my-glasses-mp4.mp4

And again, sorry.

Looking at the background on those clips it is obvious that some heavy compression is being done. X3 is reporting your AVCHD clip as H.264 encoded 1920x1080 VBR 22699 kbps max. The Blu-Ray clip is mpeg-2 encoded 1920x1080 VBR 25000 kbps max. The HDV clip is mpeg-2 encoded 1440x1080 VBR 25000 kbps max. It looks like H.264 is more efficient in the compression than the mpeg-2, but the VBR is about the same, so you are seeing more compression artefacts in the latter.

You may be able to solve your problem by increasing the bit rate of the mpeg-2 encoded files. To do this try rendering this way: (1) from the share menu click create video file; (2) select "custom" as the option; (3) select "MPEG transport-stream files (*.mts2)" as the file type; (4) click "options"; (5) under the "general" tab select 1920x1080 as your frame size; (6) under the "compression" tab select (i) quality as desired, (ii) video format {mpeg-2 or H.264} as desired - choose mpeg-2, and (iii) video data rate as desired (select something closer to the actual bit rate of the original footage. The H.264 option will limit output to VBR to 18k or 20k depending on what sort of AVCHD disc you are planning to prepare (X3 limits AVCHD discs to 18k with 1920x1080 output)

If you select a high bit rate then you can minimize artefacts that result from compressing a high bit rate into a lower bit rate.

Anyway, try that and see if it works. You will probably get better results by creating your own file properties rather than using the pre-canned options.