Love when someone out there does all the hard work and all I have to do is write a little post and link to their work.  In this case it has to do with encoding your video for Youtube in their new 16×9 format and HD settings.  In this case, Brian Gary over at kenstone.net does the hard work and includes some handy Compressor presets as well.  Download, tweak, encode, upload and enjoy.

Encoding for YouTube Part 3…HD Strikes Back.

Uploaded this HD version of the Intel – Touch of Genius.  Using the extension &fmt=22 at the end of the URL you get very good looking video.  Appears the new 16×9 player won’t embed however.  Click on this link to see the 16×9 version on YouTube.

Great thing about the blogworld is whenever you’re thinking about writing a post, chances are someone has already written about what you’re thinking, especially in this production/post-production world.

I was working on a HD project the other day  where I had 4 stock shots from Getty.  1 of the shots was SD so of course I was confronted with that issue of having to upconvert the SD shot to HD.  I tried every which way to do it.

1. Compressor

2. Magic Bullet Instant HD in Final Cut Pro

3.  Magic Bullet Instant HD in After Effects

4. Kona 3 Hardware.

Not having used Instant HD I had high hopes that this could be done in software.  While the process of using the plug-in isn’t very intuitive, it did give decent results but I noticed interlace issues in both Final Cut and After Effects.  With Instant HD you’re meant to work with progressive footage only and as the file I was upconverting was downloaded from Getty in the Photo JPEG codec, I assumed it was already de-interlaced.  Compressor was having the same issues as Instant HD.  It wasn’t a frame rate issue, the software conversion just couldn’t give me decent frame blending on the slight panning motion in the shot.  So last but not least was the Kona 3.  Since the shot was originally a download, I had to output the shot to Digital Betacam first then capture using the Kona 3 hardware upconversion.  I brought it in 2 ways, once with the image zoomed to fill the 16:9 frame and once with pillar bars left and right.  I ended up using the zoomed version and when edited into the final sequence, it played great with the other 3 HD shots.

So this all leads me to this… Shane Ross on Creative Cow goes into great depth about using the Kona 3 to do your upconversions for you.  Thanks Shane and now I know whenvever I’m given the challenge of upconverting SD to HD, I’ll always think of hardware first.  If you’re lucky enough to have a Kona 3 in your workflow Shane’s article is a must read for hardware upconversion.

With the announcement of the the RED Epic today I’ve been reading the news and found this astounding item from Dorkman’s blog.

“These Epic Brains will record a data-rate of 225 MB/sec — that’s a 625% increase in data rate, and hopefully therefore quality, over Red One.

I complained last time that they shouldn’t be calling a camera Epic unless it basically shoots 65mm/IMAX format — and they’ve answered that. Not only that, but they threw in one more format, one that makes IMAX its bitch. 

Technorama 617 Monstro Sensor, 28K resolution, 1-25 fps, $55,000

Yes, you f**king heard me right. I said 28K. And it’ll record at a computer-pulverizing 500 MB/sec. 

Red One’s 4K is already four times bigger than your 1080p HDTV. How big is 28K compared to that? Stu Maschwitz did a comparison on his Prolost blog.”

So what does that HD image look like inside a 28K image.  Click here or look below.  Yeah, that tiny red spec in the middle represents a 1920×1080 image inside the gray 28,000 x 9,334 image.  Makes the mind wobble and wonder what sizes we’ll be working with 5 years from now.

Need stock shots for your RED project.  Now you can find them through Artbeats. Currently there are 355 clips available for purchase in either 2K, 3K, 4K and/or Raw format. Lots or scenic shots.  Prices range from $299 to $399 per clip.  Go get ‘em!

 Artbeats – RED Footage Information

Limited selection but not a bad place to look if you’re in the need of free stock footage.

]]> http://nycpostop.wordpress.com/2008/07/30/hd-sd-stock-footage-for-free/feed/ 0 Philip http://nycpostop.wordpress.com/2008/07/30/intel-touch-of-genius/ http://nycpostop.wordpress.com/2008/07/30/intel-touch-of-genius/#comments Wed, 30 Jul 2008 03:19:37 +0000 Philip http://nycpostop.wordpress.com/?p=19 ]]>

Wanted to see how Vimeo’s HD streaming flash player looked with the Intel piece.  Take a look.