Upscaling before of after editing?

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BasharOfTheAges
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Re: Upscaling before of after editing?

Post by BasharOfTheAges » Wed Oct 20, 2010 2:37 pm

Actually, there is no forcing of stuff to be in HD. If it's not in HD, it will be letterboxed and pillarboxed until it gets there. I don't really want to have my video be over 55% black by volume (1 - (848x480 / 1280x720)). I also didn't plan to release it in HD on the org (why bother if it's just an upscale, right?) but if i'm upscalling, doing HD effect work, and then downscaling it to upload it's going to look even worse.

The footage in question, for me at least, is Soul Eater, which was aired in HD, but hasn't even been released in BRD in Japan yet - I assume because they backed HD-DVD and they legally can't as part of some contract. Mirko pretty much hit on my exact issue with his response.

@ DriftRoot, this will actually be the 2nd year they've done it, and even the upscaled stuff looked better than the bordered stuff last year. I actually had all BRD sources last year, so this wasn't an issue. I just had to downscale to get to 720p. My other vid this year is using BRDs too, and those already look decent enough.
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Re: Upscaling before of after editing?

Post by DriftRoot » Wed Oct 20, 2010 7:25 pm

Second year, huh? Yeah, I didn't enter last year so it's "OMG NEW RULE!!" for me this time around. I'm just a bit nervous about upscaling some of my more non-up-scalable effects. As mentioned above, it looks hideous in my tests. :|
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Re: Upscaling before of after editing?

Post by Qyot27 » Wed Oct 20, 2010 8:04 pm

BasharOfTheAges wrote:The footage in question, for me at least, is Soul Eater, which was aired in HD, but hasn't even been released in BRD in Japan yet - I assume because they backed HD-DVD and they legally can't as part of some contract.
Actually, I found the following:
http://www.cdjapan.co.jp/detailview.html?KEY=ZMAZ-5971
http://www.cdjapan.co.jp/detailview.html?KEY=ZMAZ-5972

It would appear that it is going to be released on Blu-ray, although not until early next year. I suspected something like that because it's getting rebroadcast this season (not that rebroadcasting is at all uncommon, but with a Blu-ray release looming it looks more like the rebroadcast is a primer).


Unless of course that 'yet' had the above two sets in mind, rather than being a hypothetical 'yet'. In that case, ignore this post.
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Re: Upscaling before of after editing?

Post by mirkosp » Thu Oct 21, 2010 12:12 am

I just asked since I didn't remember. Seems like it was a 540p or so show (being BONES).
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Re: Upscaling before of after editing?

Post by ngsilver » Thu Oct 21, 2010 8:46 am

Generally, if a source looks good enough in SD then it should look pretty fine if the upscale is done properly. I've done many tests with my own videos and equipment in the past with up scaling to HD resolution. As long as the source is widescreen to begin with and you're only going to 720p it doesn't look that bad at all. You won't be gaining any detail, but if the contest is going to black bar your video (seriously? rather then run a simple ffdshow script to upscale the footage they're forcing black bars????) you are better off up scaling. The flip side always is any DVD or compression artifacts will be magnified by the upscale, so pre-processing your footage is a must. (I doubt either of you would overlook this though)

In that case I'd just upscale after the fact and run a light sharpening on the video after scaling up. You're effects will appear a little soft but at least it shouldn't appear any softer then the footage, which is the whole key to what I was explaining above.

Still, I can't wrap my head around the idea of leaving a video at it's normal res by adding black bars until the edge of the screen. At Youma and ACEN in order to allow for HD content we have our hardware scale all video to the same size. I'd much rather have my SD videos simply blown up to HD res with no real processing done then have them shown at their normal res with black bars all over......
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Re: Upscaling before of after editing?

Post by BasharOfTheAges » Thu Oct 21, 2010 10:51 am

Qyot27 wrote:
BasharOfTheAges wrote:The footage in question, for me at least, is Soul Eater, which was aired in HD, but hasn't even been released in BRD in Japan yet - I assume because they backed HD-DVD and they legally can't as part of some contract.
Actually, I found the following:
http://www.cdjapan.co.jp/detailview.html?KEY=ZMAZ-5971
http://www.cdjapan.co.jp/detailview.html?KEY=ZMAZ-5972

It would appear that it is going to be released on Blu-ray, although not until early next year. I suspected something like that because it's getting rebroadcast this season (not that rebroadcasting is at all uncommon, but with a Blu-ray release looming it looks more like the rebroadcast is a primer).


Unless of course that 'yet' had the above two sets in mind, rather than being a hypothetical 'yet'. In that case, ignore this post.
Of course... As soon as i drop the money on the DVDs... o.o;; Oh well, I helped a friend out by buying them from his store - sure i can give them away as prizes at some point too. Those prices are retarded though. I'm sure as hell not dropping over $600 for a single show on BRD.

@ngsilver - they're doing it that way to respect your wishes in showing it at the resolution you sent it in as. If you had wanted it upscaled, you'd have done it yourself.
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Re: Upscaling before of after editing?

Post by mirkosp » Thu Oct 21, 2010 10:58 am

That's actually almost cheap for Japanese standards. We generally talk about 300 or 400 USD for a 12 episodes or so series. So 600 USD for 51 eps is kinda cheap in comparison, yes. Hell, these boxes even come with English subtitles, that would be almost worth an extra! :rofl:
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Re: Upscaling before of after editing?

Post by BasharOfTheAges » Thu Oct 21, 2010 10:59 am

Well, I mean I have other options - I can get dokool to rent them and rip them for me. With subs... kinda concerns me. That's "obvious bootleg" territory, but the source is a legit one. very odd.
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Re: Upscaling before of after editing?

Post by mirkosp » Thu Oct 21, 2010 11:00 am

Oh yeah, that is a viable way too... :asd:
And English subs in official BD BOX releases aren't all that uncommon. We've seen it with Kanon, Clannad, and Haruhi before, for example. Haruhi even has the English audio track. Hell, think about the Black Rock Shooter DVD: it is official and it comes with subs in English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, and I might be forgetting something else too.
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Re: Upscaling before of after editing?

Post by Qyot27 » Thu Oct 21, 2010 4:07 pm

I would guess part of the tendency of some Japanese BRD releases to have English subtitles and/or audio comes by way of the fact that Blu-ray specs put Japan and North America in the same region, and thus the Japanese companies can stand to profit directly from American consumers (if the region coding is used at all; the situation with Blu-ray region coding seems a lot more like the companies are going with 'why even bother?' than the near-ubiquitous region coding on DVDs, at least from what I'm seeing reported second-hand). It does make sense - there's really no better way to help recoup losses on the native anime industry from the international economy going down the crapper than by having official releases with saleability over a larger region (even if it's only a niche market inside the even more niche market of North American anime fans that would actually import Japanese Blu-rays...but having English sub/audio tracks gives those buyers more incentive).

So it takes some back-licensing from the North American companies to get their subs/audio tracks - in the event the series was already released there - or they do the English translations in-house.
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