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Shooting HD for SD Broadcast?


Bryce Fortner

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Hello,

 

I'm shooting a couple promos for a cable network that broadcasts in SD. Budget is on the tight side, and editorial has asked that we shoot to tape (cutting out RED, Panasonic HD, etc.). My thinking was to shoot with the F900, then down convert the footage during color correct, but the couple camera houses I've spoken with have said there really is no benefit to doing it this way. I would figure the increased resolution and color space could only be a good thing, but does it make more sense to keep it all in the SD world and shoot on something like the SDX900? I just wanted to get some other opinions before I committed to shooting SD.

 

Thanks a lot!

Bryce

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I deliver commercials I shot in HD on SD every week. There is no advantage. Shoot on SD and you'll get the same result. If you have HD cameras like I do, then use htem, it's free. If not shoot on what you want, it all gets lost to SD. The only advantage is picture manipulation as you can zoom and/or recenter pictures in the SD frame easier and with better end results.

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If you shoot in SD, the SD Nyquist limit must be made by the OLPF, which starts to roll off at half the limit because it can only use positive coefficients. If you downconvert from HD, only the HD limit is made optically, the SD limit happens in a digital brick wall filter, giving you a lot more top octave resolution. Shoot side by side Marconi charts, the difference will be clear.

 

That being said, do you really need the extra sharpness for these promos? Is it worth the extra money?

 

 

 

 

-- J.S.

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Thank you all for your time and informative posts. You are right, it doesn't seem the extra sharpness is worth the cost... just wanted to make sure of my decision before I made it :) Looks like I'll be shooting SD.

 

Thank you very much,

Bryce

 

If you shoot in SD, the SD Nyquist limit must be made by the OLPF, which starts to roll off at half the limit because it can only use positive coefficients. If you downconvert from HD, only the HD limit is made optically, the SD limit happens in a digital brick wall filter, giving you a lot more top octave resolution. Shoot side by side Marconi charts, the difference will be clear.

 

That being said, do you really need the extra sharpness for these promos? Is it worth the extra money?

 

 

 

 

-- J.S.

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