Capturing/Upconverting PAL 4:3 content with Studio 4K

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Robert Horvath

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Capturing/Upconverting PAL 4:3 content with Studio 4K

PostThu Jan 18, 2018 11:13 am

Hello everybody,

We have a DeckLink Studio 4K in our system. We'd like to capture a big amount of PAL SD video content from our tape archive, to 720p or 1080p by using the card's own hardware-based converter (that was the main reasing to purchase this card). We use the card's S-Video input to attach Panasonic AG7510 S-VHS player.

Unfortunately the capture with MediaExpress doesn't work as expected. Setting up the card using the Desktop Video Setup utility, at the Input Conversion section to "SD to HD" and select Display As: "Pillarbox", and starting Media Express, there setting in Preferences the Project Video Format to anything else than 625i50PAL will always override to 1920x180i50, and what's worse, it won't respect the Pillarbox setting, it's doing a center cut instead.

If I set the Media Express project to 625i50PAL it's capturing normally at that resolution 4:3 interlaced, but I'd like to capture all the content already up-converted by the card to some HD resolution pillarboxed and de-interlaced because these will be shown on progressive displays in the future.

I like the quality the card does the up-conversion except the fact that it does a center-cut instead of pillarboxes. Doesn't respect the setting of the card. (There is also Anamorphic, that works OK, bot we don't want that)

Best would be though to be able to capture PAL SD upconverted and deinterlaced by the card to 1440x1080 by keeping the aspect ration of 4:3 untouched, and let the media player to add the pillarbox if it has to, later on.

I double-checked it's not an issue of previewing or seeing the video in Media Express's window, the captured videos (as played by external players, like VLC) are incorrect, center-cutted instead of pillarboxed.

Any way to fix this issue? Either to a 16:9 HD with proper pillarboxes or to 1440x1080 with DeckLink Studio 4K and Media Express?

Thank you in advance for your answer.
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Robert Horvath

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Re: Capturing/Upconverting PAL 4:3 content with Studio 4K

PostTue Jan 23, 2018 10:52 am

Nobody?
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Andrew Kolakowski

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Re: Capturing/Upconverting PAL 4:3 content with Studio 4K

PostTue Jan 23, 2018 8:17 pm

I'm sure BM allows you to set desired upscale behaviour in Control Panel setting for card.

http://documents.blackmagicdesign.com/D ... Manual.pdf

page 24.

It ill never be 1440x1080, but 1920x1080 pillarboxed.
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Robert Horvath

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Re: Capturing/Upconverting PAL 4:3 content with Studio 4K

PostThu Jan 25, 2018 10:46 am

Andrew Kolakowski wrote:I'm sure BM allows you to set desired upscale behaviour in Control Panel setting for card.

Desktop_Video_Manual.pdf

page 24.


You didn't read carefully my post. Input conversion doesn't work as expected. It's set to "Letterbox" but what it does in reality, is a 16:9 zoom.

Inputting 4:3 PAL signal on the S-Video connector.
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Andrew Kolakowski

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Re: Capturing/Upconverting PAL 4:3 content with Studio 4K

PostThu Jan 25, 2018 10:10 pm

I assume you meant Pillarbox setting (you want Pillarbox not Letterbox).

This will be typical BM bug (lack of proper QC on new driver releases).
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Dave Johnstone

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Re: Capturing/Upconverting PAL 4:3 content with Studio 4K

PostMon Jan 29, 2018 12:38 am

I have just tested this on my systems (as I will soon have a need for ingesting SD tapes) and have also found pillarbox does not work. Instead of squeezing horizontally and adding black bars, it stretches vertically. I have tested HD Extreme3D+ card with DV versions 10.5.4, 10.9.5 plus Mac with Ultrastudio Mini 10.9 all with the same result. Has this been reported directly to BM support?

Regards,

Dave.
Freelance Television Broadcast Engineer
and Software Programmer.
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Robert Horvath

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Re: Capturing/Upconverting PAL 4:3 content with Studio 4K

PostThu Feb 01, 2018 8:00 am

I only reported this here. This is really bad. We need to ingest about 1000 tapes.
Wonder if this bug is also present under Linux?
I guess we have to stick to 625i instead of upscaling...
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Dave Johnstone

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Re: Capturing/Upconverting PAL 4:3 content with Studio 4K

PostThu Feb 01, 2018 9:37 am

I reported the bug to BMD myself on Tuesday. The bug has been confirmed by BMD on Windows and has been entered on their bug list. I have confirmed it is the same on Linux and Mac.

Regards,

Dave.
Freelance Television Broadcast Engineer
and Software Programmer.
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Robert Horvath

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Re: Capturing/Upconverting PAL 4:3 content with Studio 4K

PostThu Feb 01, 2018 10:45 am

Thanks.

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