HD rendering

[mpman]

To render an animation or an image so it would look crisp on an LCD HDTV - do i need a special video card for special compression or some other type of hardware? or should i be able to reach high crisp resolution using an uncompressed video with a simple pc and an average program?

My suspicion is that i would require an HD-DVD player to see a rendered animation the way it should be on an HD screen...


Thanks.

[Richard]

help exporting animation for HDTV
viewtopic.php?p=24042
Based on our last exchange I'm not sure what you are asking.

Taking a swag...

You want to connect your PC to your LCD display to see if the image looks as you expect since you can't do that via an HD disc format for the moment...

[mpman]

Ok ... let me explain the situation:

When you render an animation into a video file and the file is supposed to be running on an HDTV, you need to create it so it would fit that media.

Most of my productions are made for web, the question is:

1.What do i need to do in order to assure that my animation fits the format of HDTV ie. CRISP graphics (unlike regular 4:3 TV), is it the way i export it to DVD, or the codec i use?

2.If i want to preview the animation and see it in HD - do i need an HD DVD player? (it looks pixelated on my HDTV running from my 'regular' DVD player)

3.How can i make sure that what i do is right for HD?
I suspect that it does fit HD but i just cannot view it as such because i use a regular DVD player...


Thanks.

[Richard]

This is a continuation of the last thread...

SD DVD CANNOT do HD, stop trying, it won't work...

I don't know how to stream HD video from a website if that is a question... but perfect results are bound to be far and few if going through a browser window... you would be better off with a file but what the result will be is all out of your control and depends on the user and how they setup their system. You stand a far better chance using the HDTV standards and products.

1.What do i need to do in order to assure that my animation fits the format of HDTV

create it, manipulate and master at 720P or 1080P

2.If i want to preview the animation and see it in HD - do i need an HD DVD player?

You need either a PC where you have transfered the file to it and set it up properly for artifact free HDTV content delivery or... Encode your HD source to Bluray or HD DVD, burn a disc and play it back on a player connected to an HDTV.

Bear in mind that in most cases imaging magic only happens when everything matches up; 1080P will only look right on a 1080P display, 720P will only look right on a 720P display. Any cross coversion will soften the image and remove detail.

[mpman]

Thank you very much for your help.

So basically:
since i rendered and burned everything and it fits an HDTV format, once i will use the 'proper' player - i should be able to preview it with HD quality.

Just for the record i tried any resolution and i guess the main problem was the player itself...

How come a regular movie that i buy in the store looks HD on a regular SD DVD then?

[rpeckrpeck]

>How come a regular movie that i buy in the store looks HD on a regular SD DVD then?

Um, because you don't know what HD actually looks like. Or you're
comparing CGI, which upscales better than real-world sources.


Note that if you're going for 1080, you need a monitor that will resolve
1920 x 1080 so that the image does not get scaled down. Even with
some downscaling, an HD source will have much more detail than a
scaled-up SD source (like a 480i normal DVD).

Normal DVDs can look excellent with excellent upscaling, but they will
never have the detail of a (decent) HD source.


IMO you should begin by Googling "elephant's dream", and then
getting and viewing 480 and 1080 resolutions of it and see if you
can't see the difference.

[mpman]

Thanks for the reply;

I'm aware of the CGI quality, i'm talking about my own computer animation.

Do i have to burn the animation with an HD DVD/BLUYRAY drive etc.? or can i burn it just with a regular DVD drive and play it on an HD DVD player to get the HD result?



Thanks.

[rpeckrpeck]

>I'm aware of the CGI quality, i'm talking about my own computer
>animation.

Yes I know, you're not getting my point.

What I was trying to explain was in response to your statement that
regular DVDs look HD to you. Regular DVDs are upscaled from 480i
to your HD resolution. New detail (that was not in the source) is partially
simulated by the scaling process, but obviously you won't get real detail
that wasn't in the source. The scaling process works better with computer-
generated images, since they are mathematically simpler. The filled-in
pixels will be closer to what would have been rendered than what
you'll get with a "real" image that is similarly upscaled (interpolated).

Take a photo and a CG image into Photoshop and scale them up
with spline interpolation and you'll see that the CG image will almost
always have a more pleasing result from scaling than a real image, simply
because it doesn't have as much fine detail and the detail that's there
is more amenable to simple interpolation.



There are a number of ways you can view HD in full quality without being
able to burn a video HD-DVD or Blue-Ray disk. The simplest is to
render to 1920 x 1080p mpeg2 (or mpeg4) and view on your computer
(PC or Mac or Linux). I normally use VLC; others use TheaterTek, Media
Player Classic, or other players. Note that if your screen resolution is
less than 1920 x 1080 the player will scale down the result and you
won't see the full resolution.


Alternatively you can get a standalone HD player. Mine is an IO-Data
Linkplayer. It will play a full HD mpeg2 or mpeg4 to an HDTV, 1080i
or 720p. The file can be on the network (e.g., on your PC), or you can
burn the file to a standard data DVD-R. This is how many people like me
cap and view things like OTA TV shows for timeshifting purposes.