Serato Video General Discussion

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 Serato Video General Discussion
Mixing between 480p and 720p
Talk about Serato Video and Video-SL.

Mixing between 480p and 720p

Naysayer 10:29 AM - 20 April, 2011
I have some other questions too but "mixing between 480 and 720" is the basic idea.
Okay so I am in the process of exporting my video library for use with sl video. As I havent got my projector at the moment and havent converted a lot of videos I have not been in a position to play around enough to decide the question for myself.

Question is:
Should I export ALL my videos (even the 480p ones) at 720p and then play them with a secondary screen resolution close to 720p. This would mean letting final cut pro do the upscaling

Or should I export the 480p ones at 480 and then let video-sl handle making the sizes match?

My concern is what is going to deliver best video quality and what puts unnecessary strain on my comp/graphics card. (i don't want this to crash during a live set)

I also wonder, is anyone here doing LARGE video sets? (20 ft screens etc). Should I even bother experimenting with video at 1080p or is it just too risky that my machine will die in the middle of a set?

Here are my machine details:
MBP (late 2010)
8gb ddr3 1066 ram
2.8 ghz i7 processor
nvidia geforce gt 330m graphics card
500 gb (not solid state) Hard drive

Video compression:
resolution: either 720p or 480p
h.264 @ 3000kbps or 4000kbps
keyframe every 15
double pass

Audio
AAC @ 256 average

Serato Settings:
Best (video quality)
3gb video buffer
Naysayer 10:34 AM - 20 April, 2011
EDIT: keyframe every 25 frames*****
carter 2:42 PM - 20 April, 2011
My opinion would be to downscale all of your video to 640x480 for your 4:3 videos and 640x360 for your 16:9 videos. Set your secondary display to either 640x480 or 800x600. The quality difference between your source material at those resolutions is going to be negligible. Using FCP to upscale your videos to 720p won't do anything for your final outcome, if all you're wanting is a better quality image on the screen. The reason being is that you're only expanding the pixels that are already there and not actually increasing the amount. So 480 pixels high is fitting in to a frame made for 720 essentially stretching those pixels out. The better solution is to use good, high quality videos at a median or even constant frame size and then set your display to near that frame size.
So,
Video compression:
640x480 or 640x360
h.264 @3000-3500
keyframe every 20-25 frames
2 pass
Audio is good
VSL Setting
High quality
2 GB buffer

And you should take a look at Mix Emergency from Inklen.
carter 2:43 PM - 20 April, 2011
Oh and yes I dj on large screens every Saturday night at 640x480. Looks golden and crisp.
Joshua Carl 4:25 PM - 20 April, 2011
I think 720 is coming.... i have a few videos that are 720, and they run fine, and look great.
DouggyFresh 6:28 PM - 20 April, 2011
I just had a local rapper send me his latest song in 720p (316MB!! wow, so much for hard drive space). I've used 720 videos mixed with 480 without any problems.
Naysayer 6:41 PM - 20 April, 2011
Hmm im pretty committed to at least 720 pixels of vertical resolution at the moment. Most of my material is 1080 p that I've downscaled. The Question for me is what to do with the few 480p stragglers. The issue is that the sorts of venues that book this have giant screens and it's sort of essential to the punch of the set to have a nice clear 20 ft wide screen.
Assuming I do dj at 720 output resolution, the videos will have to be scaled up by something. Either fcp beforehand or sl during the live set.

Thanks for the response.
Naysayer 6:44 PM - 20 April, 2011
Oh before you ask we are using film television and archival footage. I'm just a lost on finding hd music vids as everyone else. That said YouTube 1080s downscaled to 720 look nice.
Joshua Carl 7:29 PM - 20 April, 2011
I might be wrong here, but wouldn't a scaler/scan converter be doing that
post software/pre TVs?
Naysayer 7:46 PM - 20 April, 2011
Hmm well the output from sl video - As in all the video that comes out of the little cable attached to your computer - is all going o be the same resolution. It will all be the resolution that you've set your secondary display to. So the upscaling I'm talking about is when video sl stretches your videos to fill up the secondary display that your playing on. Feel me?
Naysayer 7:47 PM - 20 April, 2011
Similar to if you play a 480p movie in fullscreen in QuickTime.
Joshua Carl 8:11 PM - 20 April, 2011
right...thats what the scaler does.
it might just be a better processer to stretch those pixels then whats available on
you video card.

example.
at my spot we have 20tvs ranging from 42-65 inch, and 1 projector that 18x9 or something like that/
we use this:
www.extron.com
note: Automatically recognizes and converts computer resolutions from 560x384 to 1920x1200 and frequencies to 100 kHz horizontal and 120 Hz vertical

the week we didn't have that, the picture on the 65 inch and the projector was HORRRRRRIBLE!
Naysayer 6:49 AM - 21 April, 2011
Yeah that scales the signal that it gets from your second monitor. But serato does scaling to your videos before your computer sends that second monitor signal. It's that scaling that I'm interested in at the moment.
I think I have reasoned my way to an answer at any rate. It is probably smarter to just leave the videos at 480 and play them alongside the 720 ones with the second monitor set to 1280 by 720. I assume that's less taxing on the computer.
Ill do some tests, if it doesn't look noticably worse then that's what I'll stick to me thinks.
Thanks for the responses.
Naysayer 6:50 AM - 21 April, 2011
by second monitor i of course mean secondary display