EDIUS 11 to Topaz Video: SD upscaling tutorial

David V. Clarke explains his EDIUS 11 workflow for preparing interlaced 4:3 standard definition footage for Topaz Video. His examples use DV and Hi8 material, with separate approaches for keeping the original aspect ratio or filling a widescreen frame.

Clarke deinterlaces through EDIUS's batch server before using Starlight Precise, which he says cannot deinterlace footage itself. His preparation converts the PAL examples to 768×576 with square pixels. For a 4:3 HD result, he then uses a progressive, 10-bit 720×540 timeline with Lanczos 3 resampling, removes rough edges and exports a Grass Valley AVI. Doubling that in Topaz produces 1440×1080 footage for an HD timeline with side bars.

The tutorial weighs 25p against 50p. Clarke favors 50p for preserving motion but usually chooses 25p to reduce processing time. He explains that preserving 50p in this EDIUS workflow requires choosing a 50p project before adding clips.

For widescreen delivery, he upscales larger, then crops and reframes individual shots. Scene detection helps split the footage, though he demonstrates false cuts and misplaced boundaries that need correction. Optional second passes address noise, with results depending on the shot. For long renders, he recommends image sequences or overlapping chunks. His processing times describe his own hardware, and he cautions that YouTube compression limits image-quality comparisons.