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Video fine, stills screwing up
Hey there.
I edited a sequence in PP 1.5 using captured video/audio of a lecture (shot on a Sony PD-170) and a LOT of imported stills (layered PSDs, because I want to keep everything changeable in case the client wants modifications).
When I export it as a DV AVI, everything looks great; the sequence plays EXACTLY the way I edited it.
Then I send that AVI to a consumer-grade Roxio software for burning to DVD (I guess that means it converts it to an MPEG2), and the stills are all screwed up when I play the disc back.
That doesn’t make sense to me. Shouldn’t the exported AVI be locked video/audio, each frame no different than any other, no matter if its origin was as a video or still?
Strangely enough, if I go back in Premiere and put black video underneath a still, the AVI looks the same (still perfectly fine), but it affects slightly the way the stills appear on the burned DVD; they’re a little better, but still not right.
Anybody encounter this type of thing before? Should I export it differently from PP (I’ve only done DV AVIs until this point in my life.)
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6 Replies
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The first problem here is the DV export, which you should avoid (especially on stills) unless you are sending it back to a DV tape. If you are exporting to a third party encoder, you should pick one of the uncompressed options, either AVI, or Quicktime animation. DV is highly compressed and introduces additional noise that Mpeg2 encoders have a hard time dealing with.
I’m not sure if Roxio has improved their encoder over the last few years, it used to be very “average”, mainly because its users were asking for speed over quality.
The other issue with Roxio is that it tries to take over many parts of your system, meaning that conflicts with Premiere, etc are bound to happen. You should really be exporting to Mpeg2 from Premiere if the uncompressed option is requiring too much space.
Cheers,
Vince
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Thanks, Vincent, for your advice.
I just tried exporting it as an AVI instead of a DV AVI, and the plain AVI is a smaller file and has worse visual quality. That’s exactly contrary to your advice. Hmmmm. What’s going on here? The DV AVI file size is 5.4 GBs, and the AVI is 4.1 GBs.
BUT…
When the plain AVI is burned onto a DVD as video (MPEG2), the stills behave just as they do in my Premiere sequence.
So to recap:
DV AVI (looks better, bigger file size)
Premiere sequence: Stills are fine
Playback when exported: Stills are fine
Burned to DVD: Stills are all #@*#%& screwed up!AVI (looks worse, smaller file size)
Premiere sequence: Stills are fine
Playback when exported: Stills are fine
Burned to DVD: Stills are fine -
I’m not sure what you mean by plain AVI, but I am guessing you are using the default setting which is Cinepack (A very old Codec of quality much worse than DV).
After choosing Microsoft AVI, go to the Video tab below, and choose Compressor: none and uncheck “Recompress” at the bottom.
The size will be about 10 time bigger than the original.
At this point, you will have the best possible quality out of Premiere.
Cheers,
Vince
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Vincent, you really know your stuff. The AVI export was defaulting to Cinepak, and it was re-compressing.
I have it exporting again as I type, with your suggested settings, but I only wish I had asked about Keyframe and Rendering settings. I checked Optomize Stills and chose No Fields (Progressive Scan). Are these the best options for a project that is combination stills/animated stills/video?
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Keyframe and Rendering can usually be left at default if you are using standard DV footage. Optimize fields is fine.
The progressive option will depend on what the final footage will be played on, but usually shouldn’t be used if a large part of the footage on the timeline is interlaced, as it will degrade quality. It is however the best setting for progressive animation (as long as it was exported in progressive), and stills. If using progressive, you’ll also have to make sure that the DVD encoder also uses progressive as well. In doubt, just use interlaced, lower field first for standard definition.
Cheers,
Vince
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Vincent, you are supremely wise. Thanks for all the help.
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