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trying to MPEG-2 old SD project – looks awful
Hey all,
Ive got an old project in the form of a massive lossless avi from the days in which i used premiere version 6. Its SD PAL Widescreen – shot on a pd170. Its full of blacks and dark shades.. part live action and part animated using photoshop.
I managed to get a lovely DivX avi rendered out back then, which is all i needed at the time for computer playback/
NOW – Ive been trying to get the damn thing into MPEG-2 / DVD. My God… it looks disgusting. ive tried Premiere Pro and Adobe Media Encoder.. full of all kinds on noise, shimmerynessm, chunky blocky areas and oftentimes a big black square in the middle of the screen. nevermind the square.. the genral horrendously shittly quality has been the same on all other converters ive tried – to get it to MPEG2.There are no field issues – thats something i do understand! Also the blacks are generally lifted up several notches to a grey… making the image look awful.
If I can get a good DivX version at a small file size then surely it must be possible to get a good looking MPEG 2. I dont know much in this area. Any light anyone can shed woulf be great
Stuart
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3 Replies
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Have you tried exporting say a 1 minute file – try mpeg2 with the maximum bit rate set to 7mbit/s. Also try various other formats, such as DV AVI, Apple animation, h.264 – do 1 minute clips of the same content in various formats and see if you can get any of them to look better.
What is the total length of the movie? DivX is amazing in its ability to reduce file sizes and maintain image quality, but alas few people have DivX playback in the non-pirated movie world.
And please watch your language – I know you are frustrated but this is a family show!
Report back with your findings.
Mike Cohen
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hey Mike and thanks for your reply and apologies for my language..
its only 11 mins long
ill try what you said. but im frustrated by my own ignorance of exporting. the ultimate aim is to get a dvd i can send to a film festival for projection – so im not sure how using those other formats will get me to DVD??
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The reason to try the other formats is to see if any of the other formats gives you an acceptable result. Trial and error – divide and conquer.
In other words, if you can get from your source AVI to a delivery format or other intermediate format that looks good, then you know your source file has the information you need.If you can go to DivX successfully – while you will lose a generation – could you then import the DivX into Media Encoder and export your MPEG-2. It is an indirect way to go and possibly degrading to your image, however compare that to the time spent banging your head against the wall and anxiety of a looming deadline.
Sometimes a compromise is the best solution, given that TIME cannot be altered, something else has to give.
Note for your DVD for a film festival – make it an autoplay – no menu, no need to do anything except insert the disc. I went to two local festivals this year, and 80% of the videos had iDVD style menus, and the AV techs were working in the dark without flashlights, and cheap DVD players. Test your DVD on a DVD player, not just on a computer.
Mike Cohen
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