Exporting 1080i movie to Mpeg-2

[Robert Dix]

Premiere Pro will do it for you , but, you will degrade the video by going to DVD, you need Blu-ray or go to Export to Tape for 1080i or change the settings in Premiere Pro to Widescreen 16:9 720 x 576 (PAL) or check the NSTC Settings and load them,

Good luck

[Akash Negi]

Yes, I am aware of the fact that 1080i converted to Mpeg-2 for DVD will be degraded in quality, while Bluray should retain the quality.. But the problem is that most people who are going to use this DVD will not have BD player at home.. so Mpeg-2 is the only solution here.

thanks very much, I actually started to encode it in the Mpeg-2 format, I will see how it looks..

Cheers..

[Jeff Pulera]

Are you in an Adobe 1920x1080i project to begin with? You can use Export to Encore to create a DVD. Adobe has a quality issue when going from HD to DVD, but with CS4 Adobe Media Encoder, in the Advanced Settings, there is a “Max Render” button and this will create a better quality, though it takes longer. You do not need to deinterlace, 1080i footage is best viewed as an interlaced DVD.

Back to the Export Settings, choose MPEG-2 for DVD, and an NTSC DVD widescreen preset, and from there, you can change the encode setting if you wish. An easy way to figure the encode rate is 560/minutes and just round down a bit. A 90-minute video would be 6.0, 120 minutes is 4.5, just don’t go above 8 even for a short video, in fact I never go above 7 because some players could have issues with high bitrates on burned media. Also, I typically use CBR rather than VBR. Just choose a preset as mentioned above, and adjust CBR and data rate and you should be good to go. Above rates assume Dolby audio, which should be default in Encore.

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor

[Akash Negi]

Yes i am in 1920 x 1080i.
Because I did not want to create a menu for my DVD, I went straight to Adobe media encoder and not Encore, but as you said about the quality issue, i will try the Encore rendering also.

Ok, so I don’t need to de-interlace.

The current rendering that has taken over 10 hours and is halfway done is the following settings..

VBR 2 pass, target-5.51, min-2.56, max-8.49
NTSC, 720×480, 29.97 drop frame, progressive, quality 5.0
audio – 48kHz, 16 bit and PCM.

what the problem looks like is that I chose Progressive in the custom settings thinking that many old TVs won’t have de-interlacing engine, but I think that DVD player should have a de-interlacing engine so the TV could be very old and still display clear video..

Well, I am a little confused for all this de-interlacing and interlacing thing.. What I want is that viewers don’t see the same kind of footage that I edited .. I had to suffer through the horizontal lines in the preview in my Macbook Pro.

THANKS very much for the detailed reply..

[Jeff Pulera]

Computer displays are non-interlaced and that’s why interlaced video doesn’t look good on your computer, but TV sets (old and new) are made to display interlaced signals, so leave interlaced as interlaced for TV viewing, but if creating video for the web (YouTube, etc.) then you can and should deinterlace.

Unless you have a third-party DVD authoring solution, you will end up using Encore for the DVD in the end. You could just use File > Export > Encore, or use Adobe Media Encoder to create the content, and then import those assets into Encore later, your choice, even if you want to burn without menus. Maybe you are new at DVD burning? You can’t just create the MPEG-2 files are burn them on a disc, you must use an authoring program even without menus

Jeff

[Jeff Pulera]

PS – I see you are doing 2-pass VBR rendering, but in my experience, that is a waste of time for most projects (unless 2+ hours), as 2-pass takes twice as long to encode. The average bitrate in your settings was 5.5, and if you do CBR 5.5, I know it will look good and get done faster

Jeff

[Akash Negi]

ahh I see what you mean.. and yeah this is my first DVD that I am creating like an official DVD.. my prior DVDs were just simple .mpg file burned to a DVD just like an archive..

and I used 2 pass VBR because the video has a lot of motion and some 3d transitions.. but given the current settings if the final output is not good, then i am going to just ditch the VBR and go with CBR 5.51..

thanks very much..

[Akash Negi]

So I finally have a .mpeg file.. but the problem is that I don’t hear any audio in the file, nor is there a different file for all the audio.. The video quality looks good but it is not of the full length, it is 1 hour and 14 minutes whereas the project was 1 hour and 24 minutes..

the file size is 3.67 GB

so 2 probs..

—10 minutes short
—no audio ( no separate files either)

this rendering took 22 hours and 38 minutes!!! it used the settings that I posted earlier in the thread..

Please help!!
thanks..

[Akash Negi]

**update**
I just tried it opening in VLC player and it works perfect.. still the last 10 minutes is missing, but the video quality and sound is all there.. I also imported it in Pr timeline and works good also..

Is there any audio codec that I could be missing in Quicktime??

thanks.

[Jeff Pulera]

22 hours? That’s sick. I guess I’m spoiled with my Matrox RT.X2 realtime system, I can output a full 2-hour video in under 2 hours. Then again, I’m not working with AVCHD either, which I understand can be very taxing on the system. You also chose 2-pass rendering which is going to take twice as long. Maybe switching from interlaced to progressive added time as well?

For AVHCD editing, you might have better luck using an intermediate codec, check out Cineform NeoScene which has a free trial version. You would import AVCHD files to computer, run conversion, then edit with the new .avi files, much easier on the system.

About the video being 10 minutes short, when you use Export, there are two choices: Entire Sequence, or Work Area. Choosing work area could result in a partial export, determined by the work area bar position above the timeline.

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor