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How to convert HD (.mts) to DV-AVI for use in Premiere 6.5?
Hello everyone,
I need to convert HD (1920×1080 .mts) footage to standard definition DV-AVI for use in Premiere 6.5, which doesn’t support HD. What software can I use to do this?
I’ve experimented with a number of trial versions of conversion software, like Aimersoft, Aiseesoft, Wondershare, etc. Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, none do what I need them to. There are some options for AVI, but none that seem to be exactly the same as what I get when I encode with Premiere 6.5. I see options like DivX, a few formats for gaming consoles, and a few others. But the option that has a description that’s closest to what I need actually corresponds to a .dv format, not .avi, and I can’t use that.
Also, since HD has proportions that are very different from the 720×480 screen size I get with Premiere 6.5, I need the resulting videos to be letterboxed. Again, I don’t see any options that do this. But even if I did find such an option, there would still be a problem. See, I eventually convert the 720×480 DV-AVI clips to 640×480 WMV clips, as well as DVD (MPEG2). If the software doesn’t take the horizontal picture stretch of the standard DV-AVI 720×480 footage into account, I’ll end up with squished videos. How can this be avoided?
Any advice would be highly appreciated. Thank you for your help!
Francois
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4 Replies
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Converting to HD avi can be done with NeoScene from Cineform, but i doubt Premiere 6.5 can handle that.
Converting to SD i would not know which route to take.
I think upgrading to CS4 will be the easiest. -
Hi Ann,
Thank you for your reply. Unfortunately, I can’t afford to convert to CS4. Besides, if I really wanted to use HD, there’s a copy of Premiere Elements 7 that I could potentially use. But I would much prefer to stick to Premiere 6.5 and smaller screen size, which is why I need to convert to SD DV-AVI (letterboxed), and not the other way around.
Francois
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Letterbox will give you loss of quality on top of the qualityloss of downconverting.
Use Elements 7. I do not think you will ever get in right in 6.5. -
Hi Ann,
Alright, I guess I’ll have to get used to Premiere Elements 7 after all. But I’ll have to convert the originals to a smaller screen size (with the same proportions) before I edit them in PE7. I’m worried my computer, while decent enough, might have trouble handling high-quality 1920×1080 videos.
On a somewhat different topic, I wonder how HD is handled when creating a DVD version. With SD DV-AVI, I encode the 720×480 AVI (3:2, which is a little stretched) to a 720×480 MPEG2 (also stretched), and the result when watched on computer or TV is a picture with normal 4:3 proportions (like 640×480). It’s probably not the same with HD. The authoring software I use doesn’t support HD, so I haven’t had a chance to experiment with this. I can only assume that software that does support HD produces a picture of appropriate proportions.
I must admit that I don’t quite understand the 720×480 format you get with DV-AVI. Why is it stretched? Why not capture 640×480 footage directly? I mean, why don’t the original footage and the picture on a TV have the same proportions? Is it the same with HD? From the videos I’ve shot so far, the picture appears normal to me, unlike the stretched 720×480. If it’s the case, do the proportions change when creating a DVD, or do they stay the same (resulting in a letterboxed picture, of course)?
Francois
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