how to save to dvd after exporting as mpeg-2 for dvd

[Vincent Rosati]

You said
“So, when I import that into AME it should not do any processing…”
I assume you meant importing to Encore? You should test your short test encodes by importing them into Encore, to make sure that your encode settings are Encore Compliant.

Correct, there shouldn’t be any transcoding, and the track info will indicate ‘Do not transcode’, or something to that effect. If the file is not compliant, the transcode would occur during import.

The resulting single file is due to selecting Multiplexing. Otherwise, you would get two files. I would only consider not multiplexing if I had a reason to think I may need to do additional audio tweaking.

Multiplexer, Variable – yes.

Your settings seem okay, although I’m not sure about the Progressive Field Order setting. If your project is Interlaced and you encode it with a Progressive flag, it may not display properly on DVD hardware. If your Source and project are interlaced, the Field Order for NTSC should be set to Lower.

Your bitrates seem fine. A high-end vbr bitrate would be 8000/6000/3825, but your settings seem fine. The main thing is that the file fits on a disc.

Almost there. 🙂

Vince

[Lillian Fidler]

I just checked my camera settings – I have a sony v1u and it has an option for prog scan – it’s set to 24 – the other options are 24a, 30 and off. Most of the footage was recorded on 24. The record format is 1080i. Does this mean it’s progressive? If not, I can try downloading that gspot program that you recommended and see if I can find the information I need.

cheers!

Lillian Fidler
Jillian Productions
St. John’s, Newfoundland
Canada

[Lillian Fidler]

o.k., I also just opened my test file that I created earlier with the settings I sent you. then opened it in gspot – the PROG light is lit up. I’m just wondering if this the file I should check. I tried checking some of the original footage by opening it in gspot but it didn’t give me much information.

Lillian

[Vincent Rosati]

Oh 24a, I can’t really speak to that. The i in 1080i indicates that it’s interlaced, but 24a is a method I’ve never worked with. Here’s a thread I found that discusses it…

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i’m wondering, does this camera in fact capture at 24fps? or just gives the effect of 24p but in reality fims 30… or 60… or whatever HD films at.

Well, you hit it on the head! The V1U captures at 30fps (or 60 interlaced frames per second). Interlacing here is the key for the 24A mode (note. 24A is NOT 24p). What the camera does, is sample the image at 24 full frames per second. As it can only record 60i, the camera does some tricky stuff with the 24 full frames and interlaces the full frames so that they are spread out over the 60 interlaced fields.

That means that when you do a reverce telecine to the 1080i60 footage, the full 24 frames are pulled out of the 60i stream.

The difference between 24A and 24p is to do with the HDV compression. HDV doesn’t create a full image for each frame like DVCAM does. Because HDV uses MPEG-2, it creates what are called temporal frames, which are frames that only record the data that has changed from the last frame.

To do a reverse telecine (and get the full 24 frames) the footage has to be captured and written as a full image for every frame. hence the use of apple intermediate codec. (or in FCP 6, you should use the ProRes 422! :D)
but there is a problem…

Because 24 doesn’t divide by 60 very well. (0.4) it means that recording in 24p will cause some 24p frames to be split between 2 different 60i frames. Thats where 24A comes in, 24A messes around with the timecode of the 60i recording so that each time you record a 24A shot, the timecode starts on a full frame rather than the second field in a frame. this means that your timecode will be broken and unusable if you shoot 24A.
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If you’re scaling down HD interlaced to DV, that would damage the interlacing, as far as I know.
Interlaced footage should always be deinterlaced before any scaling is done.

If you get a chance, fill out your profile with your hardware & software specs.

I’m not sure of a correct workflow for HD to DV conversion. Now, I’d say you should be editing in a progressive DV project, as your goal is DVD, and export as progressive. You could try right-clicking on the clips in the timeline and set to Always Deinterlace. It’s not the best method, but it might do the trick.

Vince

[Lillian Fidler]

yikes! This is getting even more complicated :.) My camera was set to 24 actually not 24A it says on the display 24p scan.

My hardware and software specs are:

computer: hp pavillion dv6000 dual core with 2 gigs of Ram, 160 gigs of hard disk space and an external 500 gig hard drive.

the software is the adobe cs4 creative suite and I’m using adobe premiere…

Any suggestions based on that information? I can go through the clips and ‘always deinterlace’ My project is setup as an hd project.

Lillian

Lillian Fidler
Jillian Productions
St. John’s, Newfoundland
Canada

[Lillian Fidler]

Hi Again:

I’ve gone through each clip and set the option to ‘always deinterlace’ I’m assuming that I don’t need to do that with titles and still photographs. So, now I’m thinking that I should go ahead and render at the specifications that we went through before and use progressive… I’m wondering if I should try a test first, but I’m not sure what I should be looking for. Any last suggestions? I really appreciate all your help and will get this eventually :.)

Lillian

Lillian Fidler
Jillian Productions
St. John’s, Newfoundland
Canada

[Vincent Rosati]

Titles should have Video Effect/Blur/Gaussian Blur = 0 applied to them. It improves the render quality.

Stills should be ‘de-flickered’, R-Click Field Options/Flicker Removal.
Square Pixel Images should also be transformed for Pixel Aspect Ratio correction. Don’t use Interpret Footage, in the clip properties. Use Video Effect/Distort Transform.

Square Pixel to 4:3
Scale width to 90%
The image will appear to be squeezed horizontally.

Square Pixel to 16:9
Scale width to 120%
The image will appear to be stretched horizontally.

Yep – I’d go with Progressive. 🙂

You should nest your final sequence in a sequence called ‘Broadcast Color’, and apply Video Effect/Video/Broadcast Colors to the whole project, since this is destined for display on a CRT.
This will be the sequence you will use for your final render.

I would do another small test render that has an example of everything; a title, a pic, a transition, a high motion portion, etc. You could nest the Broadcast Color sequence and clip it down to less than a minute.
Again, test for compatibility with Encore, and burn it to DVD-RW so you can see it on a CRT. Look for flickering in the titles and pics. The Broadcast Color filter also helps control flicker and remove colors that can cause a high pitch noise when your source has colors that are outside of the broadcast range.

Very close now. 🙂

Vince

[Lillian Fidler]

Thanks Vince! O.k., I’m starting in on this now and will let you know if I run into any snags. thanks again.

Lillian

Lillian Fidler
Jillian Productions
St. John’s, Newfoundland
Canada

[Vincent Rosati]

I think I gave you the wrong transform settings for the PAR correction for still images. I’ll check it out…

Vince

[Lillian Fidler]

Hi Vince:

Just wondering if you found those settings after. Am Having some problems with Adobe Encore crashing on me – Did you say that you can use adobe media encoder to produce a dvd?

Sorry for all these questions, I hope I’m not taking up too much of your time!

Lillian

Lillian Fidler
Jillian Productions
St. John’s, Newfoundland
Canada