Trouble Exporting Project to Tape and DVD

[Vince Becquiot]

All right, so yes, the system can be capable of a smooth playback to tape, although, a single laptop drive on a P4 would be borderline. I would make sure the drive is well defragged and has plenty of free space. An external drive might cause issues here. So, these are videos you have shot yourself? Once the footage is rendered, how is the playback in the preview window.

“Jump cutting, freezing, skipping” does sound like a codec issue, but if you are getting the footage directly from a DVCAM or miniDV tape, then it should be fine. This isn’t coming from an analog input right?

Once we have this part solved, other issues might include a wrong field order (lower first for DV), a wrong project setting (are you using the default NTSC DV 29.97?), or if none of these are solutions, you may just be looking at a need of a new install.

Cheers,

Vince

[Christopher Szabo]

All right, so yes, the system can be capable of a smooth playback to tape, although, a single laptop drive on a P4 would be borderline. I would make sure the drive is well defragged and has plenty of free space. An external drive might cause issues here. So, these are videos you have shot yourself? Once the footage is rendered, how is the playback in the preview window.

“Jump cutting, freezing, skipping” does sound like a codec issue, but if you are getting the footage directly from a DVCAM or miniDV tape, then it should be fine. This isn’t coming from an analog input right?

Once we have this part solved, other issues might include a wrong field order (lower first for DV), a wrong project setting (are you using the default NTSC DV 29.97?), or if none of these are solutions, you may just be looking at a need of a new install.

Okay well the system is defragged and there is plenty of space on my D drive (16GB) and I soon found out that was not enough, so I got a WD External 150 GB hArd Rive. Is this causing the issues? Yes these are videos I have shot myself. The playback in the preview window once the project is rendered is kinda slow, but that’s because my computer can’t work that fast. I usually have to use the fast forward option, and this allows me to playback the preview just fine. And all my video is caputured from a SONY Handycam camcorder, which uses miniDV tapes. I do not know if this comes from an analog input. I don’t know what that is lol. I had my multimedia teacher try to help a while back, and we solved part of the problem with rendering by changing the project setting, but now this problem is still here. What would be the next step? Do you think it could be my external hard drive?

[Vince Becquiot]

What I meant by analog capture was: Was it captured through Firewire, or through a video card input like RCA or SVideo?

Firewire is good, but analog capture software usually uses a third party Codec, and that can be an issue.

The external drive can also be a problem, especially when exporting to tape, since the data rate likely isn’t high enough, and is putting extra weight on the CPU. So, that’s for the export to tape.

But that wouldn’t explain issues for DVD burning (well the analog input would)

So, one last thing, can you put the original video that was captured through Gspot and tell me what the codec is?

Also, if you play the original video by itself on Windows Media player, how is the playback ?

Vince

[Christopher Szabo]

What I meant by analog capture was: Was it captured through Firewire, or through a video card input like RCA or SVideo?

Firewire is good, but analog capture software usually uses a third party Codec, and that can be an issue.

The external drive can also be a problem, especially when exporting to tape, since the data rate likely isn’t high enough, and is putting extra weight on the CPU. So, that’s for the export to tape.

But that wouldn’t explain issues for DVD burning (well the analog input would)

So, one last thing, can you put the original video that was captured through Gspot and tell me what the codec is?

Also, if you play the original video by itself on Windows Media player, how is the playback ?

Vince

I captured the video from the camcorder using an iLink cable and I captured the video in Premiere. Does this mean it is Firewire? And when you tell me to “put the original video that was captured through Gspot and tell me what the codec is”, by original, you mean the video I caputered from the tape in Premiere to creat my project, right? If this is true, when put into Gspot, it says the codec is “dvsd”. And this same original video when played back in WMP plays just fine. By the way, thank you for all your help on this thus far. I haven’t been able to ddins anyone to solve this for 3 months now so I really appreciate this.

[Vince Becquiot]

Yes, we talking firewire then, another term for ilink.

All right, so: Let’s work with DVD, since I’m not really sure your system can handle an export to tape at this point.
If you are working in NTSC DV (I’m assuming you are in the US), make sure your project is indeed NTSC DV 29.97, lower field first. Now, set a small work area of say 5 minutes, then select your timeline > export > Adobe Media Encoder

Format: Mpeg2 DVD
Range: work Area
Skip to the video Tab
Quality: 5
TV Standard: NTSC
Frame rate 29.97
Field order: Lower
Pixel Aspect ratio: 4:3
Bitrate Encoding: CBR
Bitrate: 8Mb/s
Keep the default GOP settings

Click ok, and choose a folder where the DVD files will be saved.

After the render is complete, go to that folder, and right click on the m2v file and choose open with Windows media.

You won’t hear audio, since it’s a separate file.

How the quality?

Vince

[Christopher Szabo]

hey vince i did everything as instructed and when this file was played in WMP, the quality was just fine.

[Vince Becquiot]

Good, so now, tell me about the project. Are you planning on putting it on a DVD ?

If so, the new settings will depend on the length of the video. If it’s under an hour, you can use the same settings.

Do you have a third party DVD authoring software such as Adobe Encore? Are you planning on using menus?

Vince

[Christopher Szabo]

Good, so now, tell me about the project. Are you planning on putting it on a DVD ?

If so, the new settings will depend on the length of the video. If it’s under an hour, you can use the same settings.

Do you have a third party DVD authoring software such as Adobe Encore? Are you planning on using menus?

Vince

Yes I am planning on putting the project on a DVD. The movie is going to be about 2 hours. Yes I have a DVD authroing Software. I use Nero. I plan on using menus.

[Vince Becquiot]

Well, Nero might not be of much help here. First it doesn’t really play well with mpeg2 files, and it may want to recompress them. The second issue is that 2 hours is a lot for a single DVD; quality won’t be at its best.

I would try burning with Premiere directly then, Premiere does have DVD templates as well (better than Nero).

The settings you should use (assuming it’s exactly 2 hours) are:

VBR 2 Pass

Min: 1.35
Average: 3.45
Max: 8

Audio PCM

Let me know of the exact length if you want better settings; also the render will take quite a while.

Vince

[Christopher Szabo]

Well, Nero might not be of much help here. First it doesn’t really play well with mpeg2 files, and it may want to recompress them. The second issue is that 2 hours is a lot for a single DVD; quality won’t be at its best.

I would try burning with Premiere directly then, Premiere does have DVD templates as well (better than Nero).

The settings you should use (assuming it’s exactly 2 hours) are:

VBR 2 Pass

Min: 1.35
Average: 3.45
Max: 8

Audio PCM

Let me know of the exact length if you want better settings; also the render will take quite a while.

Vince
it’s actually 1 hour 48 minutes and 37 seconds. will i have to change the settings each time i try to burn a DVD? how do I know what to change it to?