[Alan Howard]

I think I’ve thrown you all of the scent as the Z1 (as lovely as it is) has only been used as DVcam so far ….. and this particular problem has only come up with PD 150 footage … having sat down and made a note of all of the settings I then tried outputting with picture substructure set to “Always Field”…. that seems to gave done the trick (setting it to “Automatic” gave me big blocky dropouts that covered half of the screen)… I’m still very interested to know what you guys would use as your standard settings as I’m still not convinced I’m getting as good a result as I should ……

Alan

[Alan Howard]

Version is 2.0

[Alan Howard]

Thanks George ..
Its a PAL project and not many real choices in QT Ref.. I realise that most of this stuff is irrelevant but I’ll put it all in anyway! here goes

QT ref settings

Use marks – yes
Use enabled tracks – yes
Default- Digital Mastering
Flatten tracks – yes
Fill spaces – yes
render all video effects – yes
mixdown audio tracks – yes
width + Height – 720 x 540 (4 x 3 square pixel)
Use Network Media References – unticked
Use Avid DV Codec – ticked

Now procoder …

Setting with Procoder … some seem irelevant but I’ll include anyway …
Source:
Track Mode – Use all video/flash/text tracks
Video Frame Size – 720 x 540
Frame Rate – 25.00
Video Codec – Avid DV
Interlacing – Lower/bottom first
Aspect Ratio Video[4:3],Pixel[1:1]
Audio – (not relevant!)

Target:
I load a Target Preset using Catagory DVD/ MPEG 2 – DVD PAL(Mastering Quality), (that gives me setting of …MPEG 2, DVD, 720 x 576, 25.00fps, 6 Mbps, PAL, MPEG Video, Stream + Wave filter for DVD authoring software)

I then apply a preset that a friend put in for me .. those details follow…

Target file splitting
Choose Spliting method – No Splitting

Stream Basic
Stream Format – DVD [MPEG program / Elementary stream]
Stream Type – Mpeg 2 Elementary Stream

Video Basic
Video Standard – PAL 720 x 576
Interlacing – Lower/Bottom first
Aspect Ratio Code – 4 x 3
Quality / Speed – Highest Quality

Video Bitrate Control
Bitrate type – CBR
Video Bitrate – 6500

Video Advanced
Put Sequence Header on each GOP – ticked
VBV Buffer Size (kb) – 224
Max GOP size – 15
GOP Structure – Automatic
Picture Substructure – Always frame
Use Closed GOP – unticked
Chroma Format – greyed out
Intra DC Precision – 10
Use Strict GOP Bitrate Control – ticked
Create DVD compatible stream – ticked

Audio – (notrelevant)

Interestingly enough I’ve exported a short piece of video and encoded it as I wrote these settings down ….and now that footage is giving strong horizontal bars any time there’s movement … before the footage goes anywhere near Encore… looks like I owe encore an apology! (That’s just on my computer screen tho’ .. I’ll put through encore and watch on a TV!)

How do those setting look to you?

Thanks for your time and effort!

Alan

[Alan Howard]

Thanks for that Jeff but it’s still there on my TV screen! It’s really quite bad and any camera movement looks terrible …… I shoot handheld a lot so it’s a real problem…. Your book looks interesting… What would you say the best route out of Avid is ?

[Alan Howard]

Hi Cody,
you made a post a while back about “banding” when you’re encoding with Encore … I have exactly the same thing and wondered if you’d ever figured it out ? … you can get back to direct at algy40@hotmail.com
Cheers !
Alan

[Alan Howard]

Hi Cody,
you made a post a while back about “banding” when you’re encoding with Encore … I have exactly the same thing and wondered if you’d ever figured it out ? … you can get back to direct at algy40@hotmail.com
Cheers !
Alan

[Alan Howard]

Thanks Pete,
I know it seems odd and I guess that in the tired state I was that night I may have rendered the wrong sequence with a stray edit in (I really doubt it tho!)… Later, when I put the rendered QT over the original Video layer in Avid to check if pics were drifting (Re:Visioned footage on top video line and original layers below), there are one or two points where the edit points didn’t synchronize, but at the next cut point they did… crazy I know!.. I’ll redo and hopefully it’ll go away …. Pete, while I have you can I ask is it usual to try to output a 60 min piece using the same settings ? I get the impression that the settings should be altered for various situations but my 60 min pieces contain fast moving, slow moving, panning, tripod, hand held shots etc (as do most 60 min pieces I’d suspect). Hence my need for a “Cover all” default setting that will look good for all of the above. Whats the normal work flow? I assume that you cut your piece, export as QT Ref file into AE and off you go.. is that the best route? I generally shoot on 16:9 PAL DVcam(why are tutorials always in NTSC?)and the eventual destination is DVD via Encore…
Thanks
Alan

[Alan Howard]

Thanks Pete,
I know it seems odd and I guess that in the tired state I was that night I may have rendered the wrong sequence with a stray edit in (I really doubt it tho!)… Later, when I put the rendered QT over the original Video layer in Avid to check if pics were drifting (Re:Visioned footage on top video line and original layers below), there are one or two points where the edit points didn’t synchronize, but at the next cut point they did… crazy I know!.. I’ll redo and hopefully it’ll go away …. Pete, while I have you can I ask is it usual to try to output a 60 min piece using the same settings ? I get the impression that the settings should be altered for various situations but my 60 min pieces contain fast moving, slow moving, panning, tripod, hand held shots etc (as do most 60 min pieces I’d suspect). Hence my need for a “Cover all” default setting that will look good for all of the above. Whats the normal work flow? I assume that you cut your piece, export as QT Ref file into AE and off you go.. is that the best route? I generally shoot on 16:9 PAL DVcam(why are tutorials always in NTSC?)and the eventual destination is DVD via Encore…
Thanks
Alan

[Alan Howard]

I’d love to know the difference in render times as I’ve read another guy (somewhere on Creative Cow) who swears by FieldsKit and says its at least as good as MB…. (that interface looks kind of scary tho’)
Look forward to hearing your results ! Good luck…
Alan

[Alan Howard]

I’d love to know the difference in render times as I’ve read another guy (somewhere on Creative Cow) who swears by FieldsKit and says its at least as good as MB…. (that interface looks kind of scary tho’)
Look forward to hearing your results ! Good luck…
Alan