[Heath Firestone]

It will take a while to transcode 3 hours worth of footage, depending on your transcode settings, and processor speed. You can do the transcodes before you try to create the DVD, by right clicking on the clip, setting the transcode setting, then telling it to transcode now. The transcoding is converting the .avi file from whatever codec you are using, eg. DV, to MPEG2 IBP, which is a fairly processor intensive process, which can take several times realtime, depending on number of passes, and processing power of your machine.

Hope this helps.

Heath

[Heath Firestone]

It kind of depends on how you are using the codec. Premiere has HDV built in. If you need a codec that you can render out of your animation software, you can use Avid’s software DNxHD codec, which can be brought into Premiere. You can’t really edit with it natively, since it is a .mov file, so you will have to render your footage when you drop it into your HDV project, but it is usable in programs like Combustion and Maya, which might not recognize HDV .m2v footage. It’s not a perfect solution, and it takes up a minimum of 145Mbps, but it is free.

https://www.avid.com/onlineSupport/supportcontent.asp?browse=&productID=0&contentID=7952

[Heath Firestone]

I understand that some people have had problems with large projects in Premiere, but I know a number of people, my self included, who rely on Premiere Pro CS3 for their livelihood. I am constantly doing very complex projects with many layers, mixing resolutions and codecs. I have dones several hour long multicam programs mixing HDCAM footage with HDV, DVCProHD footage and DVCAM in the same sequences. Granted, my systems are all hardware accelerated with Matrox Axio HD and LE hardware, but they are as stable as any other machine I’ve edited on. I rarely encounter stability issues.

I’m not saying that anybody is doing anything wrong, I suspect that complex projects that aren’t hardware accelerated may cause stability issues when they rely strictly on the software to handle the processing. What I do want to emphasize, is that Premiere Pro CS3 can be used as a professional tool for complex projects, although you may need some hardware acceleration if you are going to be doing serious work. That said, if you are using it as your livelihood, there are a lot of other reasons to use hardware acceleration. The time saved with hardware acceleration allowing you to apply multiple levels of color correction and effects, being able to mix formats without having to transcode or convert formats, and accelerated exports, can save dozens of hours per project, paying for the equipment many times over. If this acceleration is what is making it stable for complex projects, then it is also an argument for using it, however I understand why people might have issue with needing this to be able to do long format projects. I can’t say for sure whether this is the case, because my experience with Premiere Pro CS3 is with the acceleration. I can say, however, that I know many people who do make their living using Premiere Pro CS3 in professional environments. I also know that with my Axio systems, I have had Avid Adrenaline users, whose systems cost several times as much as my Axio LE and Axio HD systems, who have salivated over my ability to mix formats like XDCAM HD and P2 in realtime in their native formats. Sure The Adrenalines can handle them realtime, but only after they convert them to DNxHD, which takes time, and four times as much space in the case of XDCAM HD which goes from 35Mbps in XDCAM to 145Mbps in DNxHD.

I know some people are frustrated with Premiere Pro CS3, but I assure you, Premiere can be used as a professional tool. I use it daily, and I have three very stable systems which I have used for very complex, relatively long, mixed format high definition projects.

Heath

[Heath Firestone]

I’ve worked on some pretty massive projects, including an HDV project where I captured over sixty hours of footage. The final project was about an hour and a half, which I chose to edit in chapters, with each chapter being a different sequence, and then piecing them all together in another sequence. I did it this way for my own sanity, not because of any limitations I have encountered. I haven’t had stability issues, but I have also been working with hardware acceleration, with a Matrox Axio LE card, which does most of the work, and allows me to work with native (non-conformed HDV files), and allows me to mix multiple codecs in the same timeline, and still be realtime with all of my effects. It is possible that the Axio is taking the load off of Premiere, allowing it to handle much more complex projects, but I can’t say for sure. I know that people have reported issues with HDV projects, which end up being too complex, and cause crashing with Adobe, which don’t have problems when edited with a Matrox RT2X card.

My systems are stable even on very complex, long projects, so you might look into hardware acceleration, which might make a big difference.

Hope this helps,

Heath

[Heath Firestone]

It doesn’t matter if you transcode or create a .m2v file in another application, like Premiere Pro, or within Encore, but either way, you have to specify the pixel aspect ratio when you create the file.

I like Encore’s presets for 2 pass 7Mbps encoding, but it doesn’t have the most useful indicator for estimating time remaining. Premiere Pro, however, has more rendering information, but you may have to make your own presets.

I do it both ways, but I guess I prefer to do the encode in Premiere when I can. Since you can do this directly from your timeline, it might save time and space, not having to render an uncompressed version.

Heath

[Heath Firestone]

In your original post, you said that this did not show in Premiere and Encore before burning to DVD.

We’re probably still talking about temporal compression artifacting, since HDV also employs temporal compression.

If this is how the original footage looks, then there is nothing you can do about it at this point.

Out of curiosity, why are you capturing HDV through HDMI with an Intensity card? You’d probably be better off capturing over firewire, so that it doesn’t have to uncompress, then recompress, as it would if you captured from HDMI. HDMI capture will only provide a superior quality capture if you are doing a live feed. Once you’ve laid it to tape, you’ve already compressed it, so you want to try to keep your levels of recompression to a minimum.

Heath

[Heath Firestone]

If the distortion isn’t on the original footage, then it is probably artifacting caused by too much change in too short of a timespan. Temporal compression, in this case, a full frame only every fifteen frames (1/2 second), has problems when too much information changes in the span of a few frames, as is the case when a flash fires. To correct fort his, make sure you are encoding two pass VBR, preferably at 7Mbps. Variable Bitrate Compression allocates more bandwidth when needed to compensate for things like this. Two pass encoding takes twice as long, but the first time through it analyzes the footage, so it can do a higher quality encode on the second pass.

Hope this solves your problem,

Heath

[Heath Firestone]

Not quite sure, but you might try scaling your slideshow images down to a more manageable resolution in PhotoShop or whatever graphics program you are using. See if that solves your problem.

Heath

[Heath Firestone]

This should only be grayed out if the video you imported has already been transcoded. Once it has been transcoded, the pixel aspect ratio is fixed. Since you brought in uncompressed, you probakly need to revert to original, then change the way it is interpreted and then retranscode.

This should solve your problems.

Heath

[Heath Firestone]

I think this is a known bug.