[Ivan Myles]

Please provide some more information:

– What audio and video codecs were used to capture the source material?
– What frame rate is shown for the source file in the project tab (or in Properties…)?
– Does the footage play properly on the timeline?
– What speed is shown for the clips on the timeline using the Speed/Duration… function?

[Ivan Myles]

This is a known problem with QuickTime. The file captured in QT should look OK when viewed in other video players (Windows Media Player, VideoLAN player).

Here is a great overview of the issue and a summary of potential fixes:

https://vitrolite.wordpress.com/2010/12/31/quicktime_gamma_bug/

The best solution for MAC users is to load the x264 codec.

[Ivan Myles]

It’s a matter of where you feel comfortable balancing file size versus image quality. The lowest risk options are uncompressed, fully-sampled codecs such as RGB and 4:4:4 Y’PbPr. The next level is compressed, lossless codecs. Lossy codecs offer a higher level of risk.

Whichever codec you ultimately choose, save the archival footage with light compression. Even VC-1, H.264, and H.262 will look good at high bit rate, I-frame only, and maximum DQuant.

[Ivan Myles]

The bottleneck will be the upload data rate offered by your internet service provider. For example, 2mbps average upload speed translates to over 68 minutes of upload time per gigabyte of files.

It might take awhile to get all your files uploaded. After that everything should be OK if you can set the system to upload new changes overnight.

Even with the cloud it is a good idea to maintain HD backups.

[Ivan Myles]

If the mobile project still includes clips from the files that didn’t make it on your trip, there should be no need to import the old project. However, if you removed files or sequences from the project, then the old and new projects will need to be merged.

First, save the mobile project using a new name/version number, and copy it with any new or changed media files onto the array.

Open the project you just copied. As the project opens Premiere will ask you to locate the embedded files. Once one file is identified, Pr will find all other files located in the same directory. You will be prompted multiple times if the source files are spread across other directories. Save the project when it finishes opening.

If the new project contains all the clips and timelines from the original project, you should be good to go at this point. However, if the new project is just a subset of the original project, then you will need to integrate the two projects together.

[Ivan Myles]

It is my understanding that the footage doesn’t need to be cropped because only the center 702 pixels will be used to produce the PAL image; the black bars are ignored during playback.

Here are the settings to export using AVI-None:

Width: 702
Height: 576
Aspect: D1/DV PAL Widescreen 16:9 (1.4587)

A width of 720 can be used, if desired–it will just create a slightly larger file with black bars on either side.

Once the new file is rendered, import it to a 25fps 720×576 D1/DV PAL Widescreen sequence. The other 1080p footage added to the timeline will need to be scaled to 53.3% (or 53.4% if rounding up).

[Ivan Myles]

Glad to help!

In an older version of Premiere Pro text would pixelate badly when titles were placed against an empty background. Out of habit now I just insert a large black rectangle under the titles.

[Ivan Myles]

Sorry, one more thing: since the final output is MPEG-DVD, you can reduce file size greatly by creating the AVI-None in the final resolution and pixel aspect ratio (720×480 Widescreen, presumably). The 1:45 minute file in 24-bit depth would require 2.4GB.

[Ivan Myles]

Good to hear it’s working.

AVI-None is great if you can live with the file size. It is 8-bit RGB, so there might be a slight color shift if your workflow is YUV. Try exporting a short sample to MPEG-DVD to compare the final encode to the source footage.

By the way, 32-bit depth denotes RGBA; if you don’t have an Alpha channel use 24-bit. It cuts the file size down by 25%.

[Ivan Myles]

Good to hear it’s working.

AVI-None is great if you can live with the file size. It is 8-bit RGB, so there might be a slight color shift if your workflow is YUV. Try exporting a short sample to MPEG-DVD to compare the final encode to the source footage.

Good luck with the project.