[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Steven,

Who knows, one of those weird things! When I run into strange quirks like that, I just try to outsmart the computer and get the job done without extra fuss. Try this – mute all tracks except VO and try to export as AUDIO ONLY, for instance to a .wav file. If that works, import the new audio clip and drop it in the timeline, and enable all tracks except the original VO, now export final video. Optionally, export ALL audio tracks to a new clip, import, and make that the master audio for export.

Hope this does it for you

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Mike,

1. Copy entirety of SD card to hard drive, then in Premiere, use Media Browser to Import clips. Drag a clip from the Bin onto the “New Item” button at lower right of bin (hover mouse over icons to see their names), as this chooses a Sequence Preset to best match your footage.

2. Appears the new system is a PC, is that correct? If so, you can’t create ProRes on a PC (unless using some third-party software). Premiere WILL play back and edit ProRes sources, just having QuickTime installed provides the playback codec. No need to transcode really, edit native clips.

3. Reinstall. If things are missing, likely missing from Export options as well, nothing but headaches ahead if you start off on the wrong foot.

4. If QT is installed, you have the ProRes playback codecs, see #2.

5. Follow step #1, hopefully your clips are intact. Do not use any “transfer utility” from camera maker, just COPY memory card contents straight to hard drive, all folders.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Daniel,

I think you’re asking about an intermediate codec, to convert files to prior to editing? Totally unnecessary for most users, just edit the native camera files. You can play/edit ProRes files on the PC, but cannot export to ProRes or use ProRes for render previews. With CC, you can export to Avid DNxHD via Media Encoder, and that would provide an equivalent file size and quality to ProRes.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Paulo,

A RAM upgrade to 16GB would be a good start for overall system performance.

I’ve never used the onboard RAID controller for RAID 0, always just did a stripe set in Disk Management. Not sure what effect that may have on performance. Turn off “Indexing” for the video drives by right-clicking the drive in Explorer and looking under “Properties > General”, just uncheck that box. Have you ran a Disk Speed Check? A 2-drive RAID 0 ought to provide about 200MB/s. Of course, keep video drives less than 80% full and defragmented as well.

Since the Mercury GPU Acceleration is supposed to play a big part in playback performance, a graphics card update would likely make a big difference due to having LOTS more CUDA cores. On a budget, something like a GTX 660 should really help.

GoPro footage is notoriously difficult to play back even on a fast system, best to use the GoPro Studio software and convert footage to .avi before editing.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Rachel,

In the early days of DVD burning, there was only limited compatibility with the current set-top players. Perhaps only 1 in 3 worked! Over the years, it got to a point where every new DVD player now works fine with DVD-R media (assuming quality media and proper authoring).

When Blu-ray burning came out, same thing, some players work, some don’t. Sometimes, a firmware update can be applied to the Blu-ray player to resolve this. Another factor is the media, maybe try a different brand of disc.

Also, H.264 is superior to MPEG-2. Should not affect the player compatibility, but for quality, just use H.264 rather than MPEG-2.

What data rate are you using for the encoding? If pushing a high data rate, that could be an issue. Players are less forgiving of burned media than with pressed Hollywood discs, and high data rates can cause the player to choke.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Have you tried “P2 Movie” export format?

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Andrew,

I’ve not tried that application, so maybe this is unique to it…but what is a “TAW5” file? I’ve never seen that before in any DVD app.

And please elaborate on having “7 hours of video on 5% of a DVD”. I don’t see how that’s even remotely possible…DVD requires MPEG-2 video, so it’s not like TMPGEnc would be using some other compression scheme to make the files smaller. I’m lost

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Dennis,

My understanding of encoding 1080p material as 1080i is that you don’t get the interlacing issues you’d have if the source material was interlaced – you should not have an issue going this route.

If you encode 1080p30 down to 1080p24, keep in mind that you have less frames per second, which is going to produce more jerky/stuttery motion, probably not what you desire.

As with DVD, Blu-ray has a “maximum data rate” prescribed by the official Blu-ray spec. However, with DVDs or Blu-ray discs, the discs we burn at home are different than a commercially-made disc that is stamped out (replicated, versus duplicated at home). Burned discs, due to the media composition, could potentially have playback issues with some players when pushing a higher data rate.

While the DVD spec allows for about 9.4 total (video and audio), most users will limit the video data rate to 7 or 8 max for safety. I believe Blu-ray allows for about 40, but there is a point of diminishing returns. Does 30 look obviously better than 25, or 35 much better than 30? Most of my Blu-rays are 2 hours or more and look great to me at say 20, so how much “better” can 35 look if 20 already looked just fine?

So what I’m saying is, don’t think you need to approach the upper limit of the spec to have a great picture. I’d prefer wider playback compatibility over squeezing out that last 1% increase in image perfection.

Do a test – encode a short clip at few different data rates and just play them back on the computer and compare quality between then, and you may not perceive any difference. I think you’ll find 30 or 35 to offer outstanding quality, but be your own judge.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Dennis,

Variable Bit Rate (VBR) encoding is helpful for long videos, but I see no benefit for short clips. Just use CBR and crank up the rate, perhaps 30 or 35 and that should look great for you. As you said, “H.264 Blu-ray” encoding should be used. Don’t mess with any other settings besides CBR/VBR and bitrate.

You said the material is progressive, but didn’t note the frame rate. Blu-ray does not support 1080p30 – AME only has presets for 1080p23.976 or 1080i, so if your video is 1080p30 then try the 1080i Blu-ray encoding preset.

Doesn’t apply for CBR, but regarding the VBR question – the Target bitrate will be the “average” bitrate, with the Max of course being the highest rate that would be used on more complex scenes. Think of VBR as “Bit Budgeting”. With long videos (couple of hours), you want to best allocate your resources, meaning available space on the disc.

No sense in encoding still images, title pages, low-action scenes at the maximum bitrate when they will look just as good encoded at a low bitrate. Using the lower bitrate for those scenes “frees up” additional bandwidth so that you can encode complex scenes at a data rate higher than average. You’re just making the best use of the available space on the disc, applying the appropriate amount of compression to each scene to maximize quality. With two-pass encoding, the first pass analyzes the footage to determine the complexity of each scene, which therefore allows the second pass to encode each scene at the optimal rate. For short videos, just use the high bitrate with CBR, as you have room to spare!

Thanks

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Ed,

Glad you got it sorted out. Just for reference, once you’ve created an .iso file, you can burn additional DVDs from that .iso from within Encore without having to re-render the project. Where it says “Source” in the Build Window, change “Project” to “Image” in the drop down and then specify which .iso to use as the source.

For simplicity, I just use a third-party software, I think it is BurnAware, very quick and easy to burn copies from an .iso file later after Encore project was deleted.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers