[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Drew,

There are a few popular (free) options that come to mind –

Lagarith lossless codec

Avid DNxHD codec

The Matrox MPEG-2 I-Frame codec is also an option

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Tobias,

I work with NTSC, so have never had to convert to PAL formats, nor do I have any way of testing this either, sorry. I just did a bunch of web searches and could not find anything specific to the Adobe workflow. Found same Apple and Avid workflows involving speed changes and conforming. Hopefully someone who has done this can assist

Thank you

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Tobias,

The truth is, I have never added additional files to a DVD myself. However, as it seems to be a common practice, and since Encore has that functionality built right in, I would say you should be very safe using it. As mentioned earlier, a DVD Video disc must be formatted a certain way for the DVD player to recognize it properly. As long as that is the case, and you have the VIDEO_TS folder in place, I believe any other folders are of no consequence to the player.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Tobias,

If you still have the original DVD project in Encore, just go to the BUILD step again, and find the part that says “DVD-ROM Content” and ADD your extra files there. Easy. But I’m assuming you no longer have the original stuff, and that is why you want to modify the .iso? Then read on.

An .iso is basically a snapshot, or image, of a completed disc. From the .iso, one can make EXACT copies to more discs. An .iso is more than just the data on the disc – it actually contains the “formatting” to create a properly formatted disc, whether CD Audio, DVD video, or DATA.

As you may know, DVDs contain a VIDEO_TS folder. If you simply burn that folder to a blank DVD as “data”, the DVD will NOT play in a DVD player! In your burning software, you must select “DVD Video” as the disc type before burning. Basically, not enough to just burn the content to the disc, but rather the content must be “laid out” in a certain order on the disc, and perhaps even flags or some indicator set on the disc to signify “this is a DVD VIDEO disc, not data”, so that DVD players recognize it properly. The burning software takes care of this for you.

So the point I am getting to is that if you have an .iso image of a DVD, and then start modifying that .iso, you could break the structure of the DVD so that it doesn’t work right.

Here’s what I would do. Burn the .iso to a DVD, then COPY the VIDEO_TS folder from DVD to your hard drive. In Encore, under BUILD, you can choose to burn a disc from “DVD Volume”, so you would be able to point it to the VIDEO_TS folder on your drive to get the original DVD content. In the BUILD window, scroll down to “Disc Info” and you will find a place to add “DVD-ROM Content”. Browse to find the folder you wish to add. Now burn a new DISC or IMAGE (.iso).

This way, you will be creating a completely NEW DVD or .iso file that will have no problems. Your original DVD content is unmodified, but you have added the additional content you wanted.

Hope this does it for you

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Andrew,

As you are aware by now, Premiere can use select Nvidia cards to accelerate the workflow. However, adding a second card does not help, as the Mercury Engine only uses one card.

A good Core i7 machine with Nvidia and minimum 16GB RAM can provide a good experience for most HD editing needs. If 4 cores aren’t enough, there is a 6-core option as well.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor

[Jeff Pulera]

I recently did a CS6 project which used the Warp Stabilizer effect several times and I found this greatly increases the Save time, could that be it?

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Trevor,

Adobe error codes are usually quite cryptic and mean little to the average mortal, but this one suggests maybe it doesn’t like something in the .m2v file, so perhaps the encode is somehow corrupted from Squeeze? Try what the other guy suggested about QT files I guess

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Right, you are encoding to MPEG-2 in Sorenson. When imported into Encore, the video file will NOT get transcoded again. You can use default settings in Encore – audio is automatic – so nothing for you to do concerning encoding or transcode settings in Encore. Just make your menus, test and build.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Trevor,

Considering your current project total length is about 93 minutes, you should be able to safely encode at 5.9, either CBR or using 5.9 as the AVG bitrate for VBR encoding. If using .wav audio you will notice that combined size of exported audio and video files may exceed the DVD capacity, but remember that Encore will transcode .wav to .ac3 so then it will fit. In Encore, use “File > Import > As Timeline” and Import the audio and video clips together at once.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Neil,

There should be no problem opening CS4 projects in CS6. That said, it is good practice to try and wrap things up before the update “just in case”, but you ought to be safe. I’ve not had any issues in this area myself.

Regarding system hardware, if your PC is 3, 4, 5 years old, you may want to seriously consider new hardware. Note that CS6 requires a 64-bit OS, so you’d need to upgrade to Windows 7 Pro 64-bit for instance. Does your hardware support a 64-bit OS? Are there 64-bit drivers available for the motherboard?

Your RAM is inadequate, even for current config should have been maxed at 4GB with Win XP for better performance. 8GB is a good minimum for CS6, but 16GB is even better (RAM is cheap today).

Premiere CS6 can benefit from Nvidia graphics card technology to offer hardware acceleration in CS6. Most likely you would need a newer display card to take advantage of the “Mercury Playback GPU Acceleration” features.

Do you edit HD, or intend to move in that direction? AVCHD and DSLR codecs will bring older hardware to its knees in a hurry, meaning it may not even play back without stuttering badly.

An Intel Core i7 processor and Nvidia graphics are the basis of a decent CS6 editing experience these days. With SD video for instance, imagine exporting a 2-hour production to MPEG-2 for DVD in 10 minutes. Seriously. Or exporting HD to Blu-ray or YouTube in close to realtime or better.

You could add Windows 7, more RAM, updated display card, etc. to your system, but it will still be very slow compared to even an entry-level Core i7 system. These have 4 cores running 8 threads, and the entire system architecture is just faster in every way, so it’s more than just the processor. Faster RAM, faster hard drive interface (SATA 6Gb/s), faster data transfer all working together.

If you are still cutting DV footage only, then you might get away with updating current system and it could work out for you, but not so much for HD.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers