[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Mike,

When editing HD footage, use an appropriate HD sequence to match, then use MRQ for the export to MPEG-2 DVD. Best to “keep it HD” during the editing to maximize quality of titles, graphics, effects, and of course downconversion at the end with MRQ.

You will also be able to produce HD content for YouTube and such if desired as well.

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Mike,

When the final delivery is SD, you do NOT want to upscale SD footage to HD, then back down again, it kills the SD clip quality! If you must deliver BOTH DVD and Blu-ray, you could edit in an HD sequence, then create an SD sequence and copy/paste the edits to it to retain the native SD quality for the DVD export.

Before beginning, in Edit> Prefs > General there is a checkbox for “Scale to Frame Size” – if you select this, then any clip you import will automatically match the sequence you place them in. If changing checkbox after import of clips, you can set Scale to Frame manually by right-clicking each clip in timeline.

Note that HD titles do NOT scale in an SD sequence. If memory serves, you can open the title in the titler, hit the button to make “New title based on current”, and that copy will be made at the SD frame size, then just right-click the title on the timeline and use Replace with Clip from Bin and that will substitute the SD title copy, pretty painless.

You are correct that if exporting an HD timeline to DVD, use the Max Render Quality setting for best downscale quality, but again, don’t incorporate SD footage into HD project for this purpose.

Regarding upscale conversion software, I had purchased the Boris Continuum UpRez Unit software a couple years ago for a project I did and it definitely improved the upconvert quality compared to Adobe scaling. There are likely other options out there as well

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Ryan, you beat me by :08 !!

For a point of reference, my 1-year old PC with Core i7-2600, 8GB ram and GTX 470 card running CS5.5 will export from a 1080i timeline to most H.264 formats at about realtime, just a bit longer for Blu-ray.

Jeff

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Will,

Assuming you are editing HD video, and perhaps an H.264 source, H.264 export, or both, then your computer hardware is on the weak side and the times are probably normal. Also helps to have an Nvidia GPU with Premiere, which MacBook does not have.

A Core i7 is a good system for HD editing. Systems that are 3-4 years old are really going to struggle.

If you can tell us the source video, sequence settings and export settings, maybe there are workflow tips that would help you

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

HELP > UPDATE

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

If you’re talking about reversing the field order, right-click your clip in the bin (maybe different on Mac) and select “Modify > Interpret” and this brings up a menu where you can change the field settings and frame rate.

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

I believe you would select MASK only AFTER selecting the key color, to check the results as a black/white key image.

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Carlos,

Probably any encoding matrix will look fine at a high data rate. The advantage may be on low encode rates for long programs. I did a very long dance recital and had to encode at about 3.8 and result was good, but while testing I was able to see a definite difference between the standard encode matrix and the FOX1 option. Less noise around object edges.

Also note that I think on the first page in HC, there is a box with options of 8, 9, 10, 11, and if you hover the mouse over them it tells you for high data rate, low data rate, etc., so there are many variables to consider. But again, any tweaking will be more produce bigger results on lower data rates.

I am by no means an HC Encoder expert, but learning as I go.

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor

[Jeff Pulera]

I don’t have access to Encore at this moment to experiment, but I did some web searches and it appears that you can simply encode your SD video to MPEG-2 for DVD like normal (using Adobe Media Encoder), and those files can then be imported into a Blu-ray project. The difference is, you can crank up the data rate a bit if you want, going beyond the 8mbps limit of regular DVD. Not to exceed 15 is what I saw, though beyond a certain data rate, you won’t really gain anything. Would 12 look better than 10? Likely not.

Regarding my direct capture to H.264, I was using the S-video connector from a Sony VX-2000 into MXO2 Mini with MAX, to create a 1080i H.264 file. As all Blu-ray players, and most newer DVD players, have upconversion built-in for playback, not sure if there is a benefit to converting SD to HD when we can simply let the player do it with excellent results. Was just playing around at the time.

If I get time to play with this workflow, will share my results.

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Allan,

The Atomos Ninja offers a realtime capture to ProRes solution. You would need an HDMI output from Premiere, meaning a Black Magic Intensity or Matrox MXO2 I/O device for instance.

Ninja records direct to ProRes LT, 422, and HQ codecs via HDMI input, using an inexpensive 2.5″ laptop hard drive.

The only issue you might have is if the files must be delivered with an exact amount of header or something, because you’d be manually starting/stopping the recorder unit. I suppose the recipient of the files could tighten things up on their end perhaps.

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor