[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Volodymyr,

I have the same setup as you, except a GTX 470. I only tried this once just to play around, but I used Mini MAX to capture DV tape direct to 1080i Blu-ray codec. I believe I used the default setting. Then I took the result into a Matrox 1080i timeline to play out to an HD display and it looked great! Sorry that I don’t know the data rate.

I would suggest just create a few samples at different rates and then view them out of Premiere as I did, as a test. If the DV tapes are 4:3, you’re going to have black pillar bars on the HD, so that area doesn’t have to be compressed, and then it is SD footage, so it doesn’t have the detail of HD to start with. I know I can encode Blu-rays from HDV 1080i at the 18-20 data rate and they look great, so guessing you could try 15 as a starting point? I bet it looks fine.

Jeff Pulera

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Eric,

I just Googled and am getting conflicting results, but what I mostly see (and have seen over the years) is that 9.8 is the max for BOTH the video and audio combined, with 8 being the recommended max for the video stream itself.

Something people need to keep in mind is that really, who’s going to know the difference if the DVD they are watching is encoded at 7, or 7.5, or 8…really. Most of my productions over the years are in the area of 2 hours, with some dance recitals and plays going 2.5 hours or a bit more even! And with some encoding tweaks, they still look good, never a complaint from the customers and I have burned THOUSANDS of DVDs over the years, most at 4.5 setting as an average.

I just don’t want to propagate the misconception to newbies that they must aim for 8.0 or the DVD won’t look good 😉

Just completed a school play at 2 hrs. 9 minutes and it looks great on my 50″ plasma (upconverting DVD player via HDMI).

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor

[Jeff Pulera]

I just went through this last week and burned several coasters working it out. Of course now I am not in front of the Encore computer, so can’t tell you the exact steps…when looking at the menu window in Encore, there is an option to turn on the “Button routing” overlays and this will show you the up-down-left-right numbering for each button on the menu. This tells you WHERE the next move is for the selected direction.

Also, I believe under the File menu, in a settings menu you can change the behavior, or logic, of how button routing behaves. Sorry I can’t be more specific. I bet if you go to Encore Help menu and enter “Button Routing” it will show you all this. I did end up manually moving a few of my buttons or they never would’ve worked correctly in the default positions (Adobe template even!).

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Carlos,

I forget which tab it is under, but there is a window where you can select the “encoding matrix” I believe it is called. You can try different presets. I haven’t tried them all, but FOX1 worked well on a project I did. I’m at work and can’t look at the moment.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Carlos,

I’m also using HC Encoder as part of my workflow, very pleased with it.

Please note that the DVD specifications have a maximum data rate limit for audio and video combined, so regardless of how short the video is, you can only set the quality so high, therefore you can never fill the disc with much less than an hour of video.

8.0 (8000)is about the maximum you’d want to go on the video encoding, though some say to be safe with playback compatibility to maybe stick with 7 as a max limit.

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Just go to Project Settings and change the checkbox from Blu-ray to DVD and that should do it – Encore converts it all for you.

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Rafa,

HDV camcorders all have an option in the menu system for downconverting HD playback to SD, both on 1394 (i.Link convert) and analog outputs. You should find a setting that says “1080i/480i” – switch this to “1080i” to get the HD output

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Mark,

The Sequence Settings are seldom the best EXPORT choice, since you don’t want to export in a camera format which is typically what you are editing.

You said you wanted to send the video to broadcast. Please let us know the specs of the source video (i.e. AVCHD 1080i) and Sequence Settings. Then tell us how you need to deliver the video, and once we know the intended purpose we can suggest the best export settings

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Joe,

Try holding the SHIFT key down during the launch. This is a trick for Matrox users on the PC – don’t know if it will help you but can’t hurt to try, right?

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Craig,

Sometimes installs go bad, or get corrupted after the fact. In any case, this is not a common issue so I would not give up on CS5.5.

Rather, uninstall, run the Adobe Cleaner Utility, and reinstall CS5.5 and that should make it right. Be sure to use Help > Deactivate before uninstalling.

Here is the Cleaner, very important to run this – https://www.adobe.com/support/contact/cscleanertool.html

It could be that you didn’t fully uninstall CS5 before installing CS5.5, or not running the Cleaner, that resulted in a bad CS5.5 install.

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor