[Jeff Pulera]

Hi David,

I don’t know the Apple workflow, but Adobe Encore offers the option to create an .iso file direct from the project. As for burning, most any burning software should give you the option to burn from an .iso or “disc image” file.

As for pulling a VIDEO_TS from an existing DVD, if it is NOT encrypted – which it won’t be if you burned it – just open the disc in the computer and copy the file to your hard drive like any other file. As mentioned earlier, in burning software, make sure you choose “DVD Video” or similar and NOT “Data” when choosing burn option.

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi David,

You don’t even need to send then the VIDEO_TS folder by itself – just get them a finished DVD and they can COPY the VIDEO_TS folder from the DVD to their hard drive. Then as Bill suggested, use almost any DVD burning software. On PC, you can get BurnAware for FREE.

As you already figured, simply burning the VIDEO_TS to a disc as DATA is no good, must use a “DVD VIDEO” preset. Another option – send customer an .iso, which is a disc image, and they can then simply burn new copies using the .iso.

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Dave,

Amazing how cheap tech stuff is coming out of China these days! Try using an “MPEG-2 for Blu-ray” preset, 720p, with multiplexing ON so it creates one file and see if that plays. Just make a short sample.

The instructions on such devices are often kind of vague and you have to experiment to see what codecs it likes.

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Shane,

Premiere projects are not backwards-compatible, except from CS5.5 to CS5. sorry

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Can you be more specific about the player brand/model? Searching for “real hd media player” results in a million hits…there are countless Chinese versions meeting this description. A link to purchase site perhaps?

Thanks

Jeff

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Steve,

Sorry to say that the workflow is very convoluted and fundamentally flawed.

DVD is standard definition, always. Since you apparently pulled the bulk of the video from an existing DVD, and you wish for the end result to again be DVD, the whole workflow should remain at DVD resolution, 720×480 for NTSC and 720×576 for PAL.

From your screen grab, it looks like you are using a 1080p project template, then exporting that to Windows Media at 720p, then converting that to 1080 .mp4, so that you can finally encode back down to DVD. The video will definitely look awful doing all these size and format conversions.

I understand that perhaps you are mixing in some additional footage to the existing DVD footage, HDV perhaps? Since you are working with mostly SD footage, and the delivery will be SD, you should stay with PAL project presets throughout. Taking the SD clips up to HD, then back to SD, will really soften them up, so just edit any new HD material in the SD project alongside the SD material from the DVD.

Note that DVD video is very highly compressed, so that footage is weak to start with, then you are re-encoding it again (a few times it seems). You must keep the re-encodes to a minimum.

I would use a PAL preset in Vegas, combine all your footage and do the editing, then from the timeline, export to MPEG-2 for DVD. You should end up with two files, an .m2v for video and .wav for audio (multiplexing OFF to get this result).

In Encore, choose “File > Import as Timeline” and multi-select the .m2v and .wav files to bring them in together.

With this workflow, you are taking the DVD footage, and only re-encoding it ONE TIME, with no scaling changes either. Any new footage you may have added to the mix is also getting transcoded just one time. This will yield the best possible results.

I hope this is helpful

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Dave,

What is the make and model of your player device, maybe I can look up the specs. I use a Western Digital WDTV and it plays HD files just fine.

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Dave,

In your project, go to File > New > Sequence

There, you can choose a new preset, such as AVCHD 720p 30.
In your original Sequence, do Select All, and Copy, then switch to new 720p sequence and Paste. This will recreate job as 720p.

As you said, you can then export at any size.

Note that you may need to do some work on images…in Preferences, I always have “Scale to Frame Size” enabled so that images always are fit to the screen. When you change sequence presets, sizing may change for you. Changing that setting does not affect assets already imported, so you may need to manually right-click each image on timeline and “scale to frame size” as needed.

I don’t know what size your stills are natively, so this is up to you to make it look good for your needs.

Jeff

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Dave,

In Premiere, please check Sequence > Sequence Settings. This will tell you the format of the sequence, such as 720×480 or 1280×720. Ideally, you’d probably want a 1280×720 (720p) sequence for your needs.

When you exported to MPEG-2…what size? If you exported at DVD size (720×480), that is a lot smaller than your 1280×720 display.

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Dave,

Not enough data to begin to figure out the issue.

What is the source video format/size?

Premiere Sequence Settings used for edit?

Export settings?

How are you playing video into display – DVD? Laptop? Media Player hardware?

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers