[Jeff Pulera]

Hi PomTom,

We’re going to need some more information before any suggestions can be made.

What format did you start with – PAL or NTSC?

Standard or widescreen? HD?

What were the Premiere sequence settings, for instance “1080i 29.97”?

What kind of TV – standard or widescreen?

It’s possible that you have created a 4:3 DVD and are viewing on a widescreen that is stretching to fill the screen, and this is usually a setting in the TV menu.

We need to know the workflow you used to nail down where things went bad.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Russ,

I don’t know about the quality slider thing, but maybe a change of workflow would make things simpler, and increase quality. Within a single Project, you can have multiple Sequences. So rather than create 17 projects, and export 17 videos, create ONE project with 17 Sequences, and then create a “Master” sequence where you string together all the sequences, then export to final delivery format. This will improve quality by taking out a generation of rendering, and save time and drive space by not doing 17 exports.

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

The best way to bring tapeless media clips into Premiere is through the Media Browser panel, rather than just using “Import”. That said, as Tom mentioned, if you were not given the full folder structure, there may be parts missing, as I believe there should be some .mxf data or similar that Premiere will look for. These new cameras record a lot more than just the basic .mov clips and all the file parts work together – remove one part of the equation and the video clip becomes unusable by itself.

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Arthur,

You mentioned testing your DVD on several computers – I would most definitely test on a set-top DVD player like most of your customers will use, in addition to computers.

Certain issues that may not show up in a computer software player or PS3 will show up on a standard set-top DVD player, so make a practice of testing away from the computer that you made the DVD on.

I also was unaware of any First-play requirement, but there may be some confusion about “replication” versus “duplication”. I believe replication involves a glass master, while duplication is just making copies.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

In Vegas, export “MPEG-2 for DVD” as .m2v and .wav files, then in Encore, use “Import as Timeline” to bring in those assets.

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Casey,

Try opening the window up farther to the right and expanding the other columns, and you you very well find that it also says “Do not Transcode”. Encore will say “Untranscoded” even for compliant files simply because Encore has NOT done any transcoding to those files itself. Doesn’t mean YOU didn’t already transcode them in another application.

Typically, when you do the DVD or Blu-ray “Build” step, the Video will be skipped over and then you will see the progress for Audio transcoding taking a few minutes. If you see the Video taking a while, then it IS trancoding the video and you would need to figure out why.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Louis,

Many formats and codecs available, and within those formats, endless variations of settings, so no right or wrong really.

What matters is HOW you want to distribute the video. When you mention “public showing”, that could be playback direct from the computer, or DVD or Blu-ray, or a media player, etc.

As for the web, many variables – if quality is too high, file size and data rate get to the point where some viewers can’t watch it properly. Will it be on YouTube, Vimeo? Someone’s website?

Please let us know the DESTINATIONS for the video and that will narrow it down some.

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Jordan,

I would guess that the .jpeg has some fine details in it that don’t translate to video very well. With still photos that have exhibited this issue, I add a *slight* amount of Gaussian Blur in Photoshop. Not so much that the image looks noticeably soft, but just a touch will take care of the flickers usually. Be sure to “Save As” so you do not overwrite the original graphic in case you need to revert back.

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Alex,

When you say the H.264 clips are giving you trouble, how do you mean? Not playing back smoothly? If you don’t have Mercury Playback GPU acceleration enabled, that could be part of the issue. Do you have an Nvidia card installed? Can make a big difference

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi RC,

I’m still not sure what you mean by “my computer has an express port where I can fit an hdmi card”.

Computers don’t typically have HDMI Inputs. If you add any of the hardware I had mentioned, then there are some software options. Matrox and Black Magic both work with Adobe Premiere, but also have their own capture utilities. I should also have mentioned Grass Valley as they have cards that work with their own EDIUS software.

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor