Jeff Pulera
Forum Replies Created
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Hi Curtis,
I agree with Danny, don’t leave encoding up to Encore. From Premiere, use Adobe Media Encoder to create your assets. Choose an “MPEG-2 for DVD” format, and an appropriate preset, like “NTSC Widescreen” or whatever suits your needs.
There are many “bitrate calculators” available online, but I found a very simple formula on the Adobe site: 560/minutes=bitrate
For instance, 560/120=4.66, and I round down a bit to allow for menus and other overhead and leave some safety margin, so 4.5 is a good setting. For short videos, I recommend not going over 6 or 7, as too high of a bitrate can choke some players. I generally stick with CBR encoding for most jobs.
In the case you discuss at 1 hour 49 minutes, use 560/109=5.13, so just encode at 5.0 and you should be golden. AME will put out two files, .m2v video and .wav audio. Create a New DVD Project in Encore – don’t mess with default encode settings – and use File > Import > As Timeline and select the two clips and bring them in. That’s it, then create menus and such. Note that chapter markers from Premiere are preserved using this method.
The video should NOT require any transcoding, will be left alone, and the .wav file will be transcoded to Dolby AC-3 automatically when building the job.
You’ll be amazed how quickly you can build a disc or image when you don’t have to encode the video. I’m talking a few minutes on a fast machine! For me, this is the best workflow because it eliminates long renders that upset the creative process when proofing discs and such.
Thanks
Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers -
Hi Paul,
Make sure you are choosing a Matrox export preset to take advantage of the MAX hardware. The “Matrox 264 for Bluray” profile should be realtime. Using any of the Adobe-native H.264 presets will not use the MAX hardware.
Thanks
Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers -
Hi Paul,
Does your MXO2 have the MAX option? If not, then Matrox has no bearing on the H.264 export times.
My experience using CS5 or CS5.5, on a Core i7-2600 machine with Nvidia graphics (Mercury GPU) is that an HD timeline going out to web formats is roughly realtime, while encoding to Blu-ray takes maybe 1.5x realtime.
If you have older PC technology, like Core i7-9xx technology or older, or do NOT have an Nvidia GPU, then it will take longer.
Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers -
Hi Bill,
From Premiere, use File > Export > Media to get to Adobe Media Encoder, then choose “MPEG-2 for DVD” format, and an appropriate preset, such as “NTSC High Quality”, or “NTSC Widescreen High Quality”.
Once you do that, don’t play with all the settings – most should be left alone!
Under the VIDEO tab, Data rate is one you can adjust – don’t go over 7 though, no matter how short the video. Use the formula 560/minutes=bitrate, but then round down a bit. For instance, 560/120=4.666, round to 4.5 and encode – it will fit! I prefer CBR encoding over VBR, that’s up to you. For projects under 90 minutes, I see no benefit to VBR.
AME will export video as an .m2v and audio as a .wav file. Open a new DVD project in Encore, and use File > Import As > Timeline and multi-select the corresponding .m2v and .wav files.
Import each of the 4 video segments this way, as individual timelines, then you can design your menu buttons to play any of them individually, or you can create a Playlist, allowing you to create a button that will “play all”. Use Help > Playlist to figure this out.
When you are ready to build your project, Encore will NOT transcode the video, since it is already the correct MPEG-2 format, but the .wav audio will be encoded to Dolby AC-3 on the disc.
Have fun
Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers -
The BlackMagic Intensity Shuttle is an external capture device that connects via USB 3.0, but from what I read it is kind of picky about which USB 3.0 chipsets it works with. You’d be able to capture via analog connections, as I looked at your camera specs and don’t see HDMI.
Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers -
Hi Ken,
Please apply any updates to CS5, and also look at nvidia.com for the latest display card driver, can make all the difference
Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers -
Hi Marian,
Sorry to say, the poor playback performance is to be expected given the hardware and software you are currently using. There may be tweaks you could do to slightly improve performance, but I would not expect smooth playback at all.
For decent results with the DSLR footage, you would want a quad-core PC, such as a Core i7 machine, running CS5 or CS5.5, and preferably having a supported Nvidia display card to get GPU acceleration.
H.264 is a complex codec and it takes a lot of processing power to decode it. In the Premiere Program Monitor window, try right-clicking and then reduce the Playback Resolution and see if this helps with smoother playback.
If upgrading hardware/software is not an option for you at this time, you might try transcoding the DSLR clips to another codec that is easier to play back, such as Cineform. It does of course take time to convert the clips, but the editing experience will then be much smoother.
Thanks
Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers -
Hi Scott,
This happened to me once where the spacebar wouldn’t work, and it was because I had the “loop” button highlighted under the Program window, check that first.
Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers -
Hi Bob,
Not sure what KiPro uses for a file directory structure, but best practice is to copy over the works intact – do not rename any files or folders. This is especially true with the new AVCHD format cameras, copy the works over and do not alter anything, or linkages get broken between audio, video, metadata, all that.
Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers -
Hi Marian,
We’ll need more detail in order to assist you. Mac or PC? Premiere version? Hardware specs? Video format/source?
It could be that your computer is too old/slow for the kind of footage you are importing, but please share your specs so we can move forward
Thank you
Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers