Jeff Pulera
Forum Replies Created
-
Hi,
PC user here, but DVD settings will be the same. Adobe has a good formula for figuring the data rate – use 560/minutes to get the video encoding rate. So, 560/120 = 4.66, and I just round down a bit to make sure there is room for menus and such, so call it 4.5 then.
Regarding Dolby audio, 224 is more than sufficient, 320 will take up more space and any quality gains would be hard to notice.
For programs of an hour or less, I’ll go with 7.0 video data rate. Yes, you can go higher, but the issues you mentioned with playback could pop up, and frankly, no one would ever see the difference between 7 and 8.
You will also have a choice of CBR (Constant Bit Rate) or VBR (Variable Bit Rate) encoding. I’ve always used CBR, unless working with a very long program like 2.5-3 hours. Provides a more consistent quality and smooth playback on any deck.
As for quality issues mentioned with certain Apple encoding apps, can’t comment, using PC myself, but I never have any issues with DVDs I send out, and I usually do over a thousand dubs a year from many different programs I author, from wedding and events to corporate.
Hope this info is helpful
Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers -
Hi Stanley,
I believe the issue is that Hollywood movies ORIGINATE from film at a very high resolution and are also encoded to MPEG-2 using high-end encoders.
So granted, a Hollywood DVD and your DV footage are both 720×480, but a 1-chip (or even 3-chip) DV camera is no match for Hollywood footage.
Home footage will just never look as good as a movie.
I am now shooting 1080i, and though downconverting to SD for delivery, I have found that the DVDs I make originating from HDV look sharper than DVDs originating from DV footage, because there was more DETAIL and COLOR FIDELITY in the image to start with. Like the old computer saying – Garbage In, Garbage Out.
Hope this makes sense
Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers -
Premiere 6.5 is NOT suitable for editing HD, the presets are not there. The Premiere CS4 upgrade is under $300, that would be the way to go and that would also get you Encore CS4 for DVD/Blu-ray burning as well.
As Joe mentioned, you may have the option to shoot in HD and edit in SD with 6.5 software. HDV camcorders offer the option to convert HDV > DV via Firewire, so you can record 16:9 DV into Premiere 6.5 direct from camera that way and edit as you always have in SD.
Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers -
What is your video source? ALL video recorded to digital video cameras is already compressed, whether DV, HDV, XDCAM EX, MPEG-4 (AVC), etc.
Uncompressed video files are very large and can bog down the system, and also require fast, expensive hard drive arrays to play back smoothly at the needed data rate.
If you have something like an AJA or Blackmagic card that will capture to uncompressed video, and have a system to handle it, AND are doing some sort of high-end work for broadcast, then uncompressed editing is an option. For hobby, wedding, event, and most corporate work, uncompressed is overkill.
Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers -
Hi Jim,
I understand what you’re doing, and a Matrox card won’t help. The RT.X2 only works with “video size” images (720×480 for SD) for instance. When using larger documents and zooming in using Adobe Motion, it bypasses Matrox and you’re back to Adobe rendering again.
Try adding another hard drive and using that for video projects rather than the C: drive. As the other writer responded, if you can begin with smaller “document” sizes, that will also help, don’t make them any larger than they need to be, creates needless overhead.
Just had a thought – when you have the document blow up to full screen to detail text, if it is going to remain static for a period of time, use File > Export > Frame to create a still image of that, then place that still on a higher video track for that duration. That way, Premiere does not have to render that whole section from the high-res image, much easier to process the 720×480 still image. That should help a LOT.
Also, use the ENTER key to render red parts of timeline to green BEFORE exporting to DVD. Once timeline is all green, DVD should render very quickly from there since heavy work is done already.
Good luck with the project
Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers -
Hi Sean,
I’ve always just used “Fill Left” and “Fill Right” audio filters dropped onto the audio clip. I’ve had footage with ambient on left channel and wireless on right, I just add FILL RIGHT and then have wireless sound only on BOTH channels
Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers -
As mentioned, requires a re-author. Good news is that freeware programs like MPEG Streamclip from Squared5 will allow you to pull original files out of DVD, such as .m2v and .wav, for which you can then create new menus (re-author) without re-encoding or quality loss
Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers -
Just my personal preference, but I’ve always preferred to render my MPEG-2 files out of Premiere, so that after creating my DVD menus and such, there’s not such a long wait for all the encoding. I can see the finished DVD in minutes rather than hours.
I got a formula from the Adobe site that works well, which is 560/minutes to determine the encoding bitrate. I just use CBR to encode and end up with an .m2v video clip and a .wav audio file. Import these to Encore, make sure audio is set to Dolby, and Encore only has to transcode the audio and not the video.
Using above formula, a 90 minute video would be encoded at 6.0, and 120 minutes at 4.5. Note that I round-down a little to allow for menu overhead, etc.
Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers -
This is, unfortunately, a “feature” of CS3/CS4, you can NOT preview the HDV video during a capture. Scene Detect does not work with HDV either.
I’m a Matrox RT.X2 card user, and it adds both the above features with Premiere.
With software alone, you can monitor video using the camera’s LCD or connect a monitor to the camera itself
Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers -
Hi Bob,
If Encore crashed out on you and the .m2v and .wav files are different durations, then obviously there are Adobe issues since the file lengths should match.
Have you updated CS3 to the latest 3.2 version? Also check Encore for updates. “Export to Encore” should be a quick, simple way to make a DVD, but if it’s not working for you,and you have access to another DVD authoring program, try File > Export > Adobe Media Encoder instead. This will create the “assets”, meaning the audio/video files needed by the authoring program.
Choose MPEG-2 DVD as the Export type and choose an encoding preset compatible with your video, such as NTSC Medium Quality. You can then customize the settings. 2-Pass VBR is likely standard, just change to CBR 7.0 for your 30-minute program. Shouldn’t take but an hour or less to encode depending on your hardware, never anything like 48 hours (assuming red bar areas of timeline are already rendered to green)!
Leave the “drop frame” settings alone, this only refers to “drop frame timecode” which is standard, does not mean you are dropping any frames of video, which is a common misconception.
If you wish to use a DVD tool other than Encore and it does NOT accept .m2v files, then go to the Media Encoder’s Multiplexer tab, and change from “None” to “DVD”, which will multiplex the audio and video into a single “mpeg” file compatible with other DVD authoring programs.
If the authoring software supports it, it is better to use the .m2v and .wav files. Why? The .wav file is uncompressed audio, and the DVD program can encode that directly to Dolby AC-3 (if supported) and the video file does NOT have to be re-encoded, it is an efficient way to work and retain quality.
If you Import an .mpeg file into DVD program (audio and video muxed) and then wish to use Dolby AC-3, the audio had already compressed to MPEG, now it must be seperated from the muxed video stream, re-compressed to AC-3, AND the video will get re-encoded as well. Just not an efficient workflow.
I hope you are able to follow the workflow and reasoning. Let me know if you have any questions
Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers