[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Michael,

Given the large volume of tapes you have to transfer, it’s understandable why you would use the multiple decks the way you are – ingesting tapes one at a time into PC using a capture card could take a lifetime I suppose!

But back to the archive copy, say the DVD bitrate is 5mbps and then you convert to DV at 25mbps, those files are taking up 5x the space, but will not look any better than the 5mbps files because you can’t make something from nothing.

I just checked the H.264 > NTSC DV export settings in Premiere and Target is 3mbps. That would save a TON of server space (about 8x less), and those .mp4 files will be playable on any device – Mac, PC, tablet, online, etc. for years to come, while an .avi is limited to PC playback only.

I would normally be all in favor of DV .avi coming from analog source – if the source was captured directly to that format, but having gone to DVD first, DV loses its appeal.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Where are you seeing letterbox, DVD player to HD display? How is that connected, analog RCA? Sometimes the DVD player will have a menu setting where you have to tell it whether to output 4:3 or 16:9.

Best results will be had by using a DVD player (or Blu-ray player) with HDMI output – those have upscaling hardware and will provide a much better picture on HD display than older player with analog outputs, in which case the display just blows up (pixelates) the image and it can look quite nasty. Not to mention aspect ratio issues with older players.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

I never use Media Encoder as a stand-alone, as pretty much everything I work on is already in Premiere for editing so just in the habit of doing encoding from there, not familiar with where the Scale to Fill might be in AME.

The general consensus from forum users is that you will get a better quality encode from Premiere/Media Encoder than just dropping random files into Encore and letting it transcode for you. Something about a different engine under the hood, not sure if that’s true.

For me, the benefit of putting DVD-legal .m2v assets into Encore is this: once I am done with menus, I can literally create an .iso file on my drive in like 2 minutes!!!! No waiting for a long transcode at that point, it’s already been done so it will not slow down my DVD authoring process at all. The .iso can be previewed in VLC Media Player. And then burn with third-party software, or skip the .iso (image) and Build to DVD right from Encore, but either way you bypass that long encoding process (most of my event video DVDs are 90-120 minutes). Encoding from Premiere gives me a breather before tackling the DVD process, and I get immediate results then. I like that workflow. Rather than wait a long time for a test DVD, then find out there is a menu mistake an hour later.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Why two threads? Confusing…

Michael,

Can you please elaborate on the workflow? When you say going to DV, do you mean DV tape or just creating an .avi file using the DV codec for archiving?

Either way, here’s the problem as Dave mentioned – MPEG-2 DVD compression uses a very low data rate. DV is 25mbps, while DVD is only 4-8mbps usually. So by going to DVD first in the process, you have lost a LOT of the quality, which kind of defeats the purpose of then encoding back up to a higher quality DV file – can’t get quality back that was lost with the DVD compression step. Might as well archive to H.264 at that point and save drive space.

In other words, the workflow is backwards. DVD is a delivery format and doing that first is limiting the quality of any archive file you want to make. I would use a capture card to capture from VHS to hard drive (that file will be the archive master), then encode to MPEG-2 DVD from there and burn a DVD. Going to take roughly the same amount of time either way. Granted, the DVD recorder machine is perhaps a little “easier”, but…

I’ve been helping a friend that is transferring a large amount of analog (VHS and 8mm) material, and when it comes into Premiere, it looks pretty washed out. By applying a few simple color correction tweaks like Contrast and Saturation, the footage instantly looks twice as good, going from nasty to not too shabby. He just applies the filter to the entire 2-hour clip at once. Does not need to render. Then just export to DVD format. And if you don’t want the hassle of authoring DVDs, the same capture card can play the timeline back out to your DVD recorder machine in realtime, direct from timeline! Black Magic Intensity Pro card being used for instance.

If you the footage is worth archiving, then it should be worth doing it right and preserving the quality to some degree, otherwise what’s the point?

Thanks

Jeff

[Jeff Pulera]

Before starting an Encore project, I create a New Folder on drive. For instance I already have a folder for the current project I’m working on, and I create a new sub-folder inside it called DVD. I create the new Encore project inside that DVD folder, then all associated “behind the scenes” assets and temp files should be in that same folder. Once project is done/delivered, I just delete that entire folder. I may keep an .iso copy of DVD itself for archival purposes.

I see screen grabs from a lot of users of Premiere and Encore and many folks seem to use a default “My Documents” folder (on Windows) when they save projects and then I think a lot of temp file stuff gets lumped together, harder to find for deletion that way.

Thanks

Jeff

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Ryan,

You don’t want to let Encore transcode the footage, quality will not be as good as using Premiere. You must have Premiere – can’t get Encore without it. Drop the H.264 into a Sequence – make sure sequence settings match footage – then export as format MPEG-2 DVD and choose preset of NTSC 23.976p Wide.

In Export Settings panel, at upper left you will see Source Scaling – if preview window shows black bars left and right, then set to Scale to Fill before exporting.

This will create individual audio and video clips, .wav and .m2v

Make sure Encore project is set up for 24p (never done that myself)

In Encore, grab them both using Import as > Timeline

As for menus, I will usually just find an existing widescreen menu template in Encore, then use Edit in Photoshop option to change out the background to one of my choosing.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera

[Jeff Pulera]

Right, we need more info about the workflow and intentions of this process. I don’t think OP means to go to DV tape, but rather wants DV .avi files perhaps? But that wouldn’t make sense coming from DVD, since MPEG-2 DVD format is far more compressed than DV, so that quality is already lost…maybe just make .mp4 files if purpose is to archive…but we don’t know, just have to wait for a response I guess

Thanks

Jeff

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Michael,

More info needed please. When you say converting VHD to DVD, are you using a DVD recorder for the conversion?

And there is no “NTSC HDV”, I assume you mean NTSC DV?

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Jirka,

With the GTX 1060 model, you can choose 3GB or 6GB of RAM onboard, so 6GB ought to be better. Then you have a few different fan choices, like single or dual fan or blower, that is up to you. Maybe research online as to which has more efficient cooling or is quieter?

RAID means Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks. There are many different RAID modes, but in essence it means taking 2 or more drives and joining them together so they work faster, and/or offer backup features to prevent data loss. It’s possible to have 16 or more drives in a single array, for very fast performance and also offering data backup so that if a drive (or drives) fail, replace them and it can rebuild the lost data. Depends on RAID mode though, and some modes require a special hardware controller card.

RAID 0 is the simplest type of RAID. Two or more drives in this mode get combined to basically double speed and capacity of the single drive. So two 2TB drives in RAID 0 provide 4TB usable space, and is much faster than either drive working alone. The downside is that if one of the drives fail, you lose all data on both drives.

Think of a narrow, single lane road with a high volume of traffic all going one way. Traffic is congested and slow. If that road then forks left and right, cars can alternate going left, right, left, right, and so on, reducing the backup and increasing the flow of traffic. So it is with RAID 0 – incoming data is shared equally between both drives, so it’s almost like doubling the read or write speed. It’s a cheap way to get fast storage. But again, without a safety net – you may want to get an inexpensive external backup drive and use it.

So you can install two matching SATA drives inside the computer, then in Windows Disk Management, format the two as a Stripe Set, and this will make them RAID 0. To Windows and all apps, the two drives appear as a single volume, with a single drive letter. Read or write to it as you would any other drive. But much faster!

Many vendors offer external enclosures with two drives inside, with USB 3.0 connection, and RAID 0 mode so that it operates as one fast drive. There are also 4 drive units available with RAID 0 for even more capacity and speed.

Some of them also offer a RAID 1 mode. This will write the SAME data to both drives, so you always have an instant backup, but of course then you get the speed of a single drive, just backup up at all times. Good for archiving, like with photography. With video, you may want the speed instead by using RAID 0.

Any time you want to use a hard drive for video, make sure it is 7200rpm, 64mb cache, and not a “green drive” as they favor economy over performance. Get a Western Digital Caviar Black, or Seagate Barracuda for instance.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Right, just the names are different. And dragging method you use is the same as right-click, different ways to accomplish same result.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers