[Jeff Pulera]

Your reference to a “1.5:1″” aspect ratio is incorrect because you are assuming square pixels with a 1.0 PAR (Pixel Aspect Ratio). DV video actually has a PAR of 0.9 (non-square pixels), while DV Widescreen uses a 1.2 PAR.

Year ago, 4:3 video on a computer was 640×480 with 1.0 PAR (square pixels). For whatever technical reason, with the advent of DVDs and digital video (miniDV cameras for instance), the format was decided as 720×480 with 0.9 PAR. The math doesn’t come out perfect…a few extra lines were padded into the signal as I once read, but don’t recall the specifics.

So basically, due to the 0.9 PAR, 720×480 still produces a video with a 4:3 aspect, just like a 640×480 source with a 1.0 PAR would.

Widescreen DVD uses a 1.2 PAR and if you multiply 720 x 1.2 you get 864. So in square pixels, the image would be 864×480 pixels which is 16:9. For computer/web viewing, you don’t want non-square pixels since most video players assume 1.0 PAR. This means that your 720×480 widescreen image with 1.2 PAR would look like a 4:3 image because the computer would disregard the fact that the pixels ought to be displayed as rectangles and instead displays them as squares, changing the aspect of the entire image. When creating a widescreen video for the computer, one would encode as 864×480 with 1.0 PAR.

864/16 = 54, and 480/9=53.33 (close enough) so there is your 16:9 image. I know, the math is not perfect, but I didn’t create these formats 😉

https://www.miraizon.com/support/info_aspectratio.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixel_aspect_ratio

Hope this helps.

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

First off, the Hollywood source video is cleaner and higher resolution than most of us can accomplish with consumer/prosumer gear. Most camcorders today are recording using AVCHD at 24mbps (very highly compressed) with 4:2:0 8-bit color (low fidelity), so the source is weak to begin with.

Hollywood uses a $30K+ encoding system like Scenarist with a professional Compressionist operating the system and tweaking the compression levels on a scene by scene basis to do the MPEG-2 encoding.

The Hollywood DVDs are Dual-Layer discs with double the capacity of the standard 4.7GB DVD-R discs, so they have room to increase the data rate for better quality. So, many factors are involved.

I’ve never had good luck converting 1080i HD to DVD using standard Adobe encoding tools. I use third-party apps that are free to get really nice DVDs that look great on an HDTV. Using Virtual Dub, HD2SD plugin, HC Encoder for MPEG-2 creation, then authoring with Adobe Encore CS6.

I’ve heard good things about the Tsunami MPEG Encoder (TMPGEnc) but have not tried it – https://www.tmpgenc.net/en/index.html

Thanks

Jeff

[Jeff Pulera]

I wonder if maybe the 960×540 Preview Render resolution could be doing more harm than good, meaning it may take longer to render than a 1080p preview since the video has to be scaled down. I would leave that alone.

Also, is all the source footage 24p? I notice the sequence is set to 24p, and if the footage is not also 24p that will add extra processing time to convert frame rate.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

PS – yes, same GTX 745 graphics as new Dell is using

[Jeff Pulera]

The Core i7 processors have been around for several years, but each year newer, faster versions come out. I have a Core i7-2600 which is second-gen from 5 years ago.

The one you are looking at is from 2013. Once again, it comes down to this – do you want to save a few hundred bucks and have a used machine with no warranty and lower performance, or go new and have the latest performance and full warranty? I can’t tell you what to do, but your track record with used Ebay machines has not been so great 😉

It’s nice that it has an SSD, however 80GB is pretty tiny (that was the norm in 2013…), and now a “base model” SSD is more like 240GB.

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Duke,

Doesn’t look bad for a hobbyist system. The GPU is entry-level, but certainly better than not having any GPU acceleration for Premiere. Remember that you should have a second hard drive just for Video content, either internal SATA or external USB 3.0 also.

Thanks

Jeff

[Jeff Pulera]

With hard drives and blank recording media, the advertised capacity is not the true capacity. The 50GB will have a few GB less than that available for use. For instance with DVD, they call it 4.7GB but it is really more like 4.3GB.

I believe it depends whether you count 1GB as 1000 or 1024MB. It’s a marketing game. So most likely, your content is too large for the media and that is causing an error.

Another possibility is that some users have problems burning direct from Encore. In that case, build an IMAGE from Encore rather than a DISC. This creates an .iso file on the hard drive, which you then burn with third-party burning software.

Thank you

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

How do you plan on using the Tascam? Built-in mic? One typically needs a lav mic to record good speech (short of having a talented union boom operator on the payroll). I noticed a lot of echo during your “amusement park video” and you may still get some of that with a lav due to room acoustics, but should be less obvious with a lav.

Thanks

Jeff

[Jeff Pulera]

For interviews/in-studio work, I use a wired lavaliere mic from Radio Shack, along with a headphone extender cable (about $40 for both) and plug the mic directly into camera mini mic input. I get excellent sound, synced right onto the video, no messing around.

The portable recorder comes out only for wedding and stage events

Thanks

Jeff

[Jeff Pulera]

The DR-05 is the unit I have also! Sync was horrible on project last weekend. I don’t recall having such bad sync with previous uses, but I don’t do much video these days and many months pass between uses, or once a year even…

Jeff