[Jeff Pulera]

Most, if not all camcorders, will output 1080i interlaced video, even if set internally to record 1080p progressive video. The interlaced output is for compatibility with displays.

So, my guess would be that the streaming encoder is not liking the interlaced 1080i source? Your 720p output would of course be progressive.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Just went to Google and searched “Alpha Mask” and chose Images, wow there are a ton of shapes available. Think of it like a cookie-cutter for video

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Or, use an 8 or 16-point Garbage Matte and just manually draw out the shape right in Premiere. Also, I just created a white over black image in Premiere Titler and that also works as the Mask image, many ways to get the job done.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Perhaps create a Mask image in Photoshop. White parts represent Opaque and black areas for transparent. Make it the size of your Sequence, such as 1920×1080 pixels. So you would create a white octagon on black background.

Put a background image or video on V1, put overlay video (that you want the cutout from) on V2 and apply Track Matte Key to it, and put Mask image on V3. In effects setup, set Matte to Video3, and Composite using LUMA.(See image)

If set up correctly, this should put an octagonal video over whatever background you have in place on V1.

In my sample image, I combined red and yellow using the matte. Note that areas of gray will have varying levels of transparency, providing a blend of V1 and V2 images.

Note that if the V2 clip is animated, that of course will move your masking for interesting results. Or change opacity over time, many options.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Okay, that makes a lot more sense now. However, it would be best to get clarification from them about the resolution desired for delivery. My guess, since they *requested* 1080p for instance, is that the deliverable will be 1920×1080 (1.0 Pixel Aspect) and the content will then have black letterboxing to provide the desired crop factor, rather than providing an odd resolution.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Oliver,

Whatever you do, don’t change the “Pixel Aspect Ratio”, you want to leave that set to 1.0 square pixels. Anything else is known as “anamorphic” such as HDV or DVCPRO and you don’t want that for delivery, will look squished.

Your “aspect ratio” will be controlled by changing the height and width dimensions, and not the “pixel aspect ratio” (the shape of the pixels).

That said, double check with the person making these requests of you. Maybe they actually want 1920×1080, but with letterboxing providing the different aspect ratios?? Because how is the video being delivered/played? If you are making a Blu-ray for instance, you can’t use odd sizing, would have to be 1920×1080 or 720p (1280×720) and then you would simply have black letterboxing of the content within, rather than physically changing the size of the video frame itself.

And of course if you are cropping to something other than 16:9 then part of the original image is going to get cut off! Who determines what goes? Meaning how to frame the crops?

This is just odd that someone else (not the editor) is dictating these delivery aspect ratios. Really, if you want to deliver a “cinematic” aspect movie, this should be planned for from the start. Meaning you have crop markers on the on-set monitor and shoot the video to stay withing those areas. You can’t frame and shoot as 16:9 and then crop that much off later without issues. The framing gets messed up.

Next question – what frame rate is the source footage? And 1080i or 1080p? You’re delivering both PAL and NTSC frame rates, and conversion can be an issue. There are different methods available, not my area of expertise, but done incorrectly does not look good!

Good luck with all this

Jeff

[Jeff Pulera]

P.S. – “And I’ll just admit that I”m a bluray fan.”

I get that, but typically we’re talking HD content. Keep in mind that Blu-ray players, and most newer DVD players, have hardware up-scaling built in. Just connect to TV via HDMI and get “HD” from your DVD! The (standard def) DVDs I make look superb on a 60″ plasma.

Jeff

[Jeff Pulera]

VBR is Variable Bit Rate. 1 is for one-pass, 2 for two-pass. Two pass analyzes the video on the first pass, looking at complexity of content for each scene, to help determine how to best allocate the available bits. The second pass does the actual encoding.

This means that simple scenes are encoded at a lower bitrate, and complex scenes get a higher data rate. For instance, a simple title page will look great at a low rate, then the “savings” or extra bandwidth can be applied to a different scene that can use the extra quality.

For MPEG-2 DVD, you have Min – Target – Max. So for example 2 – 6 – 8, since you average bitrate for the 92 minute video would be 6. Some scenes will be encoded higher than 6, some lower, to average 6Mbps in the end.

For H.264 Blu-ray, the options are only for “Target” and “Max”.

As for the 3.1 or 4.1, those are “levels” and I can’t tell you the difference. I use presets for encoding and don’t touch controls that I don’t understand. Data rate is the one I will adjust of course – beyond that, you start messing with GOP settings and such, you can cause problems for yourself.

About someone telling you to encode DVDs at 25Mbps, there is no such thing.

I’d go ahead and make a DVD with 2-Pass VBR, settings of 2-6-8 and see what happens. That will fill the disc. If using motion menus or other overhead, you may need to lower the average bit rate a little to accommodate.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

When you say “the file is really 13.2 GB” do you mean the .mov source file? If so, that is irrelevant. Your source could be uncompressed 100GB, doesn’t matter. DVD and Blu-ray use specific highly-compressed formats and that will dictate the max file size according to program length.

There would be absolutely no point in compressing SD video as H.264 at 35Mbps if you could…serious overkill. And keep in mind that any Blu-ray disc you burn, regardless of content (SD or HD) is not going to play on any DVD players, must be BD player only.

Are you unhappy with your DVD quality when using 2-Pass VBR with 6.0 average? That should look pretty darn good. Just not sure what result you are chasing after.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers