[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Ellen,

Best advice is to not use an HD .mov file in Encore to burn a DVD. From Premiere, export as “MPEG-2 DVD” and use an appropriate preset such as “NTSC Widescreen” or “NTSC Widescreen Progressive”. This will create the proper assets for Encore (.m2v video and .wav audio). The video will not need further transcoding, only the audio gets converted to AC-3 Dolby in Encore automatically.

In Premiere Export panel, check “Max Render Quality” as this will help with the downscale quality.

One thing you may need to adjust when exporting MPEG-2 DVD is the bitrate, depending on program length. Rule of thumb is 560/minutes = bitrate, but not to exceed 8.0 on shorter projects. I typically round down a little for safety margin. Example: 560/120=4.66 and I encode at 4.5 then.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Todd,

From what I’ve read in the past, some cameras that offer “overcrank” will actually record one second of video as two seconds on the card so that the slow-motion does play back “automatically”. In other words, maybe you record 60 frames per second, but it gets written to the card as two seconds of 30fps video.

With GoPro, one second is one second, but there are 120 frames in that second of video. Premiere is intelligent enough that if you put that 120fps video into a 30p or 60p sequence, the playback speed still seems normal… it just skips the “extra” frames. A 120p clip in a 30p sequence will just play every fourth frame, which should look no different than a clip actually recorded at 30p.

However, if you do a Speed Change, Premiere also has the intelligence to utilize the extra frames from the 120fps clip rather than interpolating frames (blending/repeating frames).

For instance, you have a 30p clip in a 30p sequence and apply 50% slow-mo, each frame gets played TWICE, so it looks a little choppy. But if you put a 60p clip in that same 30p sequence and apply 50%, Premiere takes two seconds to play one second of source clip, playing each frame once, so it should look silky smooth. You have 60 frames, and playing them at 30fps takes two seconds.

Your 119.88fps divided by 5 = 23.976, so to use ALL of the 120 frame per second for slow mo, you would use 20% slow motion (one-fifth speed) and one second of raw video will take 5 seconds to play back, using every frame. Of course, 24p always looks a little choppier because of the lower frame rate, so it may not provide results as smooth as 30p for instance. In a 30p sequence, you would use 25% speed to use all 120 frames, or 50% would use every other frame (60 of the 120 frames).

For the 23.976 sequence, stick with multiples of 20, like 40 or 60 for instance for best results. If my math is correct, 40% will use every other frame and should also provide smooth results. 60% would use every third frame, 80% every fourth frame.

Hope this all makes sense (and that I got it right!)

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Ken,

The Hosa cable should be just fine, nothing proprietary going on.

Regarding capture, you must be on a Mac then? I only have experience with the PC side, and can say that ProRes capture is not possible on PC. On PC, I have been able to capture SD as 1080i using hardware upscale, using Matrox AVI codec.

It’s been a couple of years since I tried the upscale, can test again tonight to renew my findings.

What’s the purpose of the upscale? If you have SD material that needs to be mixed into an HD project for HD delivery, then the upscale may be necessary. Otherwise, if all material is SD, you are often better off to master as SD and make the best quality DVD you can and let the DVD player do the upscale – they can do quite a nice job.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Todd,

You should not need to interpret footage. Example, put 60p clip into 30p sequence and Premiere plays clip at normal speed. However, apply 50% speed and all original frames are used for smooth slow-motion with no interpolated frames.

Or use a 23.976 sequence and 40% slow to use all 59.94 frames.

For 120fps in a 23.976, try 20% to use ALL frames, which I guess is 1/5th speed. 40% ought to use every-other frame to also provide perfect slow-motion. Etc.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Audio is all over the place. Many formats, and among those formats, many variations of bits and sample rates.

12-bit 32k, 16-bit 44k, 16-bit 48k, mono versions, etc etc.

So my guess is that Adobe is converting ALL audio to one standardized high-quality format to ensure consistently good sound results.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

If editing 60p material with the intent of delivering 30p, I would just edit in a 30p sequence and export as 30p then. Of course, assuming Premiere can accept the format you are providing and it sounds like you have that handled. You may get better quality with an .avi file as MPEG-2 is an older, lossy codec.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Jimmy,

You are correct that Premiere does not transcode video clips. However, with most formats, Premiere does “Audio Conforming” and that is the yellow progress bar you may see at the lower right of screen during/after import. This transcodes the audio into a 32-bit floating point format and that takes a little time.

https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/using/importing-digital-audio.html

Also, some MPEG-based formats such as HDV need to be Indexed and that can take a few minutes.

Make sure that you copy entire contents of SD card to hard drive, unmolested, then in Premiere use MEDIA BROWSER for the import, rather than “File > Import”.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Vincent,

Moving forward, the preferred workflow is to do a straight file copy of entire SD card contents to the editing hard drive, and Import into Premiere Pro using Media Browser. Besides fixing possible sound issues or poor playback, long recordings that use spanned clips import properly and without gaps/glitches during timeline playback.

Glad you got it working. What format does the conversion software create, an .avi or .mp4 or…what?

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Try importing via Media Browser (in Premiere) rather than File > Import. Assumed that you have entire folder structure from SD card, not just the video clip. There is vital metadata in those folders that Premiere needs for best results.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Danielle,

One possible reason that some clips are not wavy is perhaps there is no camera motion? Interlacing doesn’t always rear its ugly head until there is some movement of the camera or the talent.

When you choose an H.264 export preset, just look for something with a “p” at the end – 1080p, 720p, etc. and those are progressive and will result in a deinterlaced output that should play fine on computers. I’ve never had to deinterlace a clip on the actual timeline, exports of 1080i source to a progressive output format always just work.

How do you want to use the exported file? If we know your workflow, we may be able to suggest a certain format or preset that will work best for your needs.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers