[Johannes Schwarz]

Hi again,
If someone with experience in this PAL – NTSC thing could glance over my settings and give me feedback, that would be great. On the PC the result plays fine, but I have no NTSC DVD-Player to test it.

So I’m exporting from my PAL project: pal-export.jpg

– I’m using the Avid DV codec. AVI uncompressed is an option (though lossless comes at 5 times bigger)
– I stick to 25p – because I will reinterpret the footage later in the NTSC Premiere project to 23,976
– I change the aspect ratio here, because I assume it will then fit perfectly on a NTSC timeline

The resulting files I import into premiere, interpret as 23,976 and place onto a DV 24p time line. Place language track

Then I output with these settings: ntsc-encode.jpg

These files go into Encore.

Does this seem a legit workflow or am I missing something (like a 3:2 pulldown or something)

Thanks,
Johannes

[Johannes Schwarz]

Bill,

thanks for your response and the tip about DNxHD (I’m on a Win-Box).
Will give it a try.

I will re-interpret those resulting files as 24p. I just meant to say that I can’t reinterpret the source files without messing up the timeline.

Thanks,
Johannes

[Johannes Schwarz]

Hi Daniel,

Hmm. Maybe I did not use the DV-PAL terminology correctly. I used these settings: screen-prog.jpg which would indicate the progressive is do-able from within the DV-PAL settings. My timelines and resulting files show up as progressive. No apparent problem

Also: the problems I had seemed to affect only certain sequences. Playing with bit rates solved it in some and switching to VBR solved it for all.
Since all my 72 time lines were just copies of each other, if the problem was progr vs interlaced mixed in the process at some point the problem would have to have been across all of my files (and having worked with mixed footage, I’ve know the pain of the resulting “jitters”). So I really think this is not a frame rate or field order mismatch issue.

In your workflow: I’m curious. Why would you do step 4 and not export with the right settings from Premiere (via AME)? Eg. Uncompressed AVI my 72 files would fill 2 TB. Even today this still is quite some “real estate”. What is the benefit of that intermediary step?

At any rate. I shipped the Masters out today. They played fine on my PC and on a DVD-Player. No jumps, no jitter. No on to the other 6 languages 🙂

[Johannes Schwarz]

Hi Eric,

thanks for the link. I’ll give it a read.

Originally (after asking on this forum) I planned to go all NTSC as you suggest and distribute it as such in PAL land. But in the early tests I felt that the loss of image resolution was bad enough to stick with PAL for most of the countries I’m distributing in. The series is a 2D line animation – not film. And so the extra lines of resolution mean a cleaner picture when the drawings are small (at least for PAL people). At an estimate of 100.000 PAL copies within the first year (note: I’ve already received 20.000 pre-orders over the last 2 weeks for the German edition alone) I think it is worth the trouble to go the extra mile (or resolution)

Cheers,
Johannes

[Johannes Schwarz]

Hallo Daniel,

well the source is non camera, animation 1080p @ 23,976 (so Bluray will be an option later)
Of course I scaled it down and interpreted it 25p to fit a 25p DV PAL timeline to work with it in Premiere. Since the animation had no audio there was no difficulty in just having a slightly shorter animation.

So the process was as follows:
– The FullHD footage is not from a camera but an animation.
– the raw animation was combined with 4k green screen (actually white screen double layer for hand and real shadows) photo-sequences to give the impression that the cartoon is drawn on paper.
– this was imported into premiere, interpreted to 25p DV PAL Widescreen etc as stated above. Voice and SFX were added and the animation cut and adjusted to fit the voice.
– This was exported to mpg2s (all working fine on its own – as do the mp4s online)
– Then I put it into Encore which now manages to get an occasional stutter into the video files if I use CBR. And from 3 test files it appeast that VBR solves the issue. Will know more in a few hours.

But:
There should be no issue with interlace, because the “footage” was produced progressive, never saw a cam and all settings in all programs it went through made sure that does not change. Even Encore meekly states as soon as I drop a clip into a timeline, that (since it promises not to encode) it will stay “no fields (progressive scan)”

As I said, I think there is something wrong (corrupted) with my MainConcept Encoder that seems to produce an occasional stutter when I use CBR. To verify that theory I need to test it with different footage, but right now the AME in full with files I need for the project.

Since you speak German you can actually take a peek at what the project looks like here: https://www.3mc.me/de/index_de.html
🙂

Cheers,
Johannes

[Johannes Schwarz]

Hi Bill,

thanks for your reply. So effectivly I will have to output a lossless avi from my pal timeline first – as I suggested in my post to be the “normal way”. No way around that. For it is not possible to take my project and re-interpret all the files from 25 to 23,976 because this would mess up the timing (and beginning and end of cuts) completely.

Looks like I need more hard drives then…

[Johannes Schwarz]

Ok. It does defy everything I know about things, but the problem on my machine seems to be that the Mainconcept Encoder in AME seems to deliver something pretty indigestible when in CBR – even though it is only 5.5 Mbps – at least in some files (making it even more mysterious)

When I use the standard 1 Pass VBR, the problems almost disappear. They are gone in the part they were troubling before and to a lesser degree have appeared at another place.

So it has something to do with the codec and the bitrate. Already this afternoon I noticed that when I re-encoded a certain file at 6 Mbps the problems were gone. I almost thought I had the solution, but it was premature. Other files did not improve at 6 Mbps.

I’m still at a loss and I’m not satifsfied. How much better things will be with VBR I will find out tomorrow morning, when the encoder is done

[Johannes Schwarz]

Tried PCM and failed this afternoon.
But I’m trying the suggested variable bitrate now. The first file (for a reason beyond me) seems to have overcome the error. I’m trying to confirm with a 2nd one. After all I got 72 sequences…. 😛
Will report back

[Johannes Schwarz]

here are my settings

ex.jpg

[Johannes Schwarz]

Hi Jeff,

the other post is about what I wanted to do once this this is finished. I’m producing a PAL-DVD for Europe and an NTSC one for North America.

Currently it is all PAL.

My suspicion seems to get more weight: there is something wrong about how premiere (or AME) delivers the mpeg. I just exported as AVI, let Encore transcode and the result does not show the stutter. I’m still not real happy about the quality, but I see light at the end of the tunnel.

Looks like I have to export 72 avi’s to replace the mpegs in Encore. Odd, but it seems to be the only way. Or is there a chance to replace the AME Mpeg2 encoder with a different version?