[Malcolm Neakl]

lol, Jeff I’m opening up the question because though you are correct about DVD and DV it doesnt cover the way anomalies I experience as my screen shots show. I took your advice and these are a result. Both yourself and mr Sacci suggested a PAR that hasn’t worked for me, and no one seemed to be explaining why.

As I hear now its that a 1024 wide image shot on 960 pixels and is squashed to a 720 pixels on dv tape (so that vertically there is no quality loss), but the image im supposed to see is still 1.0 PAR so any other aspect either adds black bars or leaves the image squashed.

sto pro veritate

[Malcolm Neakl]

well my hope is that I can work on a local film industry just like we have local theatre industry. If people are willing to pay £7 then £2 for a dvd is much more likely to get bought. Especially when its a community project and shot in the local area.

I use H264 for my own use since its such a small file, it goes up on youtube for display purposes.

As a DVD I capture in Pro, and edit there, then export to Encore, using pro’s export>encore facility.
That process has given me pants quality.
What I’m trying to get at is what process should a 30 minute video go through to look its best on dvd through encore.
are there other software based compressors that I should use that will be better than the ones bundled with pro and encore CS3. I have the option of getting rhozet carbon coder after christmas. Will its MPEG2 compression be better than pro/encore?

plus im wondering if for future recording I record directly to drive, does my output cable choice affect quality eg s-video , rca, or bnc. I noticed Fire wire live capture is no better a file than dv playback. Does the XL2 compress its image before it reaches every one of its outputs? I read a book by Scott Billups where he talks of capturing straight off the ccds.

and in my exp to all who have missed me previously saying this every 720×576 export I have ever done that has not got square pixels is squashed.

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[Malcolm Neakl]

Since both your assets have the same pixel aspect ratio basically your video should look normal since your export settings are exactly the same as your video. Your pictures should be non pixelated, and just have black edges due to them not filling out the space correctly. try viewing the video on quicktime player.
Since I just tried a similar conundrum as your project and windows media player would not show the visuals, but quicktime played it as I expected.

if it is your original video asset footage that is the problem, perhaps you have funny video data. Like my XL2, which records with 960 pixels, squeezes that image signal to 720 pixels, then to view it correctly you have to make the width 1024! at 1.0 PAR, despite it being recognised as 1.422 PAR original asset footage.

with my xl2, if i export at the pixel aspect ratio of my original dv tape signal (1.422), which is the standard thing to do, I get a squashed image.

ive yet to learn why Canon gave it 960×576 instead of 1024×576.

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[Malcolm Neakl]

in regards to editing in a 1.0 PAR? lol, this is a pain. because the DV1 NTSC (pal for me), uses a really fast codec. Which is why its in there. What you’ll have to do to make the viewer see what you actually have is get the project settings to 1.0 PAR. you cant do that with the dv ntsc. so on a new project, choose custom settings. general> editing mode – video for windows (or mac alternative if youre on mac)
That all of a sudden allows you full control of the project PAR and frame size.
so 1.0
and whatever window size you like.
you can go to town coz it wont effect your quality, only the quality of how you see it in the editing suite.
so the lower the better. As I recall the Codecs are all slow as hell thats
Video Rendering>File format then compressor. I cant remember which ones are fastest. But speed is the key not quality, since as I said, its just for while you edit. Just while you can interpret all the footage to 1.0 PAR in the project assets window when you import all your work to this new project and then resize them so they dont look squashed after you have harmonised the PAR.

Im no expert, but ive had similar issues, and hopefully this is enough know how to help.

remember, even if your project settings are using a black and white only codec (cinepak radius codec black and white setting) and all your footage is looking black and white, thats only the viewer, your project will export in colour regardless as per your export settings.

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[Malcolm Neakl]

changing the settings of your sequence will only alter the way pro lets you see the project. This is for editing purposes. It doesnt effect the files you use or export. So if you have photo that is 1024×576 and your time line/project settings are for 800×600, it doesnt alter the photo, it just means the view window wont show the sides, and you’ll see black bars at the top. but, if you export it as 1024×576, it will be just like your photo. not like you see it in premier pro.
you can see in your project window that one piece of footage is 1024×576 1.422par and 720 x 480 .919 par. so no matter how much in the timeline project it looks right, until you make the original file the same PAR as the other files, the exported videos aspect ratio will adversely effect one or the other respectively.

right click one piece of footage in your project window and interpret the footage to a PAR of the others then just resize it to make it look normal.

remember project settings is just for the premiere pro sequence viewer. Interpreting your footage in the project assets window will equalise everything.

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[Malcolm Neakl]

great quality for me is JPEG 2000 and Animation, but size wise, dont bother. H264 and MPEG4 are good compressors, the best of all pro has to offer if youre uploading to youtube, or flash but I’m not an expert with flash settings.

You should find a way to interpret your assets to be the same size and aspect ratio before exporting.
otherwise it will be good for one set, but display others all weird.

Remember your project settings are only for editing and what you see in pro. They don’t effect the original files, or the quality of your exported files. Only your export settings do.
I made that mistake. Editing in AVI animation, or uncompressed. Took a year to render.

in my exp. all the AVI compressors are half as good as thier Quicktime counterparts.
To test this, go to new item, bring up colour bars. make it ten seconds, and half way through make it rotate 360o. that will give you a good view of how each compressor handles colour and pixels.

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[Malcolm Neakl]

oh, that’s a shame. I was really hoping to make money selling my work locally as dvds, but the quality is just so low, it’d be a waste of effort.
At least using the encore compression.
cheers vince.

sto pro veritate

[Malcolm Neakl]

In my experience (I went through them all) h264 was the best compression to image quality on cs3, followed by mpeg4. all the AVI based compressions were rubbish. I tested this by making a movie of the premier pro colour bars and then rotating it for 5 seconds. Thats how I test compression quality.

Im glad Vince said my first export was right. People have been going on about 1024 not being a proper video setting. that for dvd it has to be 720. but as ive shown on, because its the xl2, it acts all strange and puts bars in.

My real issue is getting dv tape quality on dvd. How is it hollywood movies are great quality images for two hours and every mpeg2 compressor I use, no matter the quality settings, makes my xl2 image look like a handy cam.

I go pro to encore, even burning without menus is awful quality IMO.

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[Malcolm Neakl]

1024x 576 1.0par
427_1024x5761.0par.png.zip

720x 576 1.422par
428_720x5761.422par.png.zip

720x 576 1.0 par
429_720x5761.0par.png.zip

RAW FILES- in as premier makes upon capture (so straight from DV tape)
anomaly

Quicktime player
430_rawquicktime.png.zip
Windows Media Player
431_rawwmp.png.zip

Its a weird anomaly.

I cant explain it unless there is a way Premiere Pro is capturing the footage and changing it. my export settings have to be 1.0 PAR or I will get the squashed image. Despite the win media player showing the raw file (which is listed as 720×576 1.422). perfectly, exporting it after premier pro in the same settings squashes it horizontally. or stretches it vertically as one person has suggested.

sto pro veritate

[Malcolm Neakl]

Once my camera comes back from the shop, I’ll pay some attention to the capture settings and the project settings. Just my luck to have sent my camera away around Christmas post time.

I’ll update again if I have the same issues. Cheers Jeff.

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