[Oki Pienandoro]

Common|MediaCore folder is where the same plugin is used interchangeably between AME, AE and Premiere. You have to check in Premiere Plugin folder.
I’m on PC, can’t help you with that.
Try to look a plugin folder in Premiere, might as well in AE folder as well (just in case you use AE-Premiere dynamic link)

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Sorry for the english, not native speaker.

[Oki Pienandoro]

You can make your own preset :
https://helpx.adobe.com/media-encoder/using/custom-encoding-presets.html

TV Broadcast, well (at least in my country) usually accepting ProRes. The quality preset is usually set to either Normal/HQ.

Here’s the preset for ProRes in AME (Mac only)
https://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/product.jsp?product=160&platform=Macintosh

In windows just encode ProRes using ffmpeg.

But many of them only accepting in Betacam Analog (i know,..it’s very old, my country didn’t move to digital era)

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Sorry for the english, not native speaker.

[Oki Pienandoro]

Maybe the footage was moving too much, Warp Stabilizer cannot makes sense of the footage.
Maybe a different method to stabilizing it, in AE or Mocha perhaps ?

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Sorry for the english, not native speaker.

[Oki Pienandoro]

OK, your MAIN question is “why my downscale render is producing a really bad result”
Simple answer, you didn’t set the bitrate correctly.
The mistakes was made in either :
1. You forgot to set the target DVD size in “Build” window in Encore, thus resulting Encore trying to squeeze your project into 1 single layer DVD, by squeezing the bitrate too low.
2. You set the bitrate too low in AME (if you did encoding manually)

But you also state that you want to make this into Dual Layer DVD (Single sided). And that pose a playback problem in the future if you didn’t know about how Encore didn’t write a layer break info correctly.

Although your DVD output seems play fine (when you play that in DVD player), just skip that to the 2nd half part of your project, and very often the 2nd part is unplayable. This is when the hardware (DVD Player) is failed when trying to read that 2nd layer.

Btw, make sure your client didn’t have a very old DVD player, 1st generation of DVD player cannot read a Dual layer DVD.

So your problem is actually two :
1. How to set the bitrate correctly (bit budgeting)
2. How to write a layer break info correctly->Future problem.

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About bit budgeting:

The information is on the manual, like i said, it’s too long if i wrote an explanation about bit budgeting/bitrate calculation. :
https://helpx.adobe.com/encore/using/project-planning.html#bit_budgeting

This tool will help you a bit :
https://dvd-hq.info/bitrate_calculator.php#Calculator

Just to be clear, i suggest not transcode in Encore, it didn’t give you direct control over the bitrate used (well, you can…go to File|Edit Quality Preset)
Encode in AME, then import the files as an asset/timeline.
IMO this is much user friendly, and can give you an estimated time and progress instead of that Pop-Up Trancoding windows in Encore.

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About layer break :

(In Encore) you have to specify whether you want this as a single layer or dual layer DVD, don’t forget to choose the DVD target. But don’t let Encore wrote an automatic layer break info.

Instead outputing to ISO image, you have to output into DVD Folder.
It will gives you a structural DVD Folder. Inside that, you will find many file extension, IFO, VOB, TS, etc.

Now, download the PGCEdit (freeware):
https://download.videohelp.com/r0lZ/pgcedit/
And edit that IFO files.

It’s too lengthy if i wrote how to use PGCEdit.
So here’s the tutorial link :
https://download.videohelp.com/r0lZ/pgcedit/third_party/blutach/dl_burning_with_pgcedit.htm
It’s a rather long tutorial, but believe me it’s worth every penny.

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Sorry for the english, not native speaker.

[Oki Pienandoro]

You cannot burn a 720p as DVD Video
DVD is restricted to 720×576 (PAL) or 720×480 (NTSC)

Regarding the quality, here’s my stock answer :
Not much actually.

If your source file is in HD, don’t forget to activate the “Use Maximum Render Quality” in AME. What this option do is to use a different algorithm to do a better scaled down, with the expense of slightly longer encoding time.

The second one is to put the Quality video slider much higher.
In AME 2014, the default value is 75. Make it higher like 90 or so.
This is the heart of MPEG encoding. Just Bing it/Google it if you want to find out more.
Putting a higher number doesn’t mean you will get bigger filesize, the higher the number, the longer it took to render.

The third one is the most important one.
Calculate the maximum /average/target bitrate.
I can’t wrote an explanation. Doing that will make this a very lengthy post.

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edited by me due confusing
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DVD-Dual layer is somewhat troublesome because Encore often did not break layer correctly, thus resulting in unplayable part on the video.

What you must do is to render out to DVD-Folder in Encore, and do an IFO edit using freeware PGCEdit.
Burn using Imgburn, since Imgburn can read the layer break info correctly from the above edit.

One more thing, it’s essential to burn in quality DVD (Use either Verbatim, or HP). Usage of an unknown brand is problematic in the past (there are many report on that in Doom9 forum and similar forum.

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Sorry for the english, not native speaker.

[Oki Pienandoro]

Well of course it doesn’t follow your tracking data, you parent it to the wrong layer/properties.

“…made my target a null object, then masked my solid around the eye, parented the solid to the eye …

You need to parent the solid to the null

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Sorry for the english, not native speaker.

[Oki Pienandoro]

Can you send the sample ? Just 1-2 seconds is OK.
You can send to my email, farmasinema@gmail(dot)com

I bump into this problem as well with ISP Robust key (but not the same camera, it doesn’t matter IMO if the files were already transcoded)

And the solution is in fact using a different keying method (Keylight)

I guess the algorithm/the setting you use is too aggressive.
Are the green screen is properly done ? If it’s not, you can’t helped the opaque problem.

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Sorry for the english, not native speaker.

[Oki Pienandoro]

If you want a freeware solution, just use AVISynth and many of their great resize plugin.

Other than that, this sites claim they give better result than Lanczos3 method (Avisynth version?).
https://www.infognition.com/articles/video_resize_shootout.html

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Sorry for the english, not native speaker.

[Oki Pienandoro]

Not much actually.

If your source file is in HD, don’t forget to activate the “Use Maximum Render Quality”. What this option do is to use a different algorithm to a better scaled down, with the expense of slightly longer encoding time.

The second one is to put the Quality video slider much higher.
In AME 2014, the default value is 75. Make it higher like 90 or so.
This is the heart of MPEG encoding. Just Bing it/Google it if you want to find out more.
Putting a higher number doesn’t mean you will get bigger filesize, the higher the number, the longer it took to render.

The third one is the most important one.
Calculate the maximum /average/target bitrate.
I can’t wrote an explanation. Doing that will make this a very lengthy post.

The bottom line is, don’t be afraid to put the bitrate to the maximum. All DVD player is capable of playing a max bitrate (9,8 Mbps). My rule of thumb is, if it’s doesn’t exceed my target DVD, i always put the max bitrate to maximum, and fiddle with average and minimum if i exceed my target size.
Even better, do that with bitrate calculator, there are plenty of them, just Bing it.
Take notice, you also need to calculate the other asset, not only the main video if the asset were big/plenty.

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Sorry for the english, not native speaker.

[Oki Pienandoro]

https://i.imgur.com/otu2rPS.jpg

Texturize, Transform, CC Particle, CC Light Ray

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Sorry for the english, not native speaker.