HD to DVD...HELP

[Patrick Janka]

I used Premiere for the first time recently to convert HD footage to SD to put on DVD. It came out looking like crap. Lots of grain. I tried going directly into AME and also exporting to MPEG-2 from Premiere. I used maximum render quality and all that jazz, but it made no difference. THEN I stumbled upon this article:

HD to SD DVD – Best Methods | Creating Motion Graphics Blog | Blu-Ray DVD Authoring Menu | Precomposed

It seems none of the NLE's handle this task well. Has anyone tried this workflow? I am confused by it. I exported my i-frames m2v file and wav file from premiere. I don't understand the script part. Do I create a new text file? Do I use the hd2sd file and just change the name in the title? When I tried to "run a script" in virtualdub it didn't recognize my .avs file. Help! Thanks!

[Robert Young]

Need some more info:
1) What version of Premiere Pro are you using?
2) What format is your HD footage? Is it 1920, 1440x 1080, or 720? Is it interlaced or progressive?
Getting from HD to good quality DVD is not always easy.
It's a rather under-rated task that has been discussed extensively on these fora for years.

[Patrick Janka]

1) Premiere CS5.0.3
2) 1440x1080 progressive from Canon XHA1

[Randall Leong]

Originally Posted by Patrick Janka

1) Premiere CS5.0.3
2) 1440x1080 progressive from Canon XHA1

Is your "progressive" footage 30p or 24p? If 30p, you must convert the footage to 720x480 interlaced at 59.94 fields per second (29.97 frames per second) before you can author it onto DVD. If 24p, you must use a "Progressive 24p" preset (which will insert the 2-3 pulldown flag into the transcoded video). DVD-Video does not support 30p or 60p at all.

[Patrick Janka]

Yeah, it is 30p. I just dynamic linked it to Encore, and in the Project Settings it automatically says, "Dimensions: 720x480; Frame Rate: 29.97; Fields: LowerFieldFirst" Based on the Fields section I take it Encore automatically converts it to interlaced footage.

[Robert Young]

Downscaling HD 30p to DVD should be a cleaner process than working from HD 60i.
The rescaling quality of CS5 AME is much improved over earlier versions- you should be able to get a good DVD from within CS5.
From the PPro timeline I would "Export Media" to AME and use the settings for DVD transcode @ 6mbs 2 Pass VBR.
Then import the transcoded file into Encore. You should be able to author and burn your DVD without further transcoding.
There are a lot of different workflows for this that work well- I'm just outlining one path that I have used successfully.
DVD is an interlaced format, but when using 30p source, the final DVD still looks like 30p even though it is interlaced.

[Randall Leong]

The problem here is field reversal. The "30p" mode in the XHA1 is not native 30p. It is actually "30p" encoded inside a 60i UFF stream. Therefore, the conversion to standard-definition DVD via Encore will look bad because Encore does not by itself do a good enough job of performing a field reversal. Unfortunately, Encore will not let you use UFF for SD DVD if you allow Encore to do the transcoding; it will make all standard-definition transcodes LFF no matter what. (I tried this myself with a short clip.)

[Craig Coston]

Originally Posted by Randall Leong

There is your problem: Encore does not use two-pass encoding and completely bypasses the MPE GPU acceleration settings and reencodes entirely in software-only mode. What's more, the reencoding in Encore allows you to set only the maximum video bit rate - and offers no selection whatsoever for average or minimum bit rate.

Yikes. Randall is wrong. Patrick, in Encore you can go into your transcode settings and click the "edit quality presets" button. Some of your problem might be going from an upper fields codec like HDV to a lower fields preset for DVD. I have actually had better luck setting my DVD settings to upper fields instead of lower. Cuts down on a lot of flickering in the video. CS5 handles DVD encoding just fine. In previous versions I would spit out an HD AVI and bring it into Procoder Express (part of Canopus Edius), allowing that to do the downscaling. That isn't needed anymore.

[Robert Young]

Originally Posted by Craig Coston

Some of your problem might be going from an upper fields codes like HDV to a lower fields preset for DVD. I have actually had better luck setting my DVD settings to upper fields instead of lower. Cuts down on a lot of flickering in the video.

Very good point- if there is even a suspicion the interlacing is a problem. UFF works absolutely fine for DVD. Historically DVD was LFF, but no longer an issue. Todays DVD players will play either LFF or UFF.

[Peter Manojlovic]

Robert......

You need to post some screenshots or settings..None of the suggestions i see hold to your problems.
AME will correctly downscale your HD to SD, assuming of course you've filmed in progressive mode..

Filming HD in interlaced will give you downscaling problems..

[Randall Leong]

Originally Posted by Peter Manojlovic

Robert......

You need to post some screenshots or settings..None of the suggestions i see hold to your problems.
AME will correctly downscale your HD to SD, assuming of course you've filmed in progressive mode..

Filming HD in interlaced will give you downscaling problems..

Actually, the 30p mode isn't true 30p on the XHA1. It's actually "30p" encoded in a 60i stream using Progressive Segmented Format (PSF). Although it's shot in "30p" mode, the NLE will detect that footage as 60i UFF.

[Craig Coston]

Originally Posted by Peter Manojlovic

Robert......

You need to post some screenshots or settings..None of the suggestions i see hold to your problems.
AME will correctly downscale your HD to SD, assuming of course you've filmed in progressive mode..

Filming HD in interlaced will give you downscaling problems..

I downscale my old 60i HDV footage from an FX1 with no issues as long as I output the way I stated.

[Robert Young]

Craig
It's impossible to say with certainty, from the information at hand, why your DVD encode looks bad but:
1) If the original footage looks good, then
2) Whatever the problem is, it's occurring in the encoding process
3) so, you need to change your encoding workflow to see if you can get around the problem
My suggestion is to encode from the timeline using AME and the specific settings that are known to work.
If your Canon footage is 30p in a 60i wrapper and you have the footage on a 60i timeline sequence, you should treat it as 60i, if PPro has reassembled the footage into true 30p, on a 30p sequence, then treat it as a 30p source for rendering to DVD.
The fact that your old FX1 workflow isn't working for the Canon footage simply underscores that something is different. The trick is to figure out what it is.
But, you can be sure it is a workflow issue, not some defect in CS5.

[Patrick Janka]

Thanks, guys! I played with the settings in Encore, including doing the upper fields first option, and the DVD came out 1000 times better!!

[Craig Coston]

Originally Posted by Robert Young

Craig
It's impossible to say with certainty, from the information at hand, why your DVD encode looks bad but:
1) If the original footage looks good, then
2) Whatever the problem is, it's occurring in the encoding process
3) so, you need to change your encoding workflow to see if you can get around the problem
My suggestion is to encode from the timeline using AME and the specific settings that are known to work.
If your Canon footage is 30p in a 60i wrapper and you have the footage on a 60i timeline sequence, you should treat it as 60i, if PPro has reassembled the footage into true 30p, on a 30p sequence, then treat it as a 30p source for rendering to DVD.
The fact that your old FX1 workflow isn't working for the Canon footage simply underscores that something is different. The trick is to figure out what it is.
But, you can be sure it is a workflow issue, not some defect in CS5.

It wasn't me, it was Patrick with the issue =p Patrick, glad you are headed in the right direction. The first few times spitting out DVDs from HDV source were a nightmare for me.