HDV to DVD Workflow - Anyone?
 

I'm about to edit my first HC1 footage in HDV and wanted to get it to the family in HD for playback on their computers. That said, what am I expected to do in post to get a Windows Media file that will be HDV and ready to burn to a DVD for them.

I've never had much luck in Premier Pro 1.5 or 2.0 with exporting to anything other than a basic DV output file so any help would be really great.

MIguel

Just go \File\Export\Adobe Media Encoder and select either a WMV-HD present, or if you want standard-definition DVD playable on standalone players, select a DVD-compatible mpeg preset.

Obviously, there are dozens of different workflows, particularly if you want to use standalone encoders, but I'd start off trying the above ... works fine for me with an HC1 and PremierePro2.

Oh and a minor point of terminology: "HDV" is a format based on mpeg2 compression. WMV is a format based on mpeg4 compression. You should refer to the wmv file you want as being "HD" rather than HDV.

I don't know exactly how to do it in Premiere Pro, but what you want to do is encode to Windows Media at 1280x720 resolution using up to 30 progressive frames per second and a bit rate around 5-7 Mbps. Don't encode to 1080p because that's less likely to play smoothly on typical home computers.

Thanks guys, will give it a try tonight... yea I just wanted to do a basic file for them to click on, no menu's or fancy stuff, just back to basics and for some reason my brain is so trained on SD DVD with different encoderes and the like that doing this racked my brain, every export that I did last night yeilded some really crappy results.

ML

I agree with Kevin but would keep it around 5Mbps. You want to be sure their PC can handle it.

How about to MPEG2-DVD?
 

I am trying to convert HD footage shot 1280 x 720 with a 59.94 Framerate on a Varicam into MPEG2-DVD through Premiere Pro 2.0. Every Adobe Media Encoder Setting I use is giving me poor results. I have used the Progressive 16:9 High Quality 4MB VBR 2 pass and the Progressive 16:9 High Quality 7MB CBR 1 Pass. I also tried non Progressive. I have also tried non progressive. Any thoughts?

I got the best results using 7MB VBR, 2 pass. It took a lot of trial and error, but I did finally hit the right setting.

I tried a progressive 7mb VBR 2 Pass as well and I still think the footage looks poor.