Output quality from PP2
 

Has anyone been able to get any decent quality output out of Premiere Pro 2? If I compress a quicktime it looks like crap and the file is huge, compared to exporting from quicktime with the same exact settings. If I export a full res intermediate most of the time it's all jerky and strobe's. If I export a DVD straight from the timeline it just looks like complete crap. I'm selecting the highest quality setting in the DVD export dialog.

What settings are you guys using to get good quality?

Whoops, sorry guys. I thought I posted this in THIS forum.

Yeah I know what you mean, I could never get the Quicktime or WMV files small AND good quality from the timeline...I ended up going a roundabout way by exporting the timeline to an external encoder (Cinema Craft Encoder) by means of a frameserver (DebugMode Frameserver). This got me a good quality Mpeg2 file which I can use for the final dvd. I import this mpeg2 file back into PPro2 and export that as a WMV. It turns out far less blocky than doing the WMV from the original timeline and it more than halves the filesize. I wouldn't normally recompress like this for anything else, but since it's being downscaled for the web anyway it dosen't really matter.
PPro2 uses Mainconcept Encoder for its dvd and Mpeg2 creation...personally I think it's pants and takes far too long.
You can also get Canopus Procoder 2 which can create mpeg's, wmv, realmedia, quicktime etc.. it's not bad either

I've never been able to get Premiere to match the quality of Sorenson Squeeze or Quicktime Pro. And I don't know anyone who has.

Although I do get nice results when encoding to mpeg-2 for dvd.

What settings are you using? Are you working with HDV then down convert to SD for DVD? How are you getting good quality?

I shoot SD. Depending on the project size, I usually use a 7mb CBR at highest quality. I occassionally use a 7mb VBR if the project is huge. I usually shoot 24p so I export progressive. Then I import in Encore to author my DVD. For web distribution, I export either an uncompressed .mov or .avi, and encode in Sorenson squeeze.

I just did a test to compare output quality from Vegas 7 and my test export to NTSC DVD was a billion times better than PP2.

Wow, a billion times better seems like a LOT!
;-)

Gene, could you post full-rez screen shots and indicate the encoder settings so we can all see the results? Personally, I'm betting that at the same bit rate it's no more than a mere thousand times better! But it would be great to actually see a direct comparison.

Well maybe I was exaggerating a little bit. Maybe it's only about half a billion times better. ;)

Actually earlier I was getting ready to post some comparisons but I got caught up in a bunch of other pipeline issues. I'll post something soon though. Sit tight.

Comparison:
http://www.oblivionfilms.com/misc/PP...comparison.png

Settings:
http://www.oblivionfilms.com/misc/PP2_settings
http://www.oblivionfilms.com/misc/V7_settings.png

That's "billions" imo

That is a significant difference I'll agree! I haven't output a lot of dvd mpg material from Premiere Pro2 but I know that when I used PPro 1.5 I never had that poor of results.

Definite difference; thanks for posting those!

I just did a quick test, exported mpeg-2 from Vegas and Premiere, same settings. Then imported into Premiere, exported a tiff, and brought that into photoshop. I can't for the life of me see any difference in the two pics. I'm not sure why you're seeing such noticeable differences. Your Vegas export is definitely superior to the one from Premiere. I'm going to keep experimenting.

If yours are both similar... are they both bad or good? What settings did you use to export from PP2?

Thanks for experimenting btw.

I've been reading this discussion and don't understand it. How can Gene show such remarkable differences between Vegas and Premier Pro, while both programs use the same MainConcept engine for Encoding? What is happening?