HELP!Looks good in Premiere pro, but.....
 

Hey everyone,

Great site, im glad to join you and learn a thing or 1000.

Anyhow, any advice would be REALLY helpfull. I am doing a promo clip for a night club (tricky lighting), and I have finished editing the clip in premerie pro. It was shot with a GL2, and it looks great in my program.

However, when I export it into Encore and burn, it comes out looking more grainy, lower quality on the DVD. I need to render it for a widescreen plasma TV, so I need the highest possible video quality. Any advice on the settings? I also have After effects.....


Thanks in advance,

Gary Romel
www.flowingcombat.com

Resolution of dark, low contrast areas of the original tape are likely the cause. Forget about repairs in post.
Band videos need light. As for the camera, use no gain. When I shoot this kind of stuff, I use gelled lighting to boost the colours and set the camera at -3 db. Where it is darker, I use 0db. Ignore the zebra and exposure meter in the viewfinder. A monitor nearby the safety cam will reveal the needed exposure.

?
 

Hmmm, that is definately possible. Another issue is that I just discovered my partner didnt film using the GL2's widescreen option. This could be part of the problem.

Also do you think the "movie mode" should be normal (interlaced), or "frame" (non-interlaced) for better picture quality/resoulution?

It may be my export settings? How to I render/export to ensure the best possible picture?

Thanks!

Gary R.

Out of curiousity, if you are watching it on a plasma screen, is it possible you are seing interlacing artifacts?

(I don't have much experience w/ progressive sets, so I've been curious if watching interlaced DV on them looks as bad as, say, watching it on a PC monitor)

"Out of curiousity, if you are watching it on a plasma screen, is it possible you are seing interlacing artifacts?"

Actually, I didnt notice a huge difference. I have a 65'' big screen TV at home, and it looked almost the same, perhaps even clearer on the plasma.

Gary

Any thoughts on the frame VS movie mode, or rendering/exporting options?

The manual that came with your version of premiere covers the export settings in perfect detail.

As for frame mode, that is like digital zoom, it is an electronic method to simulate motion blur like film by burning up half your horizontal resolution. A Canon innovation, but now completely obsolete with the proliferation of 24p modes now available.

DV in to premiere, dv avi out to encore. This maintains the highest quality at least amount of compression.

The manual is recommended reading.

"DV in to premiere, dv avi out to encore."


Ok, so what about the best encore settings?

"The manual is recommended reading."

Wow, thanks, I should have thought of that one! Actually I did read the manual, and 2 additional books.

I was hoping you could provide some elaboration, insight, and experience through the process, since my results from following the books arent as good as I expected. But if sarcasm is the best you can do ill wait for someone else to reply...


thanks,

Gary

But if sarcasm is the best you can do ill wait for someone else to reply...


Hardly. You have just crossed into a very slippery area known as assumption.
Good luck with your learning.

Since I am not the jerk you have assumed that I am, I will elaborate on what I meant because you appear to have grossly misinterpreted.

The manual is like the one in the glove box of your car. No one memorizes the service intervals for air filter changes, transmission service etc. The same is true for the technical aspects of managing the many export formats and the associated codecs that accompany your work be it for the web, dvd, video CD, director projects etc. I do have a few of them commited to memory because I have been doing this for quite a while.
Also true is the fact that I enjoy assisting my peers in what is usually a respectable forum to discuss the matters of the day.

Respectfully - Jimmy McKenzie.

So what you are saying is that once you export from PPro your video looks dark? Is your stock footage dark? If so you can try messing with the brightness or contrast filters, but that can only go so far.......If it sucks going in it's gonna suck coming out...

As far as exporting, use MPEG2 VBR 2 Pass from the Premiere Encoder, assuming that DVD is your target.

Manuals, we don't need no stinkin manuals...All of that info should be right here on this forum...

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=67

Good Luck

"Since I am not the jerk you have assumed that I am, I will elaborate on what I meant"

Thank you for your help Jimmy. Sorry I may have misinterpreted your post as sarcasm. Its just a frustrating process sometimes, as im sure you know.

"So what you are saying is that once you export from PPro your video looks dark"

Just not as clear, the stock footage looks clearer in the program.

"use MPEG2 VBR 2 Pass from the Premiere Encoder, assuming that DVD is your target. "

Excellent, thanks, I didnt know if the constant or variable bit rate would produce higher quality for DVD.

V/R

Gary R

That would have been my next question, which settings did you
use? Multi-pass VBR should give you a better result. Higher
bitrates should give better results as well. Grain is pretty hard
to encode for an MPEG encoder.

How long is the Promo? I assume it is only 3 or 4 mins max? IF this is the case you could use CBR at 7000 and PCM audio and have enough room on the DVD. These settings will give good quality but might lead to some player incomptibility as it will push the upper limit for older players. Also in the Mainconcepts settings , under advanced, there is a choice of range 0-255, or 16-235. Do an encode with both settings to see the difference. Grain in the original video does cause big problems for the encoder. I have changed to letting my Panasonic E30 stand alone DVD recorder do the encoding as it does a much better job of noise reduction etc and is realtime. Most of my video is in the theatre environment and I found the software encoders do not do a good job unless you have a few days to wait for the encode!!!!!

theater?
 

"which settings did you
use?"

Ok, I tried the 7000 CBR after Robs post, (its only a 3 minute clip), and that seemed to improve my grainyness, and clear it up, the rest appears to be lighting, but its definately alot better now, thanks guys!



"have changed to letting my Panasonic E30 stand alone DVD recorder do the encoding as it does a much better job of noise reduction etc and is realtime"

Perhaps I need to get a stand alone encoder instead of just using my computer and adobe software?

"Most of my video is in the theatre environment and I found the software encoders do not do a good job unless you have a few days to wait for the encode!!!!!"

Interesting, I was going to ask this question later, but since you mentioned it ill ask now; the owner of the nighclub was pondering putting a one minute clip in the local movie theater. What the heck format is that, MPEG2? Can I encode/format the clip from my computer using the adobe suite?

thanks in advance for entertaining my newbie questions.

V/R

Gary R