HDV project to SD DVD
 

Ok, I have searched all the HD to SD threads and am still wondering what the best choice for down-converting an HDV(1080P) project in PP CS3 to a SD DVD is. All footage was shot, captured and edited in HD. I have tried the option below with mediocre results.
1. Direct to Encore from timelime settings, NTSC Widescreen High Quality(5 on the slider), VBR 2 pass with bitrate settings 3,5,9.

The project is a spring musical(2 hours) here is my setup:
Macbook Pro 15"2.2ghz 4GB Ram, 500Gb HD

Any advice would be greatly appreciated

Thanks

Now Bigger problem!!!
 

Now bigger problem!!! I really need some help here fellas. I have dealine for this project on coming up on Friday adn I am stuck. The project I have is actually 2 PP projects that are both about an hour long that will be combined for the final DVD.

When I go to try and render one of the segmetns from HD to a SD DVD, the render locks up around 20,000 frames...everytime. I have tried exporting to encore, freezes. I have tried exporting the movie,frezes, I have tried cutting the full edited project into smaller ones(12min),frezzes.

I have tried the following settings to no avail:

Export to encore,
NTSC Widescreen High, Quality(5 on the slider), VBR 2 pass with bitrate settings 3,5,9
NTSC Widescreen Medium, Quality(3 on the slider), VBR 1 pass with bitrate settings 1.5,4,9

Export movie,
H264 codec
DV(Quality 3)


I am sure it is something I am overlooking(crosses fingers). I dont have enough time to go back and downconvert the footage in the camera and reedit. I need help ASAP.

Thank you in advance.
Adam

I'm a Vegas user, so I don't know how much help I can really be. But I hate to see someone needing help like this...

I don't know why you are freezing at 20,000 frames. But, here are some questions I have:

1. How many total frames are there?
2. How long do you wait before you consider it to be "frozen"?

In regard to your first question, could you clarify what you mean by "mediocre"? Can I assume you mean you aren't happy with the quality? If so, I've found that I don't usually like the results of VBR. From what I know about VBR versus CBR, VBR is probably a smarter way to go... but for me it usually seems to result in inconsistent quality. So, I normally go with CBR. As far as what bit rate I use... it is the familiar trade-off between quality and size. If size isn't an issue, I usually go minimally with 5. If size is an issue, I start at 5 and work my way down until the quality is unacceptable, at which point I will re-think some edits.

Sorry I can be of more help regarding the tools you are using. I hope everything works out for you.

Andrew

Do you have any effects added to any of your clips? I've seen that error before and it was a result of using an older plug-in or filter.

Something else you could try would be creating 2 DV AVI files (one for each part), and import those into Encore and put them on the same timeline.

try in PPro: 'export' - 'movie' - 'microsoft dv avi'
then use Encore afterwards

good luck!

Ok Andrew the total frames is 101,564. The freeze is the macbook pro screen showing the "must restart" screen. I will try CBR with the bite rate set at 5 and see if that works. Storage is not and issue, just getting the stupid thing not to freeze is my big issue right now.

Eric, there are no effects. Just straight HDV footage, front to end.

I will try the avi adn microsoft avi this morning and see if that will work. My only concern there is quality of the finsished video.

I usually just export to encore with chapter markers and done. But this is my first HD footage, HD project then downconverted to SD DVD. So far editing was fine, but major road block with this render issue.

Thanks for the help so far, hopefully it works itself out this morning.

I don't know why people try to include so much footage on one DVD. The quality suffers. The DVD might not play in cheaper players. A two DVD set is the way to go.

Don't waste time with AVI, the poster was assuming that you are on Windows. You need to save the footage to MPEG2 in order to generate a DVD. This can be done from the NLE or inside Encore.
In order to avoid halting a long export you can export to a sequence of frames (TIFF) and then export the audio. In that way if it stops in the middle you can resume from where it stopped. I'll do some tests and let you know.

Thanks Paolo, that would be greatly appreciated.

I figured after I started looking at the export choices and didn't see AVI or Microsoft AVI that it must be a windows option not Mac.

After readign about TIFF, I will need to export to a TIFF file, then export audio only, then reassemble the two in encore, correct?

Greg, the 2 disk set may be an option for the final output. However, right now I cant even get one of the hour long segements to render correctly.

Adam, yes, you are correct. BTW, the export to TIFF sequence is always a good choice when handling long footage. On top of giving fault recovery you can use it to apply localized changes to your footage without re-rendering one massive movie file.

Steps involved:

1-Select File/Export/Movie
2-In the General section select File type TIFF. Range: Entire sequence. Uncheck the "Add to project when finished"
3-In the video section uncheck the "Recompress" option
4-Create a new folder, select it and then confirm the export

If the export breaks in the middle go to your sequence, set the work area to include only the frames that are no exported and then export again, this time selecting "Work area" in the range option.

Now, you have two options, depending on what software you have. If you have After Effects you can load the sequence of images as such, add the audio and export a high-quality MPEG2 from there. Or, you can load the sequence of images inside QuickTime Pro (Shift-Cmd-O) and then export to any .mov file you want. Add that file as an Encore asset, add audio and you are set to go.

Thank you Paolo,

I do have After Effects, I use the full CS3 suite.

I will try this workflow here shortly(crosses fingers)

I also just read over on the Adobe forums that to get MPEG2 transcoding in the AME to work, uncheck the "hide extension" button in the file save dialog box and then render.

Will give that try as well and post back.

Thank you again for the help it is greatly appreciated.
Adam

Still not rendering...
 

Well after hours of trying...still NO go with the render.

I tried everything that was suggested.

Paolo, the TIFF froze before it even got to 1%.

I tried umounting the hard drive then remounting, showing files ext, exporting in .mov. I also tried saving to the hard drive on the macbook pro and nothing is working.

The external HD is a 500gb with only 160GB used.

I am now wondering if my system is not big enough to handle the project. It is a Macbook pro 2.2ghz intel duo, 4Gb ram.

Is there something I should be checking or clicking to tell PP to downconvert HD to SD? I simply made the HD project with HD footage and was then just clicking export. Is there something else I shoudl be doing?


I am at my wits end and the friday deadline is looming.

Please help!!!!

All right, let's start from the beginning. Which *exact* version of Premiere are you using? How much memory do you have? What version of Mac OS afre you using?

Alright, here is my setup...

15" Macbook Pro 2.2 ghz Intel Duo
4gb Ram
Mac osx 10.4
external 500gb hard drive(eSata) 160used
Premier Pro CS3

Which *exact* version of PPro do you have. Use the About box to find out.

Oh sorry 3.2

Cool, just wanted to ascertain if we needed an upgrade.
Have you tried clearing the cached database and, last resort, erase the render files and re-render the project.

I have cleaned the cache files, i have not cleaned the render files. Where is that doen at?

I just tried rendering movie in dv ntsc, .mov, quality 3 and it seems to be working right now 40% done.

Will post back if it makes it to 100%

Cool, cleaning the DB many times solves the issues. If you need to remove the render files use the Sequence menu and the press Enter to re-render the sequence with the work area set accordingly.

Good luck

Ok so, it rendered out. The setting was DV/DVCPRO-NTSC, pixel aspect DV1/DV NTSC 0.9 4:3, but the quality was not very good. I doubt the file is usable for a DVD.

Should I use the h264 codec? something else?

You should choose MPEG2-DVD. MPEg2 is the format used by DVD. Encore will take that without needing to re-compress it.

It doesnt give me MPEG2 as a choice when exporting to .mov only AIFF,TIFF , TARGA and Quicktime.

Im making a test dvd right now with the first file to see the quality, just using iDVD

I was hoping to use a different compressor to help save some of the quality in .mov file.

Then when it is created in encore the quality will be better than the first go around.

Use the Adobe Media Encoder, no QT. MPEG2 is stored in two files, one for video, one for audio. Import them as assets in Encore and you should be done. Otherwise you need to export to QT as Uncompressed so that Encore's transcoding will not beat the crap out of your footage but if you can obtain MPEG2 you should be perfectly fine.

There in lies the problem...so far I can only export from PP in quicktime

I am going to try mpeg2 here after i make the test dvd.

what settings in AME for mpeg2?

Do you mean the uncompressed YUV 10 or 8 bite 4:2:2?

Freezes after 22,000 frames when trying to export mpeg2.

Going to try uncompressed QT, 8bite4:2:2

Check around those frames. Usually when premiere pro stops rendering it is because there is a bad frame or something. Is there video there? Graphics? After Effects Animation? What exactly?

I have similar problems when importing a series of images where one of the frames is corrupt into After Effects and then placing that AE file into a premiere timeline and rendering.

To track down the specific frame (or frames)move your workbar slider to encompass an area around where you think the problem is. Then render it out with logging on. Also watch the frame number just in case the log file doesn’t write.

Hope that this helps :)

Mitchel,

The render stops anywhere betweenI 22,000 to 32,000(20%). I looked from 8 minute through 17 and coudl not find any bad frames. There is nothing there but video. I even took out all the transitions.

I did get it to 70% last night when exporting to QT with the H264 compressor but then it froze.

I just started to render out QT uncompressed 8bit. Hopefully that will work.

Other wise I have to recapature the entire project and downconvert coming out of the camera and then re edit.

I hope I can create a batch capture log from the current project, then batch capture the SD footage, erase the HD, then bring in the new SD clips. Maybe save some time so I dont have to reedit the whole project.

Try taking out the bad section and see if that re-renders...you should be able to create a batch list by exporting your project as an EDL

** EDIT
Also try recapturing it in HD

There realy isnt one bad spot, sometimes its 20,000 sometimes 30,000 and sometimes 70,000.

Right now the Qt uncompressed 8 bit is at 50% so crossing my fingers.

Well that didnt work either froze at 73,000 frames, so....

Now to batch capture everything again in SD from the camera and reedit.

Not very happy with PP and HD right now

Get a PC! I never have these kinds of problems with Premiere

Wish it were that easy..too invested in this sytem already.

Half way through the recapture in sd so hopefully somewhere around 11 tonight I will have the re-edit done.

Well after a total recapture and re-edit of the project in to SD that lasted till midnight. I still am unable to render anything longer than 3 minutes.

Just completed a reinstall of Premire Pro and that too did not work.

Next option is to try and drop it in After Effects and see if I cna render out of there.

If anyone has any advice please chime in, as Production Premium Suite is seriuosly trying to get itself on ebay.

Have you tried to install all of the recent updates from adobe?

Yep running PP 3.2

I am now under the impression that it is the system somehow.

Yeah...what is your hard drive set up. It sounds like it might be an access problem. I don't know much about macs but there should be a way to disable all power saving modes...that might fix it.

If your editing off your local drive...well thats your problem, you really should be editing off of a RAID 0 array. Firewire or e-sata since it is a laptop.

project on local, media all on external 500gb esata drive

Adam -

Not heavy into the MAC scenario , but try the following - Turn off any power
save options as well as screensaver.

Question - The external drive - Is it formatted as FAT 32 OR NTFS ?

The Mac OS has its own file system, called HFS, it has journaling features as well as supporting all the standard Unix file aatributes

Finally.....
 

Well Paolo and others,

I finally found a fix...a very expensive one, but a fix.

I bought a new Mac Pro(dual 2.8 quads) 6gb ram and 1.82T of hardrive space.

I am pushing the deadline to Monday and redoing entire project on the new system, capture to render.

Hopefully this should have relieved any problemm...except the bill.