what settings should I export to? (Adobe premiere)

[Spike Spiegel]

Hi, i'm new to Adobe premiere pro 1.5, i got the basic editing down, and can render stuff of rough cuts (in medium to low quality) fairly easily. i'm wondering what the final output settings for best quality rendering should be for NTSC DV footage... I used a sony vx2000 in 4:3 mode btw if that helps. Thanks

[Larry McKenna]

I suggest that you EXPORT a finished Premier 1/5 product (once you are happy with your edits, including music or sounds to either:

DVD or to a new mini DV tape.

Use the Premier 1.5 PRE SETs that are built in. Worksd well.

Save AND RENDER the product AND save again..before you do any Exports.

Then set up, say a DVD to export, to and go to bed. The 1st copy will take HOURS to render automatically into the DVD foprmat. Subsequent copies will be fast.

A sugestion from a Producer.

Larry

[Anthony Milic]

Originally Posted by Larry McKenna

Then set up, say a DVD to export, to and go to bed. The 1st copy will take HOURS to render automatically into the DVD foprmat. Subsequent copies will be fast.

Woah. Hours? That must be for a lengthy clip, surely.
I've just finished up a 20 min graduation ceremony.
Rendering took a few minutes (< 10).. and the encoding/exporting to DVD took (while I didn't time it) no more than 15 minutes or so.

Am I missing something?

It was PAL. 4:3. filmed with pd170.

Anthony

[Dan Euritt]

if your 20 minute clip took less than 10 minutes to render to mpeg2, which is the dvd format, i'd think that the quality would be marginal... or you'd be using a very fast computer... take a look at your mpeg encoder settings, and make sure that two-pass encoding is enabled.

the actual creation of the dvd itself should be a whole lot quicker than encoding to mpeg2, because the mpeg2 footage in a dvd is basically unchanged... it is still the same mpeg2, but with a vob moniker.

[Christopher Lefchik]

Originally Posted by Dan Euritt

if your 20 minute clip took less than 10 minutes to render to mpeg2, which is the dvd format, i'd think that the quality would be marginal... or you'd be using a very fast computer... take a look at your mpeg encoder settings, and make sure that two-pass encoding is enabled.

Since his project is only twenty minutes he wouldn't need to use two pass (VBR) encoding. He could use CBR with a bitrate of 7Mbps or 8Mbps. VBR is only needed when going over an hour on a single layer DVD.

However, I would recommend checking the quality setting (under the Video category when encoding to MPEG-2 in the Adobe Media Encoder). Make sure it is set to at least 3.0. You can go higher (up to 5.0), but I've read that it doesn't give much in return for the extra time rendering. But I would recommend no less than 3.0 when rendering the final MPEG-2 file.

[Spike Spiegel]

Hi, thanks for the responses. It helped a lot. Just to recap, use adobe media encoder,format: MPEG2, and i'm using the mpeg2 preset generic, field order: lower, profile: main profile, level: main level, bitrate: 2 pass,

what should my minimum and target bitrate be? keep in mind i'm shooting for highest output resolution, time is not a factor to worry about. .

Are these settings ok? thanks!

[Spike Spiegel]

i tried rendering with the above settings, but the quality is still no where near as good as the raw footage... whats up with that? is there a higher setting i can render to?

[Anthony Milic]

Hmm..
Well highest quality possible is priority... if I need to let it render over night, so be it.
btw, I'm using a HT'd P4 3.0. 1 Gig ram. 2 x 200 gig SATA HDD's... umm that's the basics at least. What you think Dan?
Using Premiere Pro/1.5
When choosing options, I select the one that seems to promote highest quality (I think it's default anyway) ..so something like double pass.. I think in the double pass category, there's one for 5.1 channel surround sound, and without - not that this would alter picture quality.
Chris, I'll check the quality settings.. I've not yet noticed options of 3 or 5 etc.. but will have a look tonight.

Thanks guys.

Anthony

[Christopher Lefchik]

Just to reiterate, you don't need to use VBR as long as your project does not go over an hour. Just use CBR with a bit rate of 7Mbps or 8Mbps (I prefer not to go under 8Mbps if I can).

Spike, why don't you give the "NTSC DV 4x3 High Quality 7Mb CBR 1 Pass" preset a try? It is in the Adobe Media Encoder under the MPEG2-DVD category. Just select it and render your file; don't change any of the settings. Let us know how it turns out.

Keep in mind that MPEG-2 is quite compressed compared to the original raw footage, so the quality is not going to be comparable to the original video. That said, you should get decent quality from the preset I mentioned.

[Spike Spiegel]

Christopher, i'll give your setting a try and let you know. To detail the problem i'm having: i tried the mpeg2 output with 15mb rate, and still had this resolution problem. Its just that i could sort of see some horizontal markings when there was a pan or too many things in the background. Its weird, i think i'll post a clip to show you. I'll give your mpeg 2 dvd category. I just want the highest resolution count, id ont care if it takes 1 whole day to render. I have 64 bits at my disposal so thats not an issue at all. What would be the best uncompressed format that would still fit a dual layer DVD...?

[Christopher Lefchik]

Originally Posted by Spike Spiegel

What would be the best uncompressed format that would still fit a dual layer DVD...?

If you want to be able to play the DVD on any DVD player then you will have to stick to the official DVD specs. These specify the video format (codec) to be MPEG-2, and the audio codec as uncompressed PCM or Dolby Digital (AC3). The maximum video bit rate is 9.8Mbps; the combined bit rate for the video, audio, and subtitle streams cannot be over 10.08 Mbps.

[Dan Euritt]

Originally Posted by Christopher Lefchik

Since his project is only twenty minutes he wouldn't need to use two pass (VBR) encoding.

"two pass" means that the encoder goes thru the footage twice... period... "two pass" is not relevant to vbr or cbr:

"With CBR encoding, you can use one-pass or two-pass encoding." - http://www.microsoft.com/windows/win...es/codecs.aspx

since he did not specify what encoder he was using, we had no way of knowing if it was capable of two pass cbr encoding... but even if it would not do two pass cbr, two pass vbr is still a better choice, despite what you may have read elsewhere on the internet... http://www.research.ibm.com/journal/...westerink.html

you guys should try two pass vbr with a peak setting of ~8.8 Mbps, average bitrate somewhere around 7 Mbps, along with ac3 audio of course... since you have the mainconcept encoder, put the quality slider all the way over.

[Daniel Wojtowicz]

I usually export the file into the main microsoft DV type then open up nerovision express and throw the video file in there. I does not seem to loose much quality when i do it that way.

[Christopher Lefchik]

Originally Posted by Dan Euritt

"two pass" means that the encoder goes thru the footage twice... period... "two pass" is not relevant to vbr or cbr:

"With CBR encoding, you can use one-pass or two-pass encoding." - http://www.microsoft.com/windows/win...es/codecs.aspx

That link is in relation to Windows Media encoding, which does offer 2 pass CBR encoding. Here we are dealing with the MainConcept MPEG-2 encoder in Premiere Pro. I don't know what options other MPEG-2 encoders offer, but the MainConcept MPEG-2 encoder in Premiere Pro offers CBR, VBR 1 pass, and VBR 2 pass.

Originally Posted by Dan Euritt

since he did not specify what encoder he was using, we had no way of knowing if it was capable of two pass cbr encoding

No, but he did say he was using Premiere Pro. The only MPEG-2 encoder Premiere Pro has is the MainConcept encoder.

Originally Posted by Dan Euritt

but even if it would not do two pass cbr, two pass vbr is still a better choice, despite what you may have read elsewhere on the internet... http://www.research.ibm.com/journal/...westerink.html

That paper is hard to follow with all the technical calculations. However, it looks like they are using a bitrate of 4-5Mb/s, which is far from optimal for CBR. No wonder the results were poor.

And yes, I am aware that using VBR does not result in "constant visual quality over time"; however, this is probably only a concern once the bitrate falls below 7Mb/s. Personally, I prefer to use around 8.5Mb/s CBR.

Originally Posted by Dan Euritt

you guys should try two pass vbr with a peak setting of ~8.8 Mbps, average bitrate somewhere around 7 Mbps, along with ac3 audio of course... since you have the mainconcept encoder, put the quality slider all the way over.

If the complete video can fit on the DVD at the highest bit rate you mentioned (8.8 Mpbs), why drop it using VBR? If you want to convince me that VBR results in better quality encoding than CBR at such high bit rates, then reference a test that uses a CBR of at the very least 7Mb/s (preferably 8Mb/s or higher). Again, from what I saw in the IBM paper they were using 4-5Mb/s bit rate, and so it is no wonder the results were poor.

[Dan Euritt]

Originally Posted by Christopher Lefchik

No, but he did say he was using Premiere Pro. The only MPEG-2 encoder Premiere Pro has is the MainConcept encoder.

he never stated anywhere that he was using premiere pro for encoding mpeg2 video, period... it was logical of you to make the assumption that you did, i just chose to not assume anything... i've been wrong too many times before doing it that way :-/

your "it looks like they are using a bitrate of 4-5Mb/s, which is far from optimal for CBR." statement is also an assumption, because you have no way of knowing what source material they were using... the overall quality of it, how much movement is in each scene, etc... and what encoder did they use?

back in the mid-'90's, i worked with a sony rte-3000 mpeg1 hardware encoder... it was a really big box with component i/o, and it retailed for over $10k... it put out a phenomenal picture! so not all encoders are created equal, by a long shot, so it's difficult to make quality-based assumptions about bitrate.

i would never encode an 8.8 mbps mpeg2 cbr file... if there was ever a case for incompatability, that would be it, because there is no room for error, the dvd player has to read the max bitrate the entire time that the disc is playing... with vbr, that stress is only present for short periods of time, during difficult scenes.

daniel, exporting to the microsoft dv format before encoding to mpeg2 is typically how it's done, when you aren't using a video editor that has it's own mpeg encoder, like premiere 1.5 does... you should be able to get great quality that way.