I'm pretty sure the Deinterlace option does in fact deinterlace the exported video file. The preview window is to show you the result of your selected options.

I for one will admit QuickTime exports have traditionally been poor quality - but that was due to the anemic QuickTime codecs. Now with the new QuickTime H.264 codec you can install the free QuickTime 7 Player and access the QuickTime H.264 codec within the Adobe Media Encoder. The one thing I will mention is that the bit rate slider is still very inaccurate when encoding to QuickTime in the Adobe Media Encoder. It's hard to believe they didn't fix such a basic bug considering they did a major rewrite of the Media Encoder for the new Production Studio.

Regarding Windows Media exports, I can't really say that I have seen noticeably superior results from Microsoft's standalone Windows Media Encoder than I have from Adobe Media Encoder.

So you haven't noticed the gamma/levels tweak out when exporting to H.264?

PPro 2.0 export is $h!tty!!!

Here is tried and true SIMPLE workflow that I've been using to get excellent DVD/WMV-HD results. Just so you guys know, I shoot everything in HDV so this may not apply to some of you SD guys.

-Shoot HDV -> HDVSPLIT
-Edit PPro 2.0 - edit from original m2ts only (never 2nd generation)
-Export 60i HDV m2t (Video Quality HIGH 5.0)

All you really need is Procoder.

The 60i HDV m2t will be interlaced (not a problem @ all), from this master file I:

1) ARCHIVE back to HDV Tape - Simple enuf

2) DVD -dump m2t into canpus proCoder -> DVDs 6-8 VBR Master Quality. Leave as interlaced. This will create the m2v and wav files that you can put into Encore for a BEAUTIFUL looking DVD. Colour space remain identical to original source IMO. The reason people complain about jaggies via this method is becuz they are viewing the DVD on a progressive device but without a de-interlacing filter applied. You will notice jaggies if playing via an progressive display without applying a de-interlacing filter (ie. on the computer). But when playing on a progressive dvd player on progressive display you'll have no noticible jaggies. Even on standard interlaced TV the results are beautiful.

Yes I have fiddled with the Cineform->VirtualDub->Tmpgenc workaround and it is too much work for nominal gains.

As an ultimate test, I've hooked up my hdv camcorder directly to my wvga (854x480) projector (100 inch screen), compared the output from watching down rezzed HDV (projector downrezzes 1080i from HDV camera), then downrezzed SD (in camera downrezzed), DVD created via the method above, there are honestly next to NO significant overall resolution differences that I can see.

3) WMV-HD - plug the m2t into procoder, I created my own 720p 5mbs constrained vbr preset (similar settings used via windows media encoder). Turn on adaptive de-interlacing filter as well as the audio filter to clean up any clipping and voila, solid 720p output where you can fit 2 hours of material on a single layer disc. I have been including this as an option for wedding videos that I have been doing and my clients are blown away @ the output.

I hope this helps!

Michael

You mean the overall brightening of the image?

Michael are there any changes in procoder that you have to do to any of the switches? I know that when i use it for some reason it seems to latch onto 4:3 as a default and I have to manually make some changes, using version 2.04 in Procoder (full version not express).

Basically yes.

Michael, for mastering quality dvd in procoder you are right the ONLY thing I need to change is 16x9. I'm running ProCoder 2.0.

Burn a dvd via this method and give it a try on your projector (via progressive scan dvd player).

BTW Killer Gear you have there! I WISH i had a 955ee, im running a 930 and not running cineform, performance could definately be better!

The brightening you see is the result of a bug in the QuickTime 7 Player. There is nothing inherently wrong with Adobe Media Encoder's QuickTime H.264 export (nor with any other H.264 encoder, for that matter). Apple is aware of the problem. In the meantime, you can play H.264 videos in another player such as VLC media player. You may even discover that you like it better than QuickTime. ;-)

Regardless of whatever bugs there are in the QuickTime 7 Player, H.264 remains an excellent codec.

What's wrong with exporting to progressive footage? I saw this mentioned earlier in thread and some of you said this was bad. (if footage is shot 720x480 @ 60i)? The quality looks much better then when selecting interlaced in tmpeg... is this the wrong setting to use?

If you can't deliver a self explanatory movie, then it's useless. It's not like I can deliver a movie and then tell them "oh by the way... you'll need to install this and this... and if that doesn't work try this" just to watch it. Btw, it's been a bug since QT6. I think apple has had time to fix this by now.

Btw, VLC is horrible. Don't get me started on that or MPlayer.

No movie is inherently self explanatory in and of itself. I'm curious as to what you mean by that statement?

Considering that MPEG-1 is about the only universally supported format, there is always the chance using any other format that you will eventually run into someone who has problems playing your video file.

Can't have been, as QuickTime Player didn't support H.264 until version 7.

Even considering the bug was in version 7, I would agree with you wholeheartedly.

Can't say I've used MPlayer. I have used VLC media player, and I certainly don't see a reason to call it horrible.

HDV Export to Tape from Timeline
 

Mike,

You suggested Exporting to Tape to keep the final edit of a project in HDV, what is your typical result for a 15 minute video to render out and record?

I had a project that needed a fast turnaround for the local news, took it back to my office and did what I had never done before, Exported to tape, suddenly what was a really fast machine and a really simple project took hours! I was really screwed and don't know what I did wrong.

Is there a secret to this when working with the raw M2t files and not running Aspect HD, just vanilla PP2.0 and it's HDV drivers?

I really need to know what to do to speed this up for the future...

Thanks,
MIGUEL

Miguel,

To partially answer your quesiton, that would heavily depend upon the compliexity of your project. If you use Magic Bullet editors then forget having anythign delivered on a tihgt timeline. Straight cuts, basic dissolves or any of hte feature s directly from PP2.0 wolud render the fastest. The less complicated functions u use, as a general rule would yeild faster rendering.

I would also recommend encoding to M2t file FIRST (as ur master file) then afterwords recording to tape after from ur M2t. Altho I do notice that when writing an M2t to tape PP2.0 does take a few mins to index the file (or wutever it is doing) b4 actually recording to tape.

I can't give u exact figures unfortuanty since I do most of my rendering when I'm @ work @ my day job and am too busy @ work to monitor how long these things take.

Michael I wanted to get a final answer on this for you, I was unable to get the footage to the TV station, in the end it appears that our local HD News station can't handle actual HD footage. In their haste to be the 1st station in the market to jump to HD News, they only upgraded their studio cameras, their AVID system is still SD and all their shooters only changed to 16:9 from 4:3, even their remote truck is not HD yet.

I also offered them my cam to capture via Firewire and to my dismay they were unable to accept this as well, seems that their engineer forgot some major upgrades. Their tape guy attempted to take my MiniDV-HDV tape and ingest it into their editing system via a DVCam deck until I told him it was HDV and suddenly the bell went off in his head and he realized that they had forgotten something, decks!

Ok back to my issue here, the workflow didn't work for several reasons, 1st I attempted to export it from the timeline back to HDV and Premier Pro advised that it had to transcode the footage to HDV, this was a 6 minute timeline and the conversion took 40 minutes. After reviewing some information on the Cineform web, I learned that there is an issue with this where you need to have Premier Pro 1.51 installed and you need to copy the HDV folder from 1.51 into PP2 for timeline export to properly work.

The suggested workflow by Cineform worked flawlessly and I have modified my workflow accordingly. The new and fast workflow is as follows:

1. Capture via HDVSplit (this leaves me a raw m2t file that I can split and use later).
Note: I'm aware that HDLink will do this as well and write the CF AVI's in the same process, however each time I attempted this HDLink crashed after several minutes of capture, HDVSplit was able to capture the entire tape without 1 crash.)

2. Use Cineform HDLink to scene detect the m2t file and create the Cineform AVI's for use in Premier 2.0

3. Edit and prepare to export.

4. Export via Cineform M2T back to the hard drive.

5. Cineform HDLink this CF M2T file back to the camera (Camera has to be in HDV mode, if the VCR in the Sony Cam is set to Auto, tape write fails, this is documented in the Cineform FAQ.)

6. The Cineform M2T file can now be manipulated in Procoder into any format that I need such as WMP, Divx etc. As well this file imports directly into Sony DVD Architect which will downrez to DVD, no Procoder necessary and results (to my eye) are basically identical.)

7. The archival timeline is now on tape for safe keeping in HDV format and I can also use the internal downrez of the cam on that footage to re-import back to the editing system as SD for whatever reason or in my case feed a news studio via RCA cables.

Although cumbersome, this workflow is rocksolid and I have been able to complete a major Christmas project for one of the local police departments in a very fast turnaround, similar to what I was used to with DV.

Hope this helps someone else.
Miguel

! No, it's not. It deinterlaces everything. Not just the preview window.

The "lower" is just to tell the encoder if the material progressive or not. And you just deinterlaced it so it's progressive but you're encoding it as interlaced. It's not that hard. I mean your pictures obviously show deinterlacing at work in the premiere captures. Turn it off if your project is shot as progressive.

I get pretty good exports from ppro. The scaler sucks though so if you're going from hdv->dv then scale the video somewhere else.