Help installing filter for Virtualdub & mpeg2 converter
 

Hi all again,
After much frustration I come to the conclusion that for the workflow of encoding DSLR and HDV footage in the same time line, Premiere Pro is not up to the challenge. Maybe in a revision or two. It took Adobe untill Premiere Pro CS4 or CS5 untill they got a HDV only sequence to produce a good final output. And even that is a bit sketchy, if you know what I mean. So I am thinking for the time being I will have to use an external program(s) to do the conversion.
I have tried exporting an Uncompressed AVI file from Premiere, I can't get x64 framserver to work until I can find the correct codec, and then convert in VirtualDub. I tried " field BOB" deinterlacing method in VrtualDub and that produces exceptable results. Here's the but... When I transcode the file in Encore CS5 to Mpeg2 it look horrible. :-(. So, what external program would you suggest I use. I would love one single program that would convert directly to mpeg2 DVD to streamline my workflow.
I am disappointed to have to return to using external programs in order to get exceptable results because this just add a lot of extra export/transcoding time which I could do without.
I want to try the VirtualDub filter " Smart Deinterlacing" but I can't figure out how to install the filter in VirtualDub. I tried going to add filter and then "Load" but VirtualDub says the file is not a Win32 program and will not load it. I tried creating a folder called "plugins" and placing the file there but that does not seem to work either. Does anyone know how to install filters in VirtualDub? Thanks. It may just be that I did not download the correct file. I download the file on the developers website. I think it is version 2.8.

Thanks,

John Gerard

Re: Help installing filter for Virtualdub & mpeg2 converter
 

Going to Encore shouldn't look horrible. I go there all the time from HDV to H.264 BD and to DVD and the DVDs are near BD quality. What presets are you using? Are you letting Encore transcode automatically? It usually will pick the best settings that will fit and it's worked great for me.

I know this doesn't exactly answer your question but if you can get a good product out of the free tools you already have, that's good, no?

Re: Help installing filter for Virtualdub & mpeg2 converter
 

To answer your last comment, I prefer using only Adobe software to transcode/encode my project if I can get decent results but so far this has not been the case. I get great results exporting from PP CS5 using Mpeg2-DVD settings. But this was when the sequence is only HDV footage.
I see that you are outputting to a BD disc format and then transcoding to the SD DVD format. I have not tried this before.
The last thing I tried was outputting from PP to an AVI file, Deinterlace and resize to 720x480 to another AVI file and import this AVI file as a timeline in Encore CS5. From there I think I transcoded using a CBR of 7mbits rate. I will have to get back to you with other settings.

Thanks,

John Gerard

Re: Help installing filter for Virtualdub & mpeg 2 converter
 

I think it's possible that all this multiple transcoding may be part of your problem. Going straight from the Pro timeline to DVD has worked out well for me, as has going straight from PPro timeline to Encore BD. I really think the two extra transcodes to avi -- why? -- are the problem. How large are your projects? If they're really large Encore will lower the bitrate to make it all fit, and I think that will show as crappy quality. But I could be wrong about all of this.

I usually have mixed HDV and AVCHD footage on the timeline and have never had a problem.

Just to clarify, I don't go to BD first and then from there to DVD. I go straight from the PPro timeline and do my BDs, then in the resulting Encore project, do the DVDs, which use the original PPro timeline and transcode straight to DVD format. So only one transcode per format. Sometimes I do the DVDs first and then go back and do the BDs.

Re: Help installing filter for Virtualdub & mpeg2 converter
 

When you unpack VirtualDub, you should already have a "plugins" folder, there shouldn't be a need to create one manually. you put the ".vdf" file into that folder, and then you should be able to load this filter in VD. What version are you using? If the filter you want to use is 32-bit, then you should be using the 32-bit version of VD as well, even if your OS is 64-bit.

For MPEG2 encoding I use "HC Encoder" http://hank315.nl/.
It does a much better job than the MainConcept encoder included in Adobe apps IMO, especially if you need to encode in lower bitrates. It does require "Avisynth" installed and writing a small simple script to load the video, but the quality is worth the extra hassle, at least for me. With that said, at 7Mb CBR, Encore's encoding should be good, so perhaps there is something going wrong somewhere in your workflow?

If you need good quality de-interlacing and resizing, rather than VD filters I would use Avisynth with Dan Isaac's script HD to SD DVD – Best Methods | Creating Motion Graphics Blog | Blu-Ray DVD Authoring Menu | Precomposed

Re: Help installing filter for Virtualdub & mpeg 2 converter
 

Hi, I have had good luck with straight Adobe Encoding for HDV only footage. I think combining DSLR and HDV footage is the problem. I tried Exporting in BD H264, starting a BD project in Encode and outputting a BD ISO image file. This look really good on my HDTV. But I still have poor results doing the above but creating a DVD Image file instead. I am going to try to attach 2 pics that show basically the main problem. The photos are a little blurry, I took them with my iPhone, but look at the tennis court lines this is the problem I am having. One pic is from my DSLR and the other is from my HDV camera. I guess I can't add attachments from my iPad for now. But it's the Jaggies/sawtooth in the tennis court lines that are really bad when transcoded in Mpeg2 format. Ths is the same issue I would have with straight HDV footage in PP CS2 and CS3.

John Gerard

Re: Help installing filter for Virtualdub & mpeg2 converter
 

Better than posting those pictures would be to see your settings dialog boxes. Do you have "Use Maximum Render Quality" checked?

I'm not saying this is the case with you, but any time I set transcode settings manually, it always comes out worse than if I just let AME decide.