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Newbie question - Gotta start somewhere right??

 
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MTG



Joined: 10 Mar 2004
Posts: 3
Location: Cambridge, England

PostPosted: Wed 10 Mar 2004, 22:02    Post subject: Newbie question - Gotta start somewhere right?? Reply with quote

I've been reading through a lot of threads to do with various stages of turning my DV camera footage into a crisp looking, clean sounding DVD for all to enjoy.

I would like some assistance regarding the next best move for my project.
Here's the state of play so far.

I've used Adobe Premiere 6.0 to capture my clips via firewire. I've then used Premiere to trim, assemble, transition and join the clips, along with some jpg's, into a full length movie. I've used original audio from the camera, imported mp3's and both together to create the soundtrack.
I am happy with my NTSC movie and all clips etc. are seemingly good quality.

"Is there anything that I've missed?? Is this ready for export??"

I've been doing alot of reading and this coupled with my colleagues advice to use TMPGEnc, it brings me to my next question.

"If I wanted to use TMPGEnc can I use a frameserving plugin to 'serve' everything in my timeline to TMPGEnc or will I have to render first, as a DV AVI or AVI and then import it?? Will this serve all the audio on Tracks 1 and 2 aswell as the transitions, fades, and rolling credits??"

I used a rendered DV AVI of 6.9GB that I made using Premiere 6 and imported it into Movie Factory 2 to make menu's, create chapters and finally burn to DVD. The problem I got was that the final output showed the footage 'streaking' when I panned the camera at anything more than a crawl. This wasn't evident when I played the AVI back in Media Player. Also the amount of space used on the final DVD-R was only 1.4GB. So I ask:

"Is the software I've used not correct for the task?, were the setting's in Movie Factory 2 wrong? and is the loss in file size due to a high level of compression that may have caused the 'streaking' in the final output??

Your assistance would be greatly appreciated.

MTG
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RMN
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Joined: 04 Feb 2003
Posts: 587
Location: Lisboa, Portugal

PostPosted: Thu 11 Mar 2004, 0:26    Post subject: Re: Newbie question - Gotta start somewhere right?? Reply with quote

MTG wrote:
I am happy with my NTSC movie


NTSC? In England?

MTG wrote:

If I wanted to use TMPGEnc can I use a frameserving plugin to 'serve' everything in my timeline to TMPGEnc or will I have to render first, as a DV AVI or AVI and then import it??


No, you don't need to render anything. Premiere will render the frames one at a time, as the frameserver requests them.

MTG wrote:

Will this serve all the audio on Tracks 1 and 2 aswell as the transitions, fades, and rolling credits??"


Yes. But if you're going to use uncompressed audio, you can use the frameserver to export only the video, and export the audio directly from Premiere to a WAV file.

If you're making an NTSC DVD, you definitely shouldn't use MPEG audio; it's not standard on NTSC players.

MTG wrote:

The problem I got was that the final output showed the footage 'streaking' when I panned the camera at anything more than a crawl.


When you say "final output", do you mean on a TV, using a set-top player? If so, you need to reverse the field order when you encode (if it's set to "bottom first" switch to "top first" or vice-versa). If you mean on the PC screen, this is normal unless you use software that deinterlaces the video.

MTG wrote:

Also the amount of space used on the final DVD-R was only 1.4GB. So I ask:

"Is the software I've used not correct for the task?, were the setting's in Movie Factory 2 wrong? and is the loss in file size due to a high level of compression


Since you don't mention the length of the movie or the bitrate you used to encode it, it's hard to tell if the size is small because the video was small, or if the size is small because the bitrate was very low.

If the entire movie was just 6.9 GB in DV, that means it was about 30 minutes long. If this is the case, then you must have used a bitrate around 6500 Kb/s, which should give you decent results, but could be higher (up to 8000 Kb/s or so, if you're going to use uncompressed audio). You can use this calculator to determine the ideal bitrate, based on the source length and format.

RMN
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MTG



Joined: 10 Mar 2004
Posts: 3
Location: Cambridge, England

PostPosted: Thu 11 Mar 2004, 12:34    Post subject: Newbie question - Gotta start somewhere right?? Reply with quote

I have an NTSC Sony PC9, that I got when I was in America. Premiere wouldn't read anything if I chose Pal settings so had to capture in NTSC. Is there anyway to change it Pal without a lengthy conversion and if not then whats the best software to use??

So Frameserver will read all the video frames on the various tracks, including the transitions, fades and rolling credits, and export them, as I see them in the timeline, to TMPGEnc??

What format is the original audio in my clip?? (ex. WAV etc.) I am using original audio and also mp3 and sometimes both at the same time. If I export the 2 audio tracks from the timeline directly to a WAV file will there be much loss in quality?? Would it be a waste of my time if I were to substitute the mp3 audio with an already converted WAV version before I export or will this be handled by the export from Premiere anyways??



My reference to 'Final output' is a finished DVD that I can play in my set-top DVD and TV. I have only done this once and will get the settings I used (bitrate etc. in a further posting). Reading some posts here and the TMPGEnc guide I can see that it may be a field order problem via Movie Factory 2 as the quality when the camera is not moving is fine.

Finally, when I exported my rendered AVI from Premiere to Movie Factory I didn't seperate the Audio and Video. The audio was a mix of original format audio from the captured footage and my inserted mp3's and it seemed to play fine?? Did premiere convert it all to WAV when I renedered it, or did Movie Factory do it when creating the DVD??

Thankyou for your help
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RMN
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Joined: 04 Feb 2003
Posts: 587
Location: Lisboa, Portugal

PostPosted: Thu 11 Mar 2004, 12:45    Post subject: Re: Newbie question - Gotta start somewhere right?? Reply with quote

MTG wrote:
I have an NTSC Sony PC9, that I got when I was in America. Premiere wouldn't read anything if I chose Pal settings so had to capture in NTSC. Is there anyway to change it Pal without a lengthy conversion and if not then whats the best software to use??


No, you can't change it to PAL without a lot of work or a dedicated program. And even then, there will be a loss in quality, so if it's NTSC, you're probably better off keeping it that way.

NTSC DV colour sampling doesn't match the DVD colour sampling (PAL DV is much more similar), so the image won't be as good as if it had been recorded with a PAL camera, but converting it to PAL now wouldn't help; you'd just lose the only advantage of NTSC (29.97 frames per second, instead of 25), without getting any of the advantages of PAL (higher resolution, less colour bleed).

Quote:

So Frameserver will read all the video frames


Yes. Premiere feeds it the output of the timeline. Just as if you were exporting a movie to an AVI or Quicktime file.

Quote:

What format is the original audio in my clip?? (ex. WAV etc.) I am using original audio and also mp3 and sometimes both at the same time. If I export the 2 audio tracks from the timeline directly to a WAV file will there be much loss in quality??


No, no loss, as long as you select uncompressed WAV, 48 KHz, 16 bits, stereo (this is the standard format for both DV and DVD).

Quote:

Would it be a waste of my time if I were to substitute the mp3 audio with an already converted WAV version


Yes. Any quality that has been lost, was lost when the MP3 was created. Premiere will uncompress it when you export.

Quote:

Finally, when I exported my rendered AVI from Premiere to Movie Factory I didn't seperate the Audio and Video. The audio was a mix of original format audio from the captured footage and my inserted mp3's and it seemed to play fine?? Did premiere convert it all to WAV when I renedered it, or did Movie Factory do it when creating the DVD??


When you created the AVI, Premiere converted the audio to whichever format you selected (if the AVI was a DV AVI, then all audio was converted to uncompressed PCM, 48 KHz, 16 bits, stereo).

The authoring program may have an option to compress it (to AC3, DTS or MPEG audio). You should avoid MPEG audio if you're going to play the disc on NTSC players (some don't support it). If the player is PAL (with NTSC support), then you can use MPEG audio.

P.S. - Note that, to play an NTSC DVD, both your player and your TV need to be compatible with NTSC (if you connect via RF) or must at least support 60 Hz (if you connect via a video cable such as composite, SCART or S-Video).

RMN
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MTG



Joined: 10 Mar 2004
Posts: 3
Location: Cambridge, England

PostPosted: Thu 11 Mar 2004, 20:10    Post subject: Re: Newbie question - Gotta start somewhere right?? Reply with quote

Thanks again for all your help. I'm gonna run a few test clips just to get things right. No doubt call upon your wisdom in the near future.

MTG
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