Slo-mo & frame blend, deinterlace, flicker, export settings, lions, tigers

[ivanarias]

So, I've been shooting for years on minDV camcorders and when I want slow motion in Premiere I just razor the clip and adjust the speed to 50%, the end.

My workflow from there to DVD is to simply export the timeline to .avi with all the default settings and then bring into Encore and burn.

But now that I've made the jump to HD (HV40), I'm in slow motion hell.

What I get is stuttering slow motion, not the smooth kind I got before.

So, here's what I'm wondering: settings for the slow motion clip and settings for exporting the whole thing to an .avi file for Encore to then burn so that I can get smooth slow motion like I used to always do before without stutter.

On the timeline, for the slow motion clips themselves: what's the correct setting in terms of Frame Blend toggle on or off, and under Field Options: Reverse Field Dominance, Interlace Consecutive Frames, Always Deinterlace, Flicker Removal?

Exporting the entire timeline to a file that Encore can use to burn a DVD: Uncompressed Microsoft AVI, Microsoft AVI, or Microsoft DV AVI? Compressor should I use DV NTSC? Pixel Aspect Ratio should it be 0.9 or 1.0? Toggled to Recompress at Maintain Data Rate or not? Keyframe/Rendering: Use Project Setting or 8-bit or maximum? Change fields to Upper Field or leave it at Lower Field? (I thought HD footage was upper field but even though I open projects set to default to HDV60i this export setting is defaulted to Lower Field, or does that refer to the resulting 720x480 output which should be left that way?)...and finally, at long last, do I select *here* (as opposed to, or in addition to, the Field Options for the individual clips) to Deinterlace Video Footage?

I discovered, by the way, that if you do a Print to Tape and rename the resulting file that's created you do get a HDV quality copy but then Encore can't burn that, since it can't do HD format; and, by the way, when I Print to Tape the slow motion is perfect; it's only when I see it on the burned DVD that it stutters.

Thank you, thank you, thank you in advance to anyone that knows the answers! (and could there be more options, perhaps? )

[aedipuss]

i'd either shoot 30p to avoid the interlace problems or have the hv40 convert to DVavi internally and capture that from the cam like you used to. since it's only going on dvd anyway i'd work with the DVavi.

HDV is top field first. if the whole project is HDV the exported MPEG-2 should also be made TFF. the stuttering may be from reversed fields. make sure the assets are marked tff and the project is tff.

i use an hv30 all the time, but always shoot 30p, to make the most out of it for both online video, and dvd.

[edDV]

All the low end HD formats have 15 frame GOPs (12 in PAL lands). That plays bad with slo mo unless you convert to frames first. Best way to do that is with Cineform Neoscene. it converts HDV or AVCHD to frames, then you can process.

[ivanarias]

Thanks so much for the replies!

I've got to go from *here* for now though, so I need to figure out the best settings for exporting among the options provided by Premiere 2.0 given the footage I already have.

Neoscene looks pretty cool I'm downloading although I'm scared about transcoding/translating footage yet *again* before then having to recompress or transcode or whatever again after that when it exports, etc. but it would be nice to have an easier to edit format like .avi.

As for the exported format from premiere, it's not exporting to mpeg it's exporting to .avi which Encore will *then* convert to mpeg to burn to the DVD, and it's for that interim .avi file that I'm trying to learn what all the proper settings should be. I know the source HD footage is TFF but didn't know if I'm supposed to set the interim .avi file that's going to be created/downscaled to SD (720x480) as TFF too in the export settings?

I set the project up as the default 60i template which is already set to TFF. The asset is set to TFF, I checked that thanks.

I had that thought as well to capture downscaled from the camera since it's only going to end up anyway in standard def but the camera's downscaling is pretty degraded by the time I get to the end of the workflow compared to leaving it in HDV and downscaling in software at the very end, which is something I read on a post somewhere as well and I also found it to be the case; but that's what I tried first seemed like a good idea.

I know there's a million ways to do a project (most probably better than what I'm doing LOL) but in order not to get derailed into that, if anyone knows the best settings for exporting to the interim .avi format based on the footage as described above and for the sake of then importing that file into Encore for burning, I'd really appreciate it (rather than, you know, "well, why are you doing it that way? try this instead...") because I really need to get this done from where I'm standing in the workflow as it is for the time being and in any case I'd like to know what the proper export settings for this kind of thing, I might learn something just from that (which can only help).

Thanks again guys and in advance to anyone else who might know the best settings for the above.