Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 - 2 Questions

[Anonymous8443434]

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[edDV]

I don't have Premiere Pro here but I can explain generally. Premiere should "smart render" (no recode) for unprocessed DV frames if set properly. Frames that are processed normally are decoded to RGB then encoded on export back to export format (DV)

Assuming "NTSC" since you don't ID your location ...

First set your project to DV-Wide 720x480, 29.97, lower field first

Import the DV files to the timeline. Check that file properties (right click) including stills match project format.

There should only be render lines above your stills and transitions.

Now here is where something went wrong in your second picture.

Under export make sure DV-AVI (Wide) is selected and that properties match the project format.

Here is how it looks in Vegas. Premiere should be similar.

[Anonymous8443434]

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[poisondeathray]

I Googled and it seems as though "Smart Rendering" only applies to MPEG streams, not AVI.

PP smart renders DV-AVI specifically, but not necessarily all types of video codecs within AVI containers (you might have DivX or Xvid in AVI container for example - these are not smart rendered. AVI can hold 100's of different formats)

The problem as EdDV pointed out, is your mismatched sequence settings.

If there is a red renderbar , it means PP is rendering everything. If there is none, those segments will be passed through. You will notice on the crossfades and effects, there will be red over those sections, because those sections need to be re-encoded. If you have mismatched sequence or export settings, the entire thing will be re-encoded

[Anonymous8443434]

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[poisondeathray]

After close inspection of the original and the encoded file, the quality is the same but the image is slightly brighter.

How are you making this observation? What software? For example you cannot use 2 directshow media players simultaneously, because only 1 will use the video overlay mixer so identical files will look different. The 2nd instance will use a different renderer

[Anonymous8443434]

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[poisondeathray]

...you cannot use 2 directshow media players simultaneously, because only 1 will use the video overlay mixer so identical files will look different. The 2nd instance will use a different renderer

You know what... I knew that. I just forgot. I will take screenshots and compare that way. I'll get back to you on that later tonight. Thanks.

I hope you mean 1 at a time; as in open player, take screenshot, close player. Then open 2nd video, take screenshot.

[Anonymous8443434]

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[poisondeathray]

I hope you mean 1 at a time; as in open player, take screenshot, close player. Then open 2nd video, take screenshot.

That is exactly what I mean. I have not done any video editing in a few years but just because I forgot a few of the basics, does not make me a n00b. :P Cheers.

Sorry, I wasn't implying that you were

If you want to view both at the same time, using the same decoder and renderer, you can use an avisynth script to stack them. The .avs file will open in a media player like MPC , or you can scrub individual frames in vdub, for example

e.g

a=AVISource("video1.avi")
b=AVISource("video2.avi")
StackHorizontal(a,b)

Cheers

[edDV]

If Premiere is set properly for no-recode (no red lines) there would be no level shift by definition.

[Anonymous8443434]

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[poisondeathray]

My next step is to find a AVI to DVD converter that does not cause quality loss.
I have used ConvertXToDVD many times before. The exception this time is that I am more focused on the quality of the final product.
My encoded file from Adobe is 450MB. The VOB was 117MB. The resolution was changed, stretched vertically and the quality was horrible (smudgy and blurry).
I'm planning on trying FAVC tonight unless you can suggest something else?
If you require me to create a new post aimed at the AVI to DVD specifically, let me know.

They all cause quality loss. You are incurring a lossy conversion by re-encoding DV-AVI to MPEG2 for DVD. Furthermore you have about a 9MB/s bitrate limitation to make it compatible for regular DVD players. Your DV-AVI records at ~3x this bitrate

I would try AVStoDVD, which uses HCEnc. The quality will be much higher than convertxtodvd which uses FFMPEG as it's MPEG2 encoder

[Anonymous8443434]

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[poisondeathray]

I had a typo above: that should be ~9Mbit/s video bitrate limit, not 9MB/s (megabytes per second) as in HDD transfer rate

[Anonymous8443434]

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[poisondeathray]

I find AVS2DVD easy to use.
The DVD is blurry compared to the original AVI.
See these 2 screenshots:

DV-AVI (Sharp)
http://img72.imageshack.us/img72/7056/sharp.png

MPEG-2 DVD (Blurry)
http://img717.imageshack.us/img717/4227/blurry.png

I suppose I could use a sharpener filter in AviSynth. I cannot seem to get AVS2DVD to do a 2-pass encode.
I set the min/max bit rates as high as they would go.

I've seen a lot worse how did the ffmpeg/convertxtodvd version look ?

Just to be a bit picky, but the frames are not the same (but it doesn't matter, I get the gist of what you're trying to say)

Did you try : preferences=>encoding =>setup video profiles => HCEnc VBR 2pass

What did you actually achieve bitrate wise? you can use a utility like bitrate viewer or gspot

Assuming you were near the upper bitrate limit, actually I would denoise it first judiciously with a targeted avisynth filter, not sharpen. There is slight mosquito noise in the DV-AVI original (you can see this in the balloon), and this impairs the MPEG2 compression. MPEG2 compression is not very good, and noise is very detrimental as it "eats" up a lot of bitrate. Sharpening requires more bitrate too. Assuming you are nearly maxed out at the 9Mbps, sharpening it could make it look worse, because the encoder is up against the upper limit and is requesting more bitrate. You can see that the MPEG2 encoded screenshot has less noise in the balloon as well as less detail overall. By feeding the encoder a cleaner image, it wastes less bitrate encoding mosquito noise, and more on wanted details like faces etc...

[_MrC_]

I cannot seem to get AVS2DVD to do a 2-pass encode.

See AVStoDVD Help/FAQ/Video/Q3.5



Bye

[Anonymous8443434]

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[poisondeathray]

Denoising interlaced content can be tricky. The best denoisers work on progressive footage; the motion prediction for grain and mask generation is better on progressive content.

I would try FFT3DFilter, which has an interlaced mode. You're going to have to fiddle & tweak with the settings until you get something decent that just takes the edge off noise, but doesn't erode too much detail. There are dozens of settings for this filter, and the documentation goes into more detail how to tweak it. Often people add weak sharpen after the denoise. LSFMod() is a good filter. You might try with a low strength at first . You might start with something like this:

e.g
AVISource("video.avi")
FFT3DFilter(sigma=2, interlaced=true)
LSFMod(strength=50)

(These are just rough guidelines to start, it's hard to make suggestions without looking at actual video. If you want to post a small video sample, someone can have a better look at the noise pattern and suggest something more targeted)


The other option people sometimes do is to separate the fields, and use a progressive denoiser, then re-assemble the interlacing

[Anonymous8443434]

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