Basic Video Production

[kswichael]

I am a newbie at producing videos and have been assigned to put together videos for an organization. The software I have available is Nero Vision and Adobe Premier Pro CS3. The final product would be 2 version of the videos: One for airing which the television station has requested be in mpg format, and another burned onto a DVD disc for play on home DVD players. I will be adding motion graphics, which will have an alpha channel (transparency) with them. My understanding is that these need to be rendered into mov format, millions+ 32 bit to get the alpha channel. My problem is that when using Vision I can't import the mov file (unsupported file format). I plan on trying to import these using PP. My question is what file format should I render my raw footage to to import into PP. I know it will not import mp4, which I understand as being the best quality format. Obviously I want the final product to be the best quality possible. And since I will be re-compressing into mpg and vob, that will be a compression from raw footage to import, then a compression output to mpg and vob. Sorry for the long explanation, just wanted to be as thorough as possible. Thanks for any help to a newbie!

[smrpix]

What kind of programs are these?

[kswichael]

sermon and bible teaching videos

[smrpix]

So, multicam with live switching? What are you recording to, what format?

[Brainiac]

Are you on a Mac or PC?

[kswichael]

I am on a PC and I already have the raw footage.

[smrpix]

Forget Nero.

Edit your footage in Premiere in a project that matches your source settings. Bring the graphics into Premiere, it will handle movs with alpha fine.

After editing, export to whatever kind of mpeg your station is requesting. Export to DVD compliant mpeg for the DVD. If you have Encore, author your DVD there.

[Brainiac]

Agree with smrpix...Nero does NOT need to be in any part of the equation whatsoever.
Is you raw footage HD or SD? I am assuming HD since you mentioned mp4. I do not recall which HD formats PP CS3 could handle.
By the way, what are the specs for your computer?

Brainiac