Mov to DVD editing problem with premiere and encore

[mustafa45]

Hi...

I am recording videos with my digital still camera with 640x480 30fps resolution. And they are in quicktime mov format, probably with Apple photo jpeg codec.

I can join,split or edit them after importing to premiere without a problem. And then export them to encore so I can write them to DVD and share easily.

Now the main problem is I dont know some basic settings about field order or whether my source is interlaced.

I got a screenshot from gspot which is attached but it didnt give me information about interlacing.

Video quality is not perfect but it is quite good for a still camera. I dont want to loose quality much when converting to DVD so I need some advice on

-how to understand if it needs deinterlacing
-field order
-best keyframe and bitrate settings targeted for quality

I made some trials but the output dvd wasnt sharp as my source quicktime videos. Is this normal or will it be better with some sharpening

Thanks in advance

[guns1inger]

It is progressive (i.e. not interlaced), so it doesn't need to be deinterlaced (and for DVD, you should rarely, if ever need to deinterlace interlaced video).

It is also short. I would use CBR (Constant BitRate) encoding at around 9200 kbps, or if Encore supports it, Constant Quality encoding.

GOP settings for PAL should be 12.

Finally, be aware that to reduce the framerate down to PAL, you will have to put up with either discarding frames or blending frames (I don't know what approach Encore takes) which may produce skipping or ghosting.

[mustafa45]

It is progressive (i.e. not interlaced), so it doesn't need to be deinterlaced (and for DVD, you should rarely, if ever need to deinterlace interlaced video).

It is also short. I would use CBR (Constant BitRate) encoding at around 9200 kbps, or if Encore supports it, Constant Quality encoding.

GOP settings for PAL should be 12.

Finally, be aware that to reduce the framerate down to PAL, you will have to put up with either discarding frames or blending frames (I don't know what approach Encore takes) which may produce skipping or ghosting.

Thank you for the info. Can I ask how did you know that my source was progressive?

Yes, it is short because it was a test video. But to protect the quality I think I will stick to the CBR and highest bitrate

I think I have to loose 5 fps for every second if I have to convert to pal DVD, right? Frame blending is the default option in premiere, is it also the best one?

[guns1inger]

The best option is to encode for NTSC. Less resizing, and less change to the framerate. 5 fps is approx 16% - that is a lot.

Most (all ?) digital still cameras shoot progressive (as opposed to mini-DV, which shoot interlaced). Plus, the g-spot screen shots 30 pictures per second and no fields.