Exporting .avc from Premiere Pro?

[koberulz]

Is there a way to do this? Premiere exports its H.264 Blu-Ray files as .m4v, and most BD authoring software only accepts .avc files.

[poisondeathray]

Some authoring software accept .m4v as elementary streams; but you can rename the extension to .264, .h264 or .avc if the one you're using doesn't accept it

[SameSelf]

hmm, that is interesting. What BD authoring tools are you referencing? I only have experience with Encore and it readily accepts both .m4v and .264 streams.

[koberulz]

DoStudio and EasyBD are the two I've been looking at. I know Encore takes m4v files, but its BD authoring capabilities aren't great.

@poison: so if I just rename the .m4v file to .avc it'll work?

[poisondeathray]

Yes renaming will work in terms of importing, pass through, and compiling the project - I've confirmed this with short tests in the past for those. But nobody uses Adobe for serious BD encoding , so I don't know if there will be problems on longer tests or the real thing. It doesn't make any sense to spend money a good authoring tool but skimp on the encoding

[koberulz]

I already have and know how to use Premiere, so there's that.

[poisondeathray]

I already have and know how to use Premiere, so there's that.

Well you have Encore too, so there's that

But seriously , what does that have to do with anything ? Premiere is a video editor. The AVC encoder is a low end version licensed by Adobe from Mainconcept. The quality is quite low. So there's that .

When you were considering DoStudio, have you looked at the prices ? I'm assuming you were looking at the Indie version. There are also several EasyBD versions, all less expensive.

[koberulz]

I already have and know how to use Premiere, so there's that.

Well you have Encore too, so there's that

True, but that won't even let me have backgrounds on popup menus, to name the most obvious thing.

When you were considering DoStudio, have you looked at the prices ? I'm assuming you were looking at the Indie version. There are also several EasyBD versions, all less expensive.

I did. I also looked at their AVC Encoder, and the price for that, which is why I'd much rather get it out of Premiere, at least to begin with. Especially given I'd also need the hard drive space for uncompressed AVI exports.

That being said, "here's a plug-in for Premiere that will export .avc" is also a valid answer to my question. I did find this, but I have CS6 not CC.

[poisondeathray]

If you want other valid answers/options to your question, besides those that require physical intermediates on HDD, you can use a frameserver (e.g. debugmode frameserver, or advanced frameserver), and x264pro is another retail plugin for PP that is compatible with CS6

[koberulz]

I was using DebugMode Frameserver a while ago for something else, but there was a bug that made it impossible to encode anything at all without uninstalling it. Not sure if Advanced would be any different, given it's apparently based on DBM, but I might have a play around with it later.

If I do go that route, what do you recommend to handle the actual encoding?

[poisondeathray]

I would frameserve to x264, unless you want to speed a few times more than what you expect to pay for dostudio indie

[koberulz]

Isn't x264 a codec, not an encoder?

[poisondeathray]

Isn't x264 a codec, not an encoder?

x264 is a free for personal use, open source encoder . It's the "gold standard" for general usage AVC encoding - Even HEVC encoders get compared to it. The quality difference between x264 and Mainconcept AVC is like night and day. Just do a quick search, lots of comparisons. You'll be surprised that you've been suffering with it for so long. Premiere is a good editor, but it's bundled with sub-par encoder.

You still need to take out a license for commercial usage, but it doesn't sound like you're doing that

[koberulz]

Not at this stage, although it's a possibility in the future.

So I frameserve into, say, MeGUI, and then use the x264 option in there? Advanced Frameserver seems to only output RGB24, RGB32, YUY2, or UYVY, whereas MeGUI wants YV12. Is there a best option?

[poisondeathray]

Eventually you need YV12, which is planar 4:2:0 . That' s all BD supports

If your timeline is working in YUV, then stick with YUY2 or UYVY (functionally there is no difference to avisynth, which megui uses - they are both YUV 4:2:2, they are just different arrangements of the planes); , if your timeline is working in RGB, then use RGB24

[koberulz]

I'll give that a shot. Thanks for the help.

[SameSelf]

pdr, i have been following this thread very closely. Your comments have me thinking. Currently my process involves frameserving out of PPro via DMFS to Avisynth then the x264 cli. I am curious about the x264pro retail plug in for CS. Is that functionally different from the freeware cli? And at what point is it worthwhile to spend money on a retail/pro encoder versus relying on x264? Thanks as always.

[poisondeathray]

pdr, i have been following this thread very closely. Your comments have me thinking. Currently my process involves frameserving out of PPro via DMFS to Avisynth then the x264 cli. I am curious about the x264pro retail plug in for CS. Is that functionally different from the freeware cli? And at what point is it worthwhile to spend money on a retail/pro encoder versus relying on x264? Thanks as always.

x264pro is more of an "ease of use" plugin. It doesn't have all the options available as CLI. Not everyone has the time to go into understanding advanced settings. Or HDD space for intermediates, or time to learn about frameserving. But they want something better than the Mainconcept AVC encoder, or at least the handicapped one bundled with Adobe - for those people it might make sense. I can't answer what is "worthwhile" to someone or not, it's going to be different for different people

There are other "pro" plugins and software you can get, but there is a distinction between "pro" and "studio" level software. There is a huge jump in price between "pro" and "studio" level software. The only time you would use a studio level encoder is when you have to do it for retail encodes. I think I mentioned it in one of your other threads already - the quality difference isn't much , and in fact many times x264 looks better for a default 2 pass encode. But nobody uses a default 2pass encode in that scenario. You go over problems sections again and again with segment encoding, which you can't do with x264 , without ensuring VBV constraints weren't broken (you can use sort of get similar functionality with --zones, but it's a lot harder, a lot slower, and not without breaking VBV constraints). The other functions are things like grain, filtering which are commonly part of the studio encoder suites, but strictly speaking those are not part of encoder itself

[SameSelf]

pdr, great advice and truly appreciated. My apologies if I am making you restate yourself. The problem I have is it takes me a long time to digest all this information. It is like drinking from a fire hose. Fortunately for me, there are guys like you on this forum, patient with idiots like me

segment encoding, --zones, VBV constraints, so much to think about...

[_Al_]

if some scenes look suspicious to give encoding banding artifacts, are recorded in low light or definitively some computer graphics with gradients at the beginning of video etc., it might be a good idea to throw the --zones in cmd line beforehand, like: --zones=6000,7000,crf=15/15000,16000,crf=15 or --zones=6000,7000,b=1.5/15000,16000,b=1.5 but that is good for crf encoding, not sure how that would behave encoding 2pass VBR, if it takes that added bandwith in zones from the rest of the video to keep average bitrate.

[SameSelf]

cool tip, thanks.

[turk690]

True, but that won't even let me have backgrounds on popup menus, to name the most obvious thing.

When playing a correctly-authored blu-ray disc, then pressing the pop-up menu button on the remote, pop-up menus have as background the on-going AV stream they are associated with. During authoring in Encore, pop-up menu buttons initially appear against a blank background, which can be changed to specific frames from the associated timeline/s. Admittedly, the generic help in Encore did not help my cluelessness one bit initially but after slogging through it finally made it work. Staying within Encore rules of no more than 16 buttons on a menu page, I have created menus, pop-up and otherwise, as fancy as those on some commercial blu-rays.

[koberulz]

No, I mean, for example, something like this:


Encore won't handle the black and translucent pink rectangles. You can make them part of the button, but if the button highlight is over part of the background, it makes the background completely transparent when the button isn't selected (so in Encore, the translucent pink rectangles wouldn't ever show up at all).

[turk690]

Encore won't handle the black and translucent pink rectangles. You can make them part of the button, but if the button highlight is over part of the background, it makes the background completely transparent when the button isn't selected (so in Encore, the translucent pink rectangles wouldn't ever show up at all).

There are sample buttons that come with encore whose highlight is completely out from the button and over the background and they can or not appear, depending on how they are set. You might want to try a ready-made default pop-up menu (or any menu) in encore, then go to layers tab, then selectively click on the eye icons and check how they appear.
As a simple test, I would 1. create a blank menu; 2. drag a shape onto it (a triangle, for example); 3. convert shape to button (which for one adds the highlight layer, and corresponding prefixes to distinguish both); 4. note if I want the button layer, or only the highlight, or both to appear by selecting the eye icon in layers tab. The default is, both button and highlights are visible, such that you see a button even if not selected, which is what you want, correct? The degree of transparency of the button itself can be modified by choosing to edit the whole menu in photoshop, which adobe touts is one of the things that distinguishes encore out from the pack.
By comparison, I mostly use simple shapes for buttons, which I do not want to appear when not selected so I turn off its corresponding layers tab eye icon. This way, I only see the highlights successively when I press <>˄˅ buttons on remote.

[koberulz]

You misunderstand.

Here's a popup menu I created:


Because Encore won't let me have a background, the blue color, fireworks, and white bars top and bottom have to be part of the buttons.

Now, here's what happens when I import it into Encore and use it as a popup menu in a finished project:


Notice that instead of just underlining the selected button in white, it's also underlined every other button. Whatever video is playing under the menu plays is visible in those underlines, just as it is above and below the area covered by the popup menu. If you press the right arrow, it underlines 'second quarter' in white, and underlines 'first quarter' in, for the purposes of this demonstration, black. But in reality, where those black underlines are, the video shows through.

[turk690]

You misunderstand...

Maybe, but let's see. 1st, that you are not allowed backgrounds in pop-up menus is not just in encore; it's a blu-ray thing in general. 2nd, the bars are the button highlights, and their activated color is white, but their non-activated (normal?) color is transparent (for some reason, as I get it), which is why you see the video underneath when not activated. This still leads to what I said earlier: to make the button invisible when not selected (in this case remove its 100% transparent appearance, so only the highlight appears when selected), toggle its eye icon on layer tab off.
I don't see how you have to make the blue color, fireworks, etc just to have a background. I'd just have created "first quarter", etc as text, create underscore (bar) highlight, then convert to button. Encore presents me with a default pop-up menu with a blank (alpha layer) background that has four text buttons on it that can easily be modified to what you want (part of CS5.0.3).

[koberulz]

1st, that you are not allowed backgrounds in pop-up menus is not just in encore; it's a blu-ray thing in general.

This is untrue, as demonstrated by the screenshot I posted earlier, which I'm guessing is from Fight Club's commercial BD release. A Google image search for 'popup menu' shows plenty of other examples.

2nd, the bars are the button highlights, and their activated color is white, but their non-activated (normal?) color is transparent (for some reason, as I get it), which is why you see the video underneath when not activated.

But what you should see, is the blue, fireworks, etc, as shown in the first image. It shouldn't make the button's contents disappear below the highlight. It's still there.

This still leads to what I said earlier: to make the button invisible when not selected (in this case remove its 100% transparent appearance, so only the highlight appears when selected), toggle its eye icon on layer tab off.

The eye icon on the layer tab doesn't, AFAIK, actually do anything for button highlights. Whether or not they're visible is controlled by the player, if they're set up properly. If they're not, they won't respond to whether or not the button is active.

I don't see how you have to make the blue color, fireworks, etc just to have a background.

Because that's what the background is.

I'd just have created "first quarter", etc as text, create underscore (bar) highlight, then convert to button. Encore presents me with a default pop-up menu with a blank (alpha layer) background that has four text buttons on it that can easily be modified to what you want (part of CS5.0.3).

Yes, and you would have had no background. Which has an aesthetic problem and a functional problem. Aesthetically, it just doesn't look as nice. Functionally, the background directly behind the buttons is controlled by the video, and therefore unpredictable, so you have to design your buttons to be visible against both light and dark backgrounds. And you have to have a button highlight that doesn't cover any part of the button. For the project I'm currently working on, which I started designing for Encore before considering looking at better software, I've got white text buttons with black strokes, and then another stroke as the highlight, which is basically the only way to do it. And really, there should be a third stroke just in case the video is the same colour as the button highlight. There aren't may ways to make it look good.

[koberulz]

To return to the actual topic: I've used Advanced Frame Server, then MeGUI's AVS Script creator to create an AVS, then exported as .264 and .ac3.

But it's flagging the resulting .264 files as progressive, instead of interlaced. How do I get it to flag properly?

[_Al_]

If Advanced Frame Server works the same way as DebugMode Frame Server, it exports sequence or project properties (whatever it is named in Premiere), not clip properties. So those two should match.

There is a chance that the avs script is not alright.

Third, if everything is really interlaced , there should be --tff flag in x264 command line or marked properly in MeGui settings..

[poisondeathray]

Be careful that you're actually using BD compliant settings.

Also did you really mean "flagging" or encoding interlaced ? flagging would imply progressive content that you're just trying to put on BD because native progressive isn't supported for your chosen format characteristic e.g. 1920x1080p25 would be an example. Encoding "interlaced" (actually MBAFF for x264) would imply your content is interlaced - such as 50 fields per second interlaced (1920x1080i25 or 1920x1080i50 - they actually mean the same thing, just different naming conventions)