Digital Carmera and Premier 6 question:

[Diving Mullah]

I hope I am putting this in the right forum and if not. I am sorry in advance!!!

I have a Sony Digital Camcorder and when I bought my Firewire card from Pinnacle it came with full version of Premier 6.0. Up to now I have no problem moving stuff from the camera into computer editing it and sending it back through camcorder into VCR and putting it on the tape. The results looks pretty good.

Recently I have purchased a Pioneer A104 DVD recorder that has show Biz and “MYDVD” software, but for some reason “MyDVD” does not like the AVI format that Premier creates. I had no luck with Showbiz either(they look really bad). I got another software that coverts from AVI to MPEG2, but I do loose quality and some the outlines look really jagged. In another words resolution from AVI to MPEG2 goes down hill, which seems strange to me!

My question to you all is how do you convert from the files in Premier into DVD format.

Thanks

Diving Mullah

[vandakeg]

TMPGENC does a pretty good job encoding to Mpeg2. You can download a free trial at http://www.tmpgenc.net/e_main.html.
You can use another program called AVISynth to frameserve your project directly from premiere to tmpgenc. That is a pretty involved process, and there is an easier (but longer) way.
The easiest way is to export your project as a DV .AVI from Premiere. Then open that file in the tutorial menu that comes up when you start TMPGENC. It is a step by step configuration of the encoding process, eventually it will ask you to specify what percentage of the DVD you want to use, therefore getting you the best quality out of your video.
Encoding to Mpeg2 is a pretty tricky process if you're looking for the best of the best quality. It will take some trial and error to get it right.
Quality is mostly based on what bitrate you use, and there are many ways to encode your bitrate. CBR, VBR, and multipass VBR, you can mess with these settings to see what works best for your video (it will change for each video). Usually however, a 2-pass VBR w/ a high bitrate usually works well... it just depends on how long the movie is.
HTH

P.S. If you want to know how to frameserve using avisynth let me know.

[KRAUBV]

You can use Ulead Movie Factory also, or do realtime encoding directly from your camera with DVD Workshop which gives also a good and fast result.

[Reddog]

I haven't tried these settings for tmpgenc dvd yet, but it seems to be worth trying - also good explainations on what the various setting do - http://pwp.netcabo.pt/0165394101/TMPGEnc_Template.html

[Diving Mullah]

Hi;

I have tried TMPGENC. Also read the tutorial from this very site.
The trouble was when it was finished, I had lost lots of resolution.

Not to mention if there is a fast movement, the lines become jagged. Some of colors are also fadded or washed.

I think some information gets lots from Premier AVI(which is not a normal AVI, because not many programs like it to begin with) to MPEG2.

Still Searching!!!

[vandakeg]

If you think you're losing quality from premiere (i don't think that is likely), try frameserving to tmpgenc. Also, if there is fast motion, try a 2-pass VBR.
What settings are you using in Tmpgenc?

[Diving Mullah]

I pretty much followed this guidlines ....

http://www.vcdhelp.com/tmpgenc.htm

In premier 6 after finishing the movie I export the movie (I think they call it timeline as one file <15 minutes otherwise I have to break it into 15 minuts seqments) into my drive. Then import it back again into premier and connect my camcorder to firewire and connect the rci cables to vcr and run the show and record it to vcr. It works great. The quality looks good, almost as good as the original tape.

the same file (avi format) I also can run it on Window Media (before I burned it and dance naked around the fire) same with WinMx or Irfanview and the quality looks pretty much just like the video tape minus monitor resolution.

Once coverted using tmpgenc is when things go down hill. I dont think I blame tmpgenc program, I am sure there is a proper setting that I it would work, but I have to do lots of trail and errors to find it. Unless someone can email the setup file. Mind you I am still using the demo version. and I have couple more weeks before it expires.

Anyway, that is still couple more step than what I would like. I just have a hard time believing the premier 6.0 does not have MPGE2 encoder

Mullah

[vandakeg]

Premiere 6.5 has an mpeg2 encoder, and in my opinion it's just as good (if not better) than tmpgenc. This doesn't help you though!