Exporting HDV with Premiere Pro 2

[HDVth]

Hi All

Exporting HDV with Premiere Pro 2

Camcorder: Sony HDR - HC3 HDV camcorder. (1440 x 1080)
Software: Adobe Premiere Pro 2
HD Player: WD TV HD Player
TV: Sony Full HD

Camcorder via HDMI
When I connect my camcorder directly to the TV, the picture quality is excellent as expected.

Viewing Native Capture
I then capture (via firewire) through PPro2 which creates a MPEG file. The picture quality (viewed through my WD TV HD Player) is almost as good?

Does PPro2 capture HDV natively and is there any loss in video quality after capturing?

If not, could the slight loss be down to the WD TV HD Player?

Exporting
I‘ve exported video projects to MPEG 2 and M2T but both produce a slightly grainy, blurred video, with less colour depth than the original.

What is the best way to export HDV video without no or little loss?
Do I need a better Media Encoder?
Can I backup my project back to tape and capture natively again?


Thanks


Ted Hughes

[minidv2dvd]

for the way you've worded your questions, i assume you no longer have the original tapes?

if pp2 captured the hdv to 1440x1080 25mbps m2t files then yes it did it to the native format. then you could chalk up the picture difference to the wd.

the colorspace is fairly standard 4:2:0 so pp2 shouldn't have any problem with that. as for grainy and blurred, that shouldn't happen at all. i can't check pp2 as i only have pp cs3 and cs4 installed, they both handle hdv to anything quite well.

what is your intended final output format?

if it's in native .m2t already printing back to tape isn't going to help, and if it isn't then you can't print back to tape.

[racer-x]

Premiere pro does not have Smart Render capabilities for HDV. That means all frames will be re-encoded by Adobe Media Encoder. So yes, there will be some quality loss compared to original .m2t as captured.

[edDV]

If you captured properly, the m2t file should be a direct copy of data from tape. An alternate capture option is HDVSplit.

What are your PP2 project settings and encoder settings?

Remember that HDV is top field first.

[HDVth]

Hi All

Firstly, many thanks for all the replies.

In answer to some of the questions:

Capturing
It appears that I may have been capturing in MPEG instead of M2T. I'm not sure why?
I can only see the option in PPro2 to capture HDV in MPEG (or I'm missing the m2t capture option).
Unfortunately, I've completed some of my projects (using the captured MPEG video) so I don't think I can convert my videos to m2t.

These are my capture settings:
HDV 1080i 25 (Sony 50i)

General
Editing mode: HDV 1080i
Timebase: 25.00 fps

Video Settings
Frame size: 1440h 1080v (1.333)
Frame rate: 25.00 frames/second
Pixel Aspect Ratio: HD Anamorphic 1080 (1.333)
Fields: Upper Field First

Audio Settings
Sample rate: 48000 samples/second

Capture Format
HDV Capture

Video Rendering
Maximum Bit Depth: Off
Preview File Format: I-Frame only MPEG-2
Compressor: I-Frame Only MPEG
Color depth: Millions of colors

Default Sequence
Total video tracks: 3
Master track type: Stereo
Mono tracks: 0
Stereo tracks: 3
5.1 tracks: 0
Submix mono tracks: 0
Submix stereo tracks: 0
Submix 5.1 tracks: 0


Capture Settings
Under Video Rendering - Maximum Bit Depth: Off. Should this option be on?
I assume there is no difference in capturing with other software like HDVsplit (as suggested).


Output Format
My goal is to output close to the original capture to a format supported by my WD Player (works fine with MPEG2 and M2T). Is PPro2 AME the problem here? Are there better Media Encoder add-ons? Or would upgrading to CS3 or CS4 improve the output format?

Now that I can capture in m2t (using HDV split) what should my output settings be?
It seems the only sensible output option in the AME is MPEG2?

These are my export settings:
Quality 5
TV Version: Pal
fps: 25
Res. 1440 x 1080
Field Order: Upper
Aspect Ratio: 16:9 (1.333)
Profile: High (options for high main, simple & 4:2:2)
Level: High 1440 Level (options for High Level, High 1440 Level & Main Level)


Thanking you in advance

Ted Hughes

[edDV]

HDV is MPeg2 and captures to an M2T container.

HDVSplit should do the same but has fewer settings to get wrong.

If PP2 doesn't have an HDV export template recall that HDV is 4:2:0 not 4:2:2. One alternative is try the print to tape function and then recapture.

[MojoMen]

I have a similar problem/question: Here goes...

My capture settings are as follows:

(using Sony HDR HC3 camcorder)

General
Editing mode: HDV 1080i
Timebase: 29.97 fps

Video Settings
Frame size: 1440h 1080v (1.333)
Frame rate: 29.97 frames/second
Pixel Aspect Ratio: HD Anamorphic 1080 (1.333)
Fields: Upper Field First


I recently noticed when I choose export to tape option, the video quality is degraded. The direct playback from premiere 2.0 software on my playback monitor is as good as the captured original played from hard drive, but when playing back/outputting to the camera (even as it is outputting to camera in real time) there is considerable reduction in quality.

How can I export to HDV (tape) without loss of quality?

I have a segment of video, shot indoors, captured to my hard drive which looks fine. Even playback of the edited segment looks as good as the original file while playing back in premiere pro 2.0. However, once I choose export to tape, the quality is noticeably reduced and blotchy (even as it's being dumped into the camera, as I view it through the video out of the camera).

Another issue is:


When there is added slowed motion segments, I am always forced to output to tape first because I cannot get premiere 2.0 to correctly output slow motion direct to video file (instead of tape). If I have a segment of video to which I need to add slow motion, I have no choice but to export to tape and re-capture it. If I don't export to tape and just export directly to uncompressed AVI, the slow motion segments look terrible, and choppy.

As a side question, I actually prefer to output to hard drive (instead of tape) in the same exact filetype as the captured format (whatever that raw file is on the hard drive immediately after capture). I have no idea how to imitate that exact filetype once editing is complete.

Any responses would be appreciated.

Thank you.

[coloursurge]

I recently noticed when I choose export to tape option, the video quality is degraded.

[...]

If I don't export to tape and just export directly to uncompressed AVI, the slow motion segments look terrible, and choppy.

You should really have started a new thread, rather then replying to one that's a year old, but never mind.

Your issues sound like they could well be a field order problem - when interlaced video has the fields the wrong way round, any motion will result in horrible juddery edges, like you describe - and slow motion would make it worse.

Try reversing the field order when you export, and see if that fixes it.

(I registered just to answer your question. Don't you feel privileged!

[MojoMen]

Thank you!