Bad quality encoding from Adobe Premiere Pro to DVD

[stokefan]

Hi all,

I have some footage from two separate cameras on DV tape, and i'm not sure whether the footage has been shot in PAL or not. I live in the UK and this is where I'm doing the work so I'd presume so.

The footage has been taken off the camera via firewire to Adobe Premiere Pro as an .avi file (not sure what format, presumably uncompressed), although when I use Adobe Premiere Pro's Export to DVD function, the quality is strange. I have a feeling i'm exporting using the wrong PAL/NTSC or progressive/interlaced setting. When there is movement, there are horizontal lines across the outline of the object moving.

Can anyone please help me out, I don't know what setting to choose although I tried exporting in progressive and not interlaced, I'm not sure what difference that makes though.

Thanks in advance.

[Karate Media]

First, one easy way to see if the original footage is PAL or NTSC: right click on the avi file in windows and choose Properties, then click on the Summary tab. Look for the following info: If the image resolution is 720x576 with a frame rate of 25fps, then you've got PAL. 720x480 at 29fps means NTSC.

If that doesn't help, then next: DV is interlaced, so if you are trying to export as progressive video, the deinterlacing involved may be causing your problem.

What are you viewing the DVD on? a TV set or a computer monitor? Or a HD/progressive TV? This may also effect what you are seeing.

Finally, try a different MPEG2 encoder and see if the problem still happens

[BJ_M]

DV is not uncompressed, it is 5:1 compression

[stokefan]

Karate - thanks for that. I was viewing the picture on a computer monitor from the DVD that was burnt as a result of Adobe Premiere Pro.

i will 1) try to view the DVD on a tv and then 2) try to reencode with interlacing then 3) output the file from Adobe Premiere Pro as something else (*.avi for example in some compression or other) , then try to use TMPGenc3XP to encode to MPEG 2.

Many thanks.Cheers for that BJ_M as well

[lordsmurf]

Try PROCODER instead of MC (which comes in Premiere).

[stokefan]

why would procoder be better than the encoder in Adobe Premiere Pro, lordsmurf?

[qlizard]

Seems to me like a field order problem. DV is bottom field first. And I agree about procoder. I use premiere pro and frameserve directly to procoder.

[edDV]

OK some basics,

[DVD creation]

1. The DV format is interlace (NTSC or PAL)*.

2. A standard DVD is encoded interlace (NTSC or PAL)*.

3a. Standard TV sets are YUV interlace with nonlinear gamma.

3b. Computer monitors are RGB progressive with linear gamma. Never use a computer monitor for quality judgement during intermediate DVD creation steps. Use a TV.

4. If your goal is to create a standard DVD, you need to stay in the interlace mode.

5. If you want to view your video on a computer monitor, use a good computer DVD format player (e.g. Cyberlink Power DVD). It will perform the interlace to RGB progressive conversion for viewing. It will not necessarily get gamma or black/white levels correct.

6. If you just let the Premiere (MainConcept) DVD MPeg2 encoder do its job, it will create a proper MPeg2 file that can be authored into a proper interlace DVD.

7. If you want to view the resulting interlace DVD disc on a progressive TV, the DVD player (or EDTV/HDTV) can create the progressive image from the interlace DVD disc.

[/DVD creation]

If your goal is to make a streaming file for ideal playback on a RGB, linear gamma computer monitor (e.g. streaming video) then the conversion should be made to RGB progressive space (aka deinterlacing to RGB).

There are other reasons to deinterlace the captured video for certain effects processing tasks but consider that an advanced topic.

*Note: The DV format never really sees NTSC or PAL, I mean by that either 525/60 (720x480 raster) or 625/50 (720x576 raster) Y,Cb,Cr DV formats but people still use the terms NTSC and PAL.

Likewise, a DVD does not contain NTSC or PAL. True NTSC or PAL is created at the output of the DVD player from the component MPeg2 stream.

[stokefan]

edDV - that's a great response thanks v.much. Just for the record, my aim is to create a standard DVD for viewing on a DVD player/TV.

Many thanks.

stokefan.

[edDV]

I hope it helps. Many in these forums are encoding for computer display and the two techniques often get confused.