AVCHD to DV Avi For Premiere

[snowden]

I'm relatively new to video editing and conversion, and I've read a bunch of guides, but I'd love some advice pertaining to my particular project. I'm creating a short movie that will be burned onto a DVD. The movie will have two video sources:

1. AVCHD from a Panasonic Camera (don't know what model) (.mts files) in 1080i format.
2. Clips from commercial DVDs.

I will be using Adobe Premiere CS3 to edit these on a fairly modest laptop. (Turion64 2Ghz, 2G Ram). The movie will not shown in HD. So here's my questions:

I now own TMPGenc and have been trying to convert into a usable format for premiere. Using the K-Lite codec pack to decode, and Lagarith to encode. To resize to the correct format should I -

A. Use TMPGenc's Resize filter?
B. Not use the filter and just set the size of the output clip to my desired size in the Lagarith settings?
C. Do both?

Also, should I resize to 848x480? 720x480?

Should I de-interlace? What settings?

Should I use a different tool?

Part two:

What settings should I use when creating the premiere project? What resolution? What Pixel Aspect Ratio?

I hope this makes sense. Thanks for any insight!

snowden

[Soopafresh]

You can try the MTS scripts found in here: https://forum.videohelp.com/topic346331.html It's easy to do, but read the directions.

It'll deinterlace and automatically resize to 848x480. Load the AVS files up in VirtualDub and save as Lagarith and it should work. Try it out on one file to test. Some folks like interlacing for smoother pans and movement, some folks like deinterlaced footage for more more "artifact free" looking results. Let your eyes decide when you play back the Lagarith AVI test file.

Ultimately, you'll probably be mpeg2 encoding to 16x9 aspect ratio at 720x480, which works correctly when the lagarith AVIs are 848x480. Crazy, huh ? The AVIs created from the MTS files will definitely end up as 16x9 A/R when you send it off to encode to Mpeg2. I don't know what your DVD source footage is, whether it's 16x9 or 4x3 and if the source is video or film. PITA, isn't it?

[snowden]

Thanks for the swift reply! I used that script to good effect and now am trying to do batch conversions for the .avs files it generates. I'll have about 200 clips total for this project, so automating this step is crucial. My first stab at it was to use AVS2AVI as described in this thread https://forum.videohelp.com/topic346331.html. Using this command line avs2avi 1.avs 1.avi -c LAGS, I get an avi file which plays fine in media player classic with audio. When I load it in premiere, however, the audio is absent. Similarly, the tool MediaInfo shows no audio track. Any ideas?

Again, thanks Soopafresh.

snowden

[Soopafresh]

I believe AVS2AVI doesn't convert the audio, in which case drag the corresponding .WAV file (you'll find it in the same folder as the rest of the stuff) into the timeline in Premiere. If that's too much of a hassle I've got a way to do the batch conversion using the HuffUV codec and ffmpeg. HuffyUV is lossless like Lagarith, but the files are bigger.

Test this out:

avchd_huffy.zip