I an a newb. Can you pros please review my workflow and I have one prob...

[homeofficeservices]

Hey, great forum, I just had to join. I am new to video editing/dvd creation, but am learning. I am teaching myself to use premiere 6.5, but was unable to get Adobe's mpeg encoder to export my timeline successfully. I remedied this by using DVD Flick (thanks videohelp forum guys) to encode the avi to DVD. Then I burn the files to disc using Nero. Is this satisfactory, or should I be looking for something else? Currently the only issue I have is that during playback, whenever the camera moves I get a lot of very jagged edges as long as the camera is moving. Is this to be expected after all the compression? BTW, the videos I am working with are from a DV camcorder which I captured using Premiere 6.5 and a Firewire connection. I never noticed the jagged lines when playing back the video on the camera. Thanks in advance for any help you may be able to provide. You guys have a real wealth of knowledge here - keep up the good work!

[edDV]

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Currently the only issue I have is that during playback, whenever the camera moves I get a lot of very jagged edges as long as the camera is moving. Is this to be expected after all the compression? BTW, the videos I am working with are from a DV camcorder which I captured using Premiere 6.5 and a Firewire connection. I never noticed the jagged lines when playing back the video on the camera. Thanks in advance for any help you may be able to provide. You guys have a real wealth of knowledge here - keep up the good work!

Interlace is normal. Is that what you mean? If so the DVD player or progressive TV will deinterlace where necessary. Post a sample frame showing the problem.

The Premiere v6.5 MPeg2 encoder should work if you have it registered. There have been two encoder upgrades.

[homeofficeservices]

This could be just my lack of knowledge on the subject. I opened a video with nero to view it and do a screen capture, but it really looks much better played with Nero - or Win Media Player for that matter. I was watching the same video on a tv and it looks terrible. Maybe I'm expecting something I shouldn't be. The problem I had with Adobe mpeg encoder is that the audio and video become un-synchronized after a few minutes. And it never finishes encoding the whole movie, it gets about 75% done and it stops with an error like "unable to write picture data to the output file."

[edDV]

What is your source file? What codec? Unsync audio is not normally an issue. Recall that Premiere v6.5 dates back to ~ 2002. Don't expect it to handle more modern high compression formats well.

Define "looks terrible" and what kind of TV (conventional or HDTV)?
How are you playing the file to the TV?

"unable to write picture data to the output file." often means a disk is full. During conversion, the Premiere swap file (a temp file) gets large. The swap file and source video files should be on a drive separate from the OS.

[homeofficeservices]

Here's where I become a pain in the ass. I know nothing about codecs or even how to answer your question about which codec. More things I need to learn. My source file? The video was captured from DV camera using Premiere, which saved it as and avi (a very big one). The part that looks terrible when played back on tv is a pattern of jagged lines - looks sort of like zebra stripes along edges of people or objects - whenever there is movement of the camera. The videos have been burned to DVD and are being played back on conventional tvs with standalone dvd players (2 different dvd players and tvs just to rule that out) I will check where my swap file is located. I really appreciate all your time and advice.

[seifer almasy]

The lines you are getting are interlace lines. These shouldn't really be displayed in the editing suite as they should have been blended for previews sake. It has been a while since I used adobe premier. Once you have made your file, the interlace lines are normal. For playback on PC the decoder (the player you are using to play the file, like windows media player) should be deinterlacing it for you. If you export the movie to DVD, the lines should not be shown on your TV at all. Since interlacing is the method a TV uses to display the picture.

I have to be honest with you, if you can, get sony vegas 8. It is 100X better, especially for beginners. Adobe is overly complicated and not what I would call user friendly. It is also stuffed full of bugs.

[edDV]

What seifer almasy said. You shouldn't be seeing interlace from DVD player to TV unless you did someting in Premiere to cause it. I'd bet the error is in DVD Flick or Nero.

Edit and encode in Premier then import the resulting MPeg2 file into Nero for DVD authoring. Don't let Nero recode.

Is this a conventional TV or progressive?


BTW: If source is a DV camcorder, your codec is DV and the format is 720x480i which is compatible with DVD. You need to edit in DV format project setting and then encode to 720x480i/29.97 MPEG2, lower field first and use 8 to 9 Mb/s bit rate (Premiere 6.5 defaults to a low 4Mb/s).

[homeofficeservices]

Well, thanks for all your time and input - I'm currently looking into Sony Vegas like was suggested. I just started with Premiere because I was told it's the best and I hate to bother with something if I'm not going to get the best results I can. What do you pros do with the big avi capture files after you've made a movie and burned it? I understand this is the best quality copy of the video I have, so should I be saving these to preserve the original footage in its best form? Like when I save a tiff file of a photo - it's the best quality, just a big pain due to the file sizes. Now I have a bunch of 19.5Gb avis to keep...
Thanks again!