Can`t convert avi to h.264

[Rathma]

I have a large avi I want to compress to hd so I can put it on youtube. The site suggests h.264.

I`ve used 3 different video converter programs and I get the exact same problem for all of them. There are artifacts everywhere:

http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/4927/vlcsnap1439431.png


Why is this happening? The only thing I can think of is these clips were all brought into Adobe Premiere as mkv and then exported as avi. But that avi file i`m using looks fine. Is there a reason why going avi to mp4 can cause a problem like this?

[minidv2dvd]

mkv is a container. inside the container the video is already a compressed format. futher compression will always create more video crud. you need to start with the original source material to create a good output.

[Rathma]

Is there anything I can do then? The original source material is mkv. And the only way Adobe Premiere will let me output is as avi.

[poisondeathray]

If viewing the avi looks fine, it's probably an issue with the converter software or the decoder that it is using.

What converters have you tried?

What software are you using to play the avi ?

What video format did you export out of premiere? (i.e. what codec and settings? "avi" doesn't say much...)

What version of Premiere (you can export h.264 directly out as another option in recent versions)

[guns1inger]

Is there anything I can do then? The original source material is mkv. And the only way Adobe Premiere will let me output is as avi.

No. The source you have is MKV. The original source material was never MKV. MKV is a purely internet related format. The real world does not use it.

Premiere is the wrong package for this type of thing. It was never designed to work with this type of footage, let alone the MKV container. Yes, you can fool it into thinking it can work with it, but as you can see, the results are unpredictable. So why are you using Premiere ?

If you don't need to edit the clips, or the the edit requirements are simply to split the clip into youtube size chunks, use Xvid4PSP. You may find you don't have to re-encode at all, simply repackage. If you do need to re-encode and split the clip then you can edit the avisynth script to add a Trim() statement before encoding, and batch the lot for a single run. For more reliable than trying to force Premiere to do it.

[Rathma]

If viewing the avi looks fine, it's probably an issue with the converter software or the decoder that it is using.

What converters have you tried?

What software are you using to play the avi ?

What video format did you export out of premiere? (i.e. what codec and settings? "avi" doesn't say much...)

What version of Premiere (you can export h.264 directly out as another option in recent versions)

I have tried Ojosoft, videora, and Alive HD video converter.

The software I used to play the avi is just windows media player. But it opens fine in VLC and MPC.

My export settings out of premiere was;

Microsoft AVI

Compressor: Cinepak Codec by Radius


The version of Premiere I have is CS3, and I don`t see an option to export as h.264.



@guns1inger: I need premiere because it is 4 different mkv files I was editing together. In the future I will convert them to avi before I bring them into premiere. But for now, is there any way I can get this large avi clip into a smaller size for youtube?

It took me 8 hours to edit the video together so i`d rather not go back.

[poisondeathray]

Is there anything I can do then? The original source material is mkv. And the only way Adobe Premiere will let me output is as avi.

No. The source you have is MKV. The original source material was never MKV. MKV is a purely internet related format. The real world does not use it.

Premiere is the wrong package for this type of thing. It was never designed to work with this type of footage, let alone the MKV container. Yes, you can fool it into thinking it can work with it, but as you can see, the results are unpredictable. So why are you using Premiere ?

If you don't need to edit the clips, or the the edit requirements are simply to split the clip into youtube size chunks, use Xvid4PSP. You may find you don't have to re-encode at all, simply repackage. If you do need to re-encode and split the clip then you can edit the avisynth script to add a Trim() statement before encoding, and batch the lot for a single run. For more reliable than trying to force Premiere to do it.

Some assumptions, but it's entirely possible the source could be blu-ray, for example, just re-packaged into .mkv. I do this a lot, just strip the useless tracks, commentary and gazillion languages out. Also , it's 5-7% smaller than .m2ts , just in terms of container overhead

FYI Premiere works great with mkv. Just use the avisynth import plugin. There is a version that works for CS4 as well

I completely agree with the final comments. It's overkill unless you are doing something very specific and special

[Rathma]

FYI Premiere works great with mkv. Just use the avisynth import plugin.

I used avisynth for all of my mkv files.

[poisondeathray]

@Rathma - don't use cinepak codec by radius. Very bad.

If you have the hard drive space, use something lossless like lagarith or huffyuv, or ffdshow's huffyuv with huffman tables

Once you have your intermediate file, you can use better encoding GUI's e.g. ripbot264, xvid4psp, megui, handbrake, - they should all work fine

If you install x264vfw it will appear in premiere's export options (it does for cs4, and I checked on one of my older systems that has Premiere2, it shows up there too), so you could export directly out without the intermediate file (but be careful the default settings are very low quality, you just have to adjust them); also the problem with this option is that you can only export avi container, which can cause issues with h.264.

Another option is to use debugmode frameserver, which works on older versions of Premiere , but not CS4. All it does is make a "dummy" avi file a few KB big, which then you use as input into one of the encoder programs.

Cheers

[Rathma]

If you install x264vfw it will appear in premiere's export options (it does for cs4, and I checked on one of my older systems that has Premiere2, it shows up there too), so you could export directly out without the intermediate file (but be careful the default settings are very low quality, you just have to adjust them); also the problem with this option is that you can only export avi container, which can cause issues with h.264.

Cheers

I installed x264vfw and when I open premiere cs3 I don`t get any new export options. Are you going File > Export > Movie... to find that setting?

[poisondeathray]

I installed x264vfw and when I open premiere cs3 I don`t get any new export options. Are you going File > Export > Movie... to find that setting?

I skipped CS3, but in Premiere Pro 2, you do the same thing file=>export=>settings=>microsoft AVI=>video=> under compressor there is a drop down menu (it says cinepak radius to begin with, but select x264vfw instead), then press configure for the settings. (Make sure you change them from their low quality defaults!)

(It's a bit different in CS4, you don't export directly , you queue the project into adobe media encoder)

[Rathma]

Oh I think the 64bit version I downloaded was for AMD only. I installed the 32bit and now the export setting showed up.

Thanks for the help. I reduced my 12gig video down to 120mb with the same quality and upped it to youtube.