Really need help, 1680x1050 is giving me a hard time

[cel]

Hello everyone!

I've got some serious problems.

First of all, I've done some playing around with Adobe Premiere (CS4 most recently), but I can't seem to get good quality out of the finished movie.. annoying as hell.
It's hard to get the software to realize that my clips are recorded (with fraps, of WoW) at the resolution 1680x1050.

Same with Sony Vegas, but it kinda worked, but I can't render it to xvid since I can't find the "ignore 3rd party codecs" or something like that anywhere, + the fact that I don't like how the application looks and feels.

I decided to try Pinnacle Studio 14. Looks easy, feels easy, but one thing bugs the hell out of me. My resolution.
If I configure it to set the project resolution based on the first clip added, it sets it at 1920x1080 when I add a 1680x1050-clip. Which ofcourse lookse like pure donkey-poo.
If I set it to a certain resolution, my native isn't even in the list, nor is the opportunity to set a custom resolution. When I choose 1280x720 it also looks like crap for some strange reason.

Summary:

If my source is 1680x1050, what is the best output I should go for without loosing quality? Aaaand, how?
I've googled this for hours but can't find anything that's not 2-4 years old...

I really just want to use my frapsed clips and make a high-quality movie.. (720p is enough, no need for 1080p for me)..

Please help me, I'm about to go mad

[edDV]

What do you want to do with it after encode? Just watch it on your 1680x1080 monitor?

Both Premiere and Vegas support custom resolutions for project and encoding.

[Kaizen 32]

When you are in the New Sequence dialog box in Premiere, click on the General tab, click on the Editing Mode dropdown and choose Desktop. Then you will be able to change the sequence dimensions to 1680x1050 or whatever you want.

[cel]

Thanks for the replies.

I want to upload the clip to either Youtube or warcraftmovies.com or both.

I've found that option in Premiere as well, the problem with Premiere isn't that though, it's that the material looks awesome in the preview, but whatever I pick, I can't seem to get good quality on the end-product.

I want to get it in xvid or mkv, but when I pick h264 as the codec, it really looks like crap :/

I kinda need a guide on the exact settings to get a nice high quality output-file from a 1680x1050-source material...

[edDV]

Youtube is going to want 1280x720p or they will ruin it with pride. Never let youtube scale.

So, you are compressing about 40-60x and you expext the same quality?

H.264 will be most effeicient. Compare Premiere to x264 (e.g. Handbreak for easy GUI).

[cel]

Well, some quality loss is expected ofc, but it should look like it's done in the resolution 640x480.

So let's see if I understand what you're saying:

I should use handbreak to convert the fraps-clips to mp4 and then edit them?

I'm starting to suspect that premiere sucks at keeping the quality when it compresses it.
That and/or my lack of understanding of the parameters for exporting media.. :/

[edDV]

Well, some quality loss is expected ofc, but it should look like it's done in the resolution 640x480.

So let's see if I understand what you're saying:

I should use handbreak to convert the fraps-clips to mp4 and then edit them?

I'm starting to suspect that premiere sucks at keeping the quality when it compresses it.
That and/or my lack of understanding of the parameters for exporting media.. :/

No, you would edit+effects in Premiere at your capture resolution, then downsize (avisynth would be better than Premiere), then encode to h.264. If you want to try/compare Handbreak (x264), export 640x480 uncompressed YUY2 from Premiere to Handbreak.

[cel]

Oh-my-god, I just successfully rendered a clip with good enough quality @ 1680x1050!!!!

Followed this guide:
http://eugenia.gnomefiles.org/2007/11/09/exporting-with-vegas-for-vimeo-hd/

So, now, either I learn vegas, or I try to find a way in Premiere

[edDV]

Premiere project settings are similar.

[cel]

Yes, I found it there too.. I can't believe I missed it before!
Now I'm a happy panda

Thanks for all the support EdDV

[cel]

This is kinda emberrassing, I did some editing for a few months and then my motivation ended and now I'm back, time to find the settings I found before, why the *** didn't I enter it in the thread? hahaha ><