Converting XVID to Premiere Pro format...

[keeleon]

OK, I am at my wit's end on this project I have been working on. Let's see, where to start?

I have an AVI file that was ripped, I believe from a commercial bluray. My goal is to re-edit it, and keep the highest quality I can for the end product. This is just for fun and to teach myself more about editing (learning a lot, but holy crap! >.<), so I don't have access to the source footage easily.

The video is 1280x720, using an Xvid codec. I would like to convert it to a format so that I can edit it in Premiere Pro 1.5. So far I have used VirtualDub to convert portions to Huffyuv, Lagarith, Uncompressed, and various other codecs to no avail. They end up either choppy, with no sound or just plain don't work.

I would really like to hear any suggestions that could possibly help me with this. File size isn't really an issue as I have a 1TB external eSATA drive I bought to help with this project. Altho, obviously the smaller the better.

The movie I'm recutting is Transformers 2 if it matters, but from what I've read it's a real pain to rip that specific one, so I'm stuck with the version I have for now.

[Baldrick]

You could always try export the sound as a separate file. THen if necassary reconvert it a format that is supported by premiere.

[poisondeathray]

Maybe your HDD or computer specs are too slow/old or PP 1.5 is too old

Since this is just for "learning about editing" you can try a proxy edit or edit at a lower resolution

You can try MJPG as another alternative

If you convert the audio to PCM wave (e.g. in vdub) PP should accept it

[keeleon]

Thanks for the replies.

If I remove the sound, and add it into the editor, will I be able to sync it with the video, so that any cuts I make will still line up, or will I have to make sure to cut both the same each time?

What would be a good format to convert just the video too? So far the ones I have tried have been kind of choppy.

There is a possibility my computer is too slow, but it is a 2.4ghz dual core with 4 gb of ram, so it should at least WORK, if not optimum... PP 1.5 is the only version I have right now, so I'm kind of out of options there. Althought, the problem is in the codec, not the program I think. I've used it for several other DV projects.

The "learning" I'm trying to do is actually what I'm doing now. I am quite familiar with the editing software, and I want to end up with a high quality result, so I can down convert it later if necessary. I'm figuring this project is going to take several hours to get right, and I'd rather do the hard work up front to end up wit ha high quality version, instead of only having the option of low quality when I'm done.

Is a proxy edit like frameserving? I've heard about that, but haven't really looked too much into it, since it doesn't seem to solve my compressed codec problem. What is MJPG? Is that another codec? Where would I get it? Can you think of any other high quality codecs that are compatible with PP 1.5?

Another question I had is: In Gspot, and everywhere else, the video is stated to have 24 FPS, and yet when I view it in Virtualdub or Premiere, it cycles through with 30 frames for every second. There doesn't seem to be much skipping, but my comp IS kind of slow when it comes to cycling through frames. Could this be related to why it's so choppy after conversion?

[poisondeathray]

Yes, if you converted the frame rate incorrectly, or interpreted it incorrectly, that certainly could explain choppy playback. What does mediainfo say about the xvid file, and the one you converted ?

MJPG is another codec, and it's intraframe compression only like DV-AVI (just I-frames) , which make it easier to edit than long GOP, which xvid typically uses. It comes with ffdshow, or another option is avidemux. There is no reason why audio & video can't be interleaved in your conversion to the AVI export (I would still convert to PCM wave, I'm assuming your xvid has something like mp3 audio)

Another term for Proxy editing is "offline editing" if you wanted to search for tutorials. Basically involves editing lower resolution then copying the edits/cuts to the real sequence. The real sequence would contain the full res, full quality master version for final export. It's quite easy to do in later versions of premiere, not sure about 1.5

Most MJPG variants are lossy, like DV. But with MJPG you can usually decide on the quality level. Better quality of course means larger filesizes. Huffyuv is lossless. Lossless codecs are more difficult to edit, because of CPU usage required to decompress. UT Video codec is lossless too, but slightly faster than Huffyuv , you could try that as well (you have to set the configuration to # cores) . You generally need at least a quad core or better to edit with lossless codecs in HD.

[keeleon]

OK, I seem to have gotten the sound figured out. The converted video was just popping in Windows Media Player, but I opened it in VLC and it sounds fine. I downloaded, I believe MainConcept MJPG, and it works in PP along with sound, but the quality is noticeably lower, and it puts a watermark up at the top. I can cut that off, but am I going to be losing quality with the MJPG codec? The difference is like the font is smooth on the opening credits on the original, and pixelated on the conversion.

I did get Huffyuv to work fine using VLC, but now that you say it's harder to edit, I think I won't use it.

Is there a better, free MJPG codec out there? One that won't cause any pixelation? Or is that what I'm going to get because I started with a compressed format?

[lordsmurf]

Some of the Matrox codecs, maybe.
Some discussion of them at http://www.digitalFAQ.com/forum/showthread.php/dv-color-space-2270.html?p=11936#post11936
Download from http://www.matrox.com/video/en/support/windows/vfw_software_codecs/downloads/softwares/version1.0/

The I-frame MPEG-2 one is basically an MJPEG.

[keeleon]

OK, I've cycled through all of the codecs I have so far, and actually, Windows Media (WMV3) seems to be one of the nicer ones that also works with PP. Is there a reason not to use this? I am gonan give that matrox one a shot. Oh, and a side note. I tried using the JVC DV codec that was recommended in another thread, and it erros out, which I believe has something to do with the color depth requirement of 24 or 32. Can someone explain that or point me where I can understand it better? I tried looking it up, but couldn't find anything pertaining to that.

[poisondeathray]

The mjpeg version you are using is a trial, that's why there is a watermark

You can use one of the free ones listed earlier, and adjust the quality higher

The matrox codecs that lordsmurf mentioned are free and a good alternative too. You can adjust the bitrate as well

Just because you can play a video in a media player smoothly indicates nothing for ability to edit. An editor usually converts to RGB and adds additional overhead

WMV3 is lossy, but can be ok if you use high enough bitrate. It wouldn't work very well with default settings (long gop). Ideally you want I-frame only, so the editor doesn't have to work extra hard decoding the frames in the GOP. This is the same reason why editing xvid natively isn't recommended (but you can edit xvid with later versions of premiere). But if you think wmv is ok for you , then by all means go ahead!

[keeleon]

Wow, thank you so much for those Matrox codecs. They seem to be exactly what I was looking for. The quality looks great after conversion, and it seems to work fine in PP. Funny tho, it seems to be the only video type I've come across that VLC can't play tho >.<