Premiere Pro - Export to DVD - Taking forever

[nharikrishna]

Hi,

I have successfully captured my VHS Video into the computer as a DV file (AVI) using the Canopus ADVC 110.

Edited uding Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5 by adding some stock footage and audio, and then selected 'Export to DVD' option in Adobe Premiere Pro (without actually exporting the final video into AVI file - Export to Movie) after placing a blank DVD disc inside the drive. I put it for an overnight Transcoding & burning.

Now, the problem is, when I checked in the morning (after a duration of 7 hours), the transcoding status still shows only about 25% completed. Is it normal? I understand Premiere Pro uses 'MainConcept encoder' for encoding to DVDs.

I was disappointed, because the same duration video (1 hour) took just 5 or 6 hours to complete the entire task. The complexity in video is not that great, infact it is almost the same video that I transcoded.

My computer is not the fastest, P4, Dual Core, 2 GB RAM, 200 GB Harddisc, Onboard Video card and onboard sound card.

I am very confused because the same video clip took only 5 or 6 hours to complete the task the other day, but this time, only 25% completed even after 7 hours.

I was not running any other program (including Norton Antivirus) during this process.

Please suggest if I am doing something wrong.

Also, is this the proper way of encoding and burning DVDs, or do I need to export the entire file into AVI (the final edited video), and then use some other dedicated DVD Transcoding software and finally burn using some software like Nero?

Please help.

[filmboss80]

Don't export directly to a blank DVD disc. Communications between editing/encoding software and DVD burner are very likely to get dicey. Export the file to your hard drive first. (The MainConcept encoder must make a DVD-compatible MPEG-2 file for DVD authoring.)

[nharikrishna]

Don't export directly to a blank DVD disc. Communications between editing/encoding software and DVD burner are very likely to get dicey. Eport the file to your hard drive first. (The MainConcept encoder must make a DVD-compatible MPEG-2 file for DVD authoring.)

Ok thanks. Even in "Export to DVD" option, I understand Premiere Pro transcodes the video first, stores in a temporary space and only then writes to the DVD. Or does it start writing to the disc as it transcodes? Can you please clarify?

Any suggestions on the time it is taking to transcode?

regards

[edDV]

My memory of Premiere Pro 1.5 is it doesn't export directly to DVD. It will export a DVD spec MPeg2 file (Adobe Media Encoder) that can be authored in Encore or another authoring program. Premiere Pro 2.0 introduced a quick DVD mode with limited menus intended as a check disc or "daily" preview.

Can you give more detail for your export settings? The current Premiere Pro menu structure is different.

This wiki details the feature adds by version.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Premiere_Pro

[nharikrishna]

edDV, I will provide the settings screenshots in a day or two. But I am facing another problem here:

Premiere Pro 1.5 DOES have the facility to directly burn to a DVD.

Method 1: Use "Export to DVD" option by placing an empty DVD disc in the drive. This performs the transcoding and burning of the disc as well. While doing this, Premiere Pro states that the required disk space for burning my video to DVD is 4.38 GB. Fine. My Video is little more than 1 hour, and it is around 13 GB in AVI format. This method is also resulting in "Recording Error..." after an overnight running. So I decided to go for Method 2.

Method 2: I used the "Adobe Media Encoder" to encode the AVI file into MPEG-2 DVD format. Premiere Pro states that it will produce a file with extension .m2v. But surprisingly it also states that the final .m2v file size is going to be only 2.27 GB.

Why the difference in final DVD compliant file sizes? Is it doing more compression and losing quality by Method 2?

I have applied the same quality settings in both the above methods, that is, PAL DV 4X3 High Quality VBR 4 MB.

Or is Premiere Pro not too well suited for encoding to a DVD compliant file? It says it is using "MainConcept MPEG" CODEC. What other program I need to use to export to DVD (both encode and author) with the highest quality possible?

Please help.

[filmboss80]

Your 13GB AVI file is not DVD-compliant. That format is for production editing and mastering without heavy compression artifacts. Once the project is finished, encoding is done to MPEG-2, which is DVD-compliant (great for playback, but not very good for editing and mastering). Depending on your bitrate settings, the finished file size could be either larger or smaller that 2.26GB, though for a 1-hour video, that size should suffice. Note that .m2v is the video stream alone and does not include the audio portion. The MainConcept encoder is very, very good, depending on your settings.

Keep in mind that video editing in Premiere is just the first phase. There will be DVD authoring options to follow, and you have a lot of choices. (If you don't also have Adobe Encore, you can choose DVD authoring software from the Tools section of this site.)

I firmly believe that the "easy way" of trying to get Premiere to burn your disc is why you are having problems in the first place. All the hours of encoding will be futile if the final step--burning to disc--is thwarted by cheap disc media or interrupted communications between Premiere and your particular burner. That is why I told you to encode first to your hard drive.

Take the time to learn about DVD authoring. Then use a good burning program like the free and ever-reliable Imgburn. Also use good DVD discs, like Verbatims.

[nharikrishna]

Ok Thanks very much for the explanation. I have now "Exported the movie" in AVI format, which came to 13 GB for my 1 hour video, then used Sonic DVDit to produce DVD Volume (those VOBs), and then burnt DVD using Nero. The resulting VOB DVD Volume came to 4.2 GB which I am satisfied with (as opposed to 2.27 GB while using adobe Media Encoder that produced 'm2v' and 'wav' files).

Any idea which Encoder DVDit (older version, 5 or 6 years old, not the newest) uses? (Mainconcept, CCE..etc). I couldn't figure out which encoder DVDit is using.

Regards

[edDV]

Ok Thanks very much for the explanation. I have now "Exported the movie" in AVI format, which came to 13 GB for my 1 hour video, then used Sonic DVDit to produce DVD Volume (those VOBs), and then burnt DVD using Nero. The resulting VOB DVD Volume came to 4.2 GB which I am satisfied with (as opposed to 2.27 GB while using adobe Media Encoder that produced 'm2v' and 'wav' files).

Any idea which Encoder DVDit (older version, 5 or 6 years old, not the newest) uses? (Mainconcept, CCE..etc). I couldn't figure out which encoder DVDit is using.

Regards

As I recall, Sonic made DVDit and it had no encoder*. Premiere 6.5 was the first to include the Mainconept MPeg encoder. DVDit was just a feature reduced DVD authoring program that shiped with Premiere 6.5. It did have logical actions. That was the only reason I used it. I later upgraded to the full Sonic version of DVDit.

Next in 2003 came Premiere Pro 1.0 (aka Premiere 7.0) that had no DVD features. One had to buy Encore as a separate authoring product. Neither worked very well. Premiere Pro 1.5 was still buggy. I kept using v6.5 then moved on to Sonic Foundry Vegas + SoundForge + Sonic DVDit for core projects. The Sonic Foundry products were very stable vs. Premiere Pro.

Note that Sonic Foundry and Sonic were separate unrelated companies. Sonic Foundry (Madison Wisconsin) had audio production roots. Sonic (Novato California) was a spin off from LucasFilm.

Recent news, Sony aquired Sonic Foundry's audio and video product lines in 2004, DivX acquired Mainconcept in 2009 then Sonic acquired DivX in 2010.


* If it did have an encoder it wasn't as good as Mainconcept.

[nharikrishna]

Hmmm...I wanted to use only the top-of-the-line MPEG Encoders (due to quality reasons, obviously), so I will go back to Premiere Pro 1.5 (which I am sure uses MainConcept) and use the 'Adobe Media Encoder" to export my AVI file into DVD Compliant m2v + WAV files. Then I will put them in DVDit to author the DVD Volume (Video_TS files). I will not use DVDit for encoding if it uses some inferior encoder.

No wonder Premiere Pro 1.5 took about 7 hours to encode a 1 Hour video file where as DVDit took only 3-4 hours.

Thnaks a lot!

[filmboss80]

I may be mistaken (it's been several years), but I seem to recall where Sonic bought out the Ligos LSX mpeg encoder for DVDit. The full-blown version of the encoder wasn't too bad, but I don't think it was any match for the Mainconcept encoder. I have a feeling that the reason your Premiere export is taking so long is probably due to the selection of your settings.

[nharikrishna]

After some research, I realised the DVDit version that I have (v5.0) doesn't allow more than 8000 for bit rate whereas ideally for DVD it has to be 9000 or something for the highest quality. This explains the lower file size of the DVD VOBs produced by DVDit.

The Premiere Pro used MainConcept, and it did allow me to specify the bit rate as 9000. I selected CBR and bit rate as 9000, and PPro transcoded my file and produced the final m2v & wav files in about 4-5 hours, which is good, because I am getting the highest quality. The final size of the DVD-Compliant m2v & WAV is much higher than the VOBs produced by DVDit. It is about 4.3 GB, which when input into DVDit for just producing Video_TS files, it ignores the transcoding done by PPro and wants to do its own transcoding by stating that the m2v & wav files are not DVD-compliant. Not sure what's going wrong there.

I am no longer using the Premiere Pro's "Export to DVD" option, as it was resulting in Burn Errors at the end.

[edDV]

Is this the DVDit that shipped with Premiere 6.5? That never worked well.

Try the TMPGEnc demo.
http://tmpgenc.pegasys-inc.com/en/product/taw4.html

[nharikrishna]

Yes that's right. It was shipped with Premiere.

I will try the TMPGEnc. Thanks!

[nharikrishna]

Thanks filmboss80 and edDV.