How to resize and convert MPEG-2 file so I can work with them in PrPro CS4?

[tomchook]

Hello,
I'm trying to make a short film (~5 minutes length), which includes photos and videos. I understand that MPEG-2 is the best format to work with, so I converted my videos (4 of them) into MPEG-2. The project size in PrPro CS4 is 960x720, 25fps, 48000 hertz stereo. The videos were taken from iphone (mp4) and Windows Live Movie Maker (wmv), and converted into MPEG-2 with Xilisoft Video Converter. They are in different dimensions (for example, the wmv is 1080p, so it doesn't fit my project), and the mp4 is rotated 90 degrees, so it needs to be flipped and I guess resize to a height of 720p.

I searched the forum a lot, but I couldn't find the right tool to convert. I tried to download AVStoDVD, AViSynth 2.5 and Hc, but I don't know how to use scripts. I also tried to resize and rotate with VirtualDub (MPEG-2 supported version), but the results were very bad (huge AVI file and the video was black and white with distorted aspect ratio).

How can I rotate and resize my videos so I can easily edit them in PrPro CS4?

Thank you for your help!
Tom

[aedipuss]

shouldn't do anything to the source videos before importing to pp cs4 as long as it will accept them. all changes should be made in the editor as that's what it's for and the quality will be higher with fewer re-encodes.

[Cornucopia]

WHY, WHY are you using a 960x720 template? DVDs won't have that high of a framesize, iPhone video SURELY won't have that high of a framesize...
Where else are you getting your source materials?

IIWY, what I'd do is:
1. Go back to your originals
2. Pick the correct project/sequence framesize settings (e.g. 720x480 for DVD and other SD material, 1920x1080 for AVCHD and other HD material, etc)
3. Like aedipuss said - Import DIRECTLY from your source into PPCS4. Only convert if CS4 won't support your source file. And only then to a lossless intermediate format that is built easy-to-edit.

Sure, MPEG2 is probably easier to edit than long-GOP Divx, h.264, or WMV, but it's still a heck of a lot harder to edit than DV, Cineform (and other wavelets), HuffYUV/Lagarith, MJPEG, ...even Uncompressed.

...Just did a check, and at least CS5 supports BOTH your mp4 and your WMV for direct import, so you shouldn't be having such difficulty getting it to CS4.

Scott

[tomchook]

my computer is core2duo 2.2ghz with 2gb RAM on windows 7 32bit. I will upgrade to a newer computer soon, but meanwhile I have to create this project on this slow computer. eventually I want to upload my video to youtube in 720p quality, that's why I chose this preset. my wmv source is 1080p, and I don't know how to resize it in PrPro CS4. Last time I tried to edit a 5 minutes long video clip it took to encode more than 9 hours.. I was hoping that with MPEG-2 it would be easier..

[poisondeathray]

Do you have lots of free HDD space?

There is a free version of Cineform now, since GoPro bought them. It's called GoPro Cineform Studio . It will show up in vdub compression menu. Editing is very smooth even on older dual core. Very high quality, professional intermediate format
http://gopro.com/3d-cineform-studio-software-download/

So you can use wmv plugin for vdub to load wmv file, and either directshow or ffmpeg plugin to load mp4 file. You can use scale and rotate filters in vdub if you don't know how to use avisynth . (You can also scale and rotate in premiere pro....)

If your main video is 1080p (1920x1080 16:9 ), then I would use a 1280x720p29.97 timeline . 960x720 is for 4:3 content

[tomchook]

Thank you all for your kind help. Eventually I figured that the easiest way for me is to just import the WMV file into PrPro CS4, and let it handle it. The only problem is that I can't actually view my project before rendering, because of the loading of the WMV file in PrPro. Is there any way to overcome that so I can view my project?

[poisondeathray]

If you mean computer is too slow to playback in realtime, then nothing you can do except to either upgrade hardware, or use a digital editin intermediate like cineform, or lower resolution . You can try lowering the playback quality to lowest as well

[Cornucopia]

If you "eventually" want it at 720p on youtube, why not start with a regular SD timeline for now, and then "upgrade" your timeline in the future when you're ready for it? Will make rendering, etc much easier/quicker.

I agree with the previous suggestions about Dig. Intermediate format codecs, though. You could always Import+Render2Cineform, repeating the process for all your assets, and then import and USE the cineform assets on the edit timeline.

Scott