Hello all,

Im using adobe premiere for editing an AVI file. Now when i export as DV AVI i get these strange lines going across the screen, when the camera is moving around.

Isnt there a way i can export as MPEG since im guessing its better format when it comes to quality? For me, quality is what matters...

[DigiStuff]

Hi,

a DV.avi file should be better quality than a MPEG file, so question is what format is the original file format in that you are editing from? .AVI files cover quite a few different styles and formats. Let us know more details about the file formats and where they came from etc and I am sure we can figure something out.

Cheers for now

DigiStuff

Thanks for your reply. I have noticed that its roxio losing the quality during the burn process.

I use roxio easy media creator 8 {mydvd} to create DVD menus. When i burn it, roxio encodes the AVI file to something else which then loses quality.

So now i need to export as MPEG in order to skip that encoding process, thus keeping the quality.

I just found a tool called Adobe Media Encoder on the Export selection menu, what are the best settings for my needs? I want the quality to remain the same to be honest.

AVI from a camcorder is almost always interlaced format, so when it plays back on a monitor (which is progressive) you get a combing effect around the edges of a moving subject. This is not a fault and the edited programme shall appear normally on a regular tv set, if you are going to be using it more for computer viewing then you have the option to deinterlace the footage so that it plays normally on a computer monitor.

Sorry if you misunderstood the topic. Let me go more into detail.

I use a SONY HDR FX1. I capture the file as test.avi and edit in adobe premiere. How can i now export this file to its best quality in MPEG or MPEG-2 format using adobe media encoder?

I didn't misunderstand your question, though I suspect you may have misunderstood my answer.

The strange effect you get when the camera moves is not a fault, converting to MPEG alone is not enough to remove this sensation, you would need to deinterlace the footage at the output stage.

Regardless, the footage should play back ok on a tv set.

If you export the footage as a 'movie' using the following settings:
DV PAL AVI (if you are in the UK) correct pixel aspect (either 4:3 or 16:9)
Sound: 48khz 16bit uncompressed

This will give you a file that most DVD burning packages can handle.

For the sound options i have AC3, dolby and MPEG

What do i go for?

AC3 is the minimum standard to which all dvd players must adhere.
Dolby is the way in which the sound is spread out accross the sound system (i.e. prologic, dts etc) unless you are recording with at least five microphones then forget dolby.
MPEG is the codec used for DVD anyway.

[senu]

Nem 123,
As Roy says I wouldnt worry about the "jaggies" on an avi.
For audio AC3 sounds OK and uses the least disc space

I havent used Premiere itself for a while but im pretty sure it has the Main Concept mpeg encoder ( plug in) which is pretty good and will deinterlace and encode simultaneously. At any rate during playback on a domestic DVD player to TV ( or other display ) the deinterlacing will happen

It appears that Roxios mpeg encoder is degrading your avis during encoding for DVD creation.


Canopus Procoder Express among others can probably encode from AVi to mpeg even better ( Im not saying get it)

Maybe you need to consider another DVD authoring software which will not reencode the mpegs having already encoded them from within Premiere or externally with a better Encoder.
This is especially so if your source footage is coming from a camera as good as the Fx1
Even a simple one Like Uleads Movie factory 4 ( now on 5) does a pretty good job

Yeah, really whats the point of having a not so good quality image on a DVD, when using a fx1. Adobe premiere is amazing for editing and yes im playing around with the 'adobe media encoder'. Its doing well but still little quality is being lost.

What are the following options for?

1 - Frame rate {whats recommended? Its on 25... }
2 - Field order {it has lower, upper and none}
4 - Level... ?


Altogether a 56min clip would become a 2.64GB mpg. MPEG2.

But i have lines showing like a 'interlace' i think its called. When the camera moves i see lines more clearly as well.

[senu]

Do you see these " jaggies" on the DVD
on the pc ?
on a TV?
or playing the mpeg 2 on the pc
or
AVI?

In short is there nowhere you do not see them?

I used Adobe Premire Pro and Pro 1.5 in the past and these day use Sony Vegas 6 and Avid Liquid 7 & ( Pinnacle Liquid 6.1) and for the most part just leave the encoding parameters as the default setting are more than satisfactory
I do use Canopus Procoder 2 sometimes ( it is great) Procoder express is equally good and I usual settle for the default settings but use the 2 pass variable bit rate option.
I never alter the field order etc as Im unsure what effect ( positive or otherwise) will happen.
Frame rate for PAL is 25fps I would just leave that well alone!

I see the jagged lines on the windows media player. Also, when camera moves it should be smooth but its not.

What do you think of DVStorm?

[senu]

The jagged lines of camera motion are well known they may come from interlacing avi/ mpeg and or motion mpeg artifacts.

You have not said what you play in media player to get them and whether ore not they carry on to wathching tham on a TV display:

Have you seen any of these jagges in a DVD played thru a TV??

The "cure" for motion artifacts with mpegs is to increase the encoding bitrate. try this with short segments to see if it makes a difference

DV Storm is extremely powerful and was ( still is) well thought of in its hey day.Its real time hardware mpeg encoding was superb. It has since been replaced by Edius range. A lot of software solutions (ie Procoder on a nippy system) are not that less capable now.
If you have the FX1 wouldnt it be better to look toward stuff that can edit HD?
Do you downconvert the FX1s' HDV to SD for capture on the PC?

Well i dont use the camera for capturing. I have a seperate DV Deck which doesnt support HDV.

It is important that i get most of these lines out the way, is the bitrate the 25fps option?

I only tested the MPEG which had been exported by adobe encoder. There i see not so good quality image. For the amount of money i spent on adobe premiere, the output should be excellent.

On the FX1 i only record in DV Mode. Really, i dont see the point of recording in HD yet, since i have no HD tv and plus i will need a HD dvd player, HD deck etc...

[senu]

Originally Posted by nem123

Well i dont use the camera for capturing. I have a seperate DV Deck which doesnt support HDV.

It is important that i get most of these lines out the way, is the bitrate the 25fps option?

I only tested the MPEG which had been exported by adobe encoder. There i see not so good quality image. For the amount of money i spent on adobe premiere, the output should be excellent.

On the FX1 i only record in DV Mode. Really, i dont see the point of recording in HD yet, since i have no HD tv and plus i will need a HD dvd player, HD deck etc...

I would record in HDV and get the camera to down convert to SD for capturing . Unless you absolutely dont want to use the camera to capture.
In the future when HD becomes more commonplace you then have the footage as such ( unless the footage isnt worth coming back to).

The bitrate is not 25fps that is the frame rate of DV PAL.
Bitrate refers to one of the mpeg encoding parameters where the higher it is the smoother the resulting mpeg ( and bigger the file size) .
It would help especially for the more knowledgeable on these forums( not me ) if you could note and state what the encoder settings are that you use for output . that is probably where the problem lies.
This problem can be solved with careful analysis to see where the adjustment can be made

Im burning a dvd on that computer at the moment. Please give me 2 hours and i post up screenshots.

Sorry for the delay.

My settings are as follows in 'adobe media encoder'

Video Summary:
Codec: MainConcept MPEG Video
Quality: 5.0 (high quality)
TV Standard: PAL
Frame Rate [fps]: 25
Field Order: None (Progressive)
Aspect Ratio: 4:3
Profile: Main Profile
Level: High Level
Frame Width [pixels]: 720
Frame Height [pixels]: 576
Bitrate Encoding: VBR, 2 Pass
Minimum Bitrate [Mbps]: 4.0000 (low quality)
Target Bitrate [Mbps]: 15.0000 (low quality)
Maximum Bitrate [Mbps]: 18.5000 (low quality)
M Frames: 3
N Frames: 12
Closed GOP every: 0
Automatic GOP placement: On
Macroblock Quantization: 10
VBV Buffer Size [2Kbytes]: 488
Noise Control: Sensitivity
Noise Sensitivity/Reduction: 5
Write SDE: No
Force VBV Delay: 0xffff
Intra DC Precision: 9 Bits
I Frame Settings:Intra VLC Format: Table 1
P Frame Settings:Intra VLC Format: Table 1
B Frame Settings:Intra VLC Format: Table 1
I Frame Settings:Frame Prediction DCT: Frame
P Frame Settings:Frame Prediction DCT: Frame
B Frame Settings:Frame Prediction DCT: Frame
I Frame Settings:Quantization Scale Type: Non Linear
P Frame Settings:Quantization Scale Type: Non Linear
B Frame Settings:Quantization Scale Type: Non Linear
I Frame Settings:Scanning Pattern: Zigzag
P Frame Settings:Scanning Pattern: Zigzag
B Frame Settings:Scanning Pattern: Zigzag
Write Sequence End Code: Yes
Embed SVCD User Blocks: No
Ignore Frame Interval: 0
Reaction Parameter: 0
Initial Average Activity: 0
Initial Complexity Measure: 0
Initial Complexity Measure: 0
Initial Complexity Measure: 0
I Frame Settings:Initial Virtual Buffer: 0
P Frame Settings:Initial Virtual Buffer: 0
B Frame Settings:Initial Virtual Buffer: 0
P Frame Motion Vectors - Forward Search Width: 127
P Frame Motion Vectors - Forward Search Height: 127
B Frame1 - Forward Search Width: 59
B Frame1 - Forward Search Height: 48
B Frame1 - Backward Search Width: 118
B Frame1 - Backward Search Height: 96
B Frame2 - Forward Search Width: 118
B Frame2 - Forward Search Height: 96
B Frame2 - Backward Search Width: 59
B Frame2 - Backward Search Height: 48
Motion Estimation Type: 11
Do Half Pel Search: On
Online Encoding: Offline
Encoding Level: 31

Audio Summary:
Audio Format: PCM
Codec: PCM Audio
Output Channels: Stereo
Sample Size: 16 bit
Frequency: 96 kHz

Multiplexer Summary:
Multiplexing: MPEG-2
Bitrate Type: Constant
Mux Rate [kbps]: 0
Packet Size [bytes]: 2048
Packets/Pack: 1
Video Buffer Size [kB]: 0
Audio Buffer Size [kB]: 4
Sectors Delay [ms]: 0
Video Delay [ms]: 180
Audio Delay [ms]: 180
Max file size [MB]: 0
Write Program end code: On
Pulldown: Auto
Include Time Stamp In: All Frames
Align Sequence Header: Off

[senu]

Phew......!!
Thanks your settings ( those I can make sense of!) seem fine but can i suggest that you change the minimum bitrate from 4000kb/sec to 6000 and where possible select high quality. also change the maximum to 10000kb/sec with target between 6-8.
Do a very short encode and see what happens

Ok changed settings, going to be 300mb for a 2-3 minute clip! lol. I just added different scenes with different lighting circumstances to make sure. Hopefully now the jagged lines etc start to go.

Unless its altogether roxios encoding thing.

ok, now its worse. Even more scratches. When the picture is just steady then its nice quality, smooth extra. As soon as the camera is moving around etc... you see scratches instead of it being smooth motion.

[senu]

So you have an avi from premiere turned into an mpeg which is unwatchable due to the motion "jaggies" ie motion artifacts.

Do you have a software DVD player ( like power DVD) on your system?

It may be worth using that to play the mpeg look at the encoding parameters ( display info) and In configuration ask that video be deinterlaced.

I just put a 60 sec avi thru canopus procoder and asked it to output a small dvd quality mpeg it took 55 secs for high quality and is not distigush able from the avi. : Good PQ both ways

How does your actual starting avi look ?
and try playing it in something else ( not just windows media player and see

The AVI is top quality! The reason why i need to export into mpeg is because once i use roxio EMC 8 for chapters, it re-encodes AVI files for some reason. That made the picture look darker. With MPEG files the quality remains the same.

Let me try powerDVD. but i thought you could only use DVDs to play using that program and not mpeg on hard drive?

[senu]

No.... you can play anything ie:any media file ( audio or video) as long as the right codec is on your system and provided you point the program where to look .

Roxio has to encode the avi to mpeg2 (vob) in order to create a standard DVD.
What is puzzling is why the mpeg from premiere ( via its Main Concept (plug in) encoder ) is of suspect quality.

[zircon3035]

nem123

Try setting Premiere to PAL Lower field output. I know this is wrong but it had been discussed at length on the Matrox video forums and I suspect that the PAL field order is set incorrectly in the program.

I find this solves the problem for me.

HTH,

Ian

Thanks for your suggestions. Im now trying Lower field first, hopefully with luck it be better this time

Now im using the following settings and its darker than original in adobe. Just this one thing needs to be fixed!


Video Summary:
Codec: MainConcept MPEG Video
Quality: 5.0 (high quality)
TV Standard: PAL
Frame Rate [fps]: 25
Field Order: Lower
Aspect Ratio: 4:3
Profile: Main Profile
Level: High Level
Frame Width [pixels]: 720
Frame Height [pixels]: 576
Bitrate Encoding: CBR
Bitrate [Mbps]: 8.0000 (low quality)
M Frames: 3
N Frames: 12
Closed GOP every: 0
Automatic GOP placement: On
Macroblock Quantization: 10
VBV Buffer Size [2Kbytes]: 488
Rate Control Mode: Mode 1
Noise Control: Sensitivity
Noise Sensitivity/Reduction: 5
Write SDE: No
Force VBV Delay: Computed by the Encoder
Intra DC Precision: 9 Bits
I Frame Settings:Intra VLC Format: Table 1
P Frame Settings:Intra VLC Format: Table 1
B Frame Settings:Intra VLC Format: Table 1
I Frame Settings:Frame Prediction DCT: Frame
P Frame Settings:Frame Prediction DCT: Frame
B Frame Settings:Frame Prediction DCT: Frame
I Frame Settings:Quantization Scale Type: Non Linear
P Frame Settings:Quantization Scale Type: Non Linear
B Frame Settings:Quantization Scale Type: Non Linear
I Frame Settings:Scanning Pattern: Zigzag
P Frame Settings:Scanning Pattern: Zigzag
B Frame Settings:Scanning Pattern: Zigzag
Write Sequence End Code: Yes
Embed SVCD User Blocks: No
Ignore Frame Interval: 0
Reaction Parameter: 0
Initial Average Activity: 0
Initial Complexity Measure: 0
Initial Complexity Measure: 0
Initial Complexity Measure: 0
I Frame Settings:Initial Virtual Buffer: 0
P Frame Settings:Initial Virtual Buffer: 0
B Frame Settings:Initial Virtual Buffer: 0
Minimum Frame Percentage: 25
Pad Frame Percentage: 0
P Frame Motion Vectors - Forward Search Width: 127
P Frame Motion Vectors - Forward Search Height: 127
B Frame1 - Forward Search Width: 59
B Frame1 - Forward Search Height: 48
B Frame1 - Backward Search Width: 118
B Frame1 - Backward Search Height: 96
B Frame2 - Forward Search Width: 118
B Frame2 - Forward Search Height: 96
B Frame2 - Backward Search Width: 59
B Frame2 - Backward Search Height: 48
Motion Estimation Type: 11
Do Half Pel Search: On
Online Encoding: Offline
Encoding Level: 31

Audio Summary:
Audio Format: PCM
Codec: PCM Audio
Output Channels: Stereo
Sample Size: 16 bit
Frequency: 96 kHz

Multiplexer Summary:
Multiplexing: MPEG-2
Bitrate Type: Constant
Mux Rate [kbps]: 0
Packet Size [bytes]: 2048
Packets/Pack: 1
Video Buffer Size [kB]: 0
Audio Buffer Size [kB]: 4
Sectors Delay [ms]: 0
Video Delay [ms]: 180
Audio Delay [ms]: 180
Max file size [MB]: 0
Write Program end code: On
Pulldown: Auto
Include Time Stamp In: All Frames
Align Sequence Header: Off

frame rate: 25fps
Field order: Lower is normal and is the system used by the cam, best for TV playback, progressive or deinterlaced is best for a computer monitor.

Bitrate: Max is 9MB/s for an SD DVD, most encoders I use allow a maximum of 8MB/s. If your footage is less than an hout in total then select 8 for the best quality.

If your programme is more than an hour long then the encoder should tell you the maximum bitrate permissable. I've found that 5MB/s or above is always ok.

If you get the choise between constant bit rate (sometimes called CBR) or variable bit rate (VBR) then choose VBR, it makes far more efficient use of the available space, especially where the programme is more than an hour long.

Is it normal for the final mpeg to be different in quality? This one i outputted with the above settings seems to be darker. The contrast does not match.

[senu]

Just noticed the field order in the original should have been lower not progressive (none)
Now that you have used that setting with the altered bitrates do you now have a dark jaggy free mpeg?

I just now used the standalone Main Concept encoder and compared the output with an mpeg from Canopus Procoder with bitrates 8Mb/sec ;
In windows media player and Power DVD the AVI and mpeg only differ in file size. The colour contrast are almost identical.
Did you try playing the file in Power DVD?

LOL

We are certainly getting somewhere aren't we?

This is really strange. I exported AVI too and its same quality your right now. When i do my final clip which is 50+ minutes long, before it would export up to 2.64GB, now its exporting up to 900MB. Am i going to lose quality again?!?!?!

Same settings as above.

Well this time CBR - 10mb/s