Hi all,

I'm having some trouble with my current project. It was shot on a Canon XL1S in 16:9 mode, my shutter speed was 1/50 and I think that's about everything from the camera.

I have edited my footage within Premiere but I'm having trouble rendering it all. I want an avi file that can then be imported into Sorenson Squeeze for compression to .flv and the like. The problem is I know nothing about Premieres export functions.
Which video encoder should I use?
What should my pixel aspect ratio be?
Why dos Premiere insist on letter boxing everything?

When I was trying to export it first time round I set the pixel aspect ratio to PAL 16:9 widescreen, my AE intro and outro looked ok but my actual video footage had a nasty mosaic effect on everything. When I switched to square pixels everything was ok but it was letter boxed. I think I was using the DVCPRO-PAL video encoder at the time. When I tried some other encoders my footage was rendered in 4:3 and looked awful, even when I specified 16:9.

All I need is for someone to give me a rough idea of what settings I should be using for this kind of footage, to produce an avi. I can use Sorenson to get all my other file types afterwards.

Thanks in advance guys n gals.

Dave

Which video encoder should I use?
Since you are bringing it into another program for re-encoding, I would use AVI uncompressed.

What should my pixel aspect ratio be?
Your pixel aspect ratio should be 'DV PAL Widescreen'.

Why dos Premiere insist on letter boxing everything?
It really doesn't. :) Check to make sure you are outputting 720x560 (I think that's right, I'm an NTSC guy) DV PAL Widescreen.


When I was trying to export it first time round I set the pixel aspect ratio to PAL 16:9 widescreen, my AE intro and outro looked ok but my actual video footage had a nasty mosaic effect on everything. When I switched to square pixels everything was ok but it was letter boxed. I think I was using the DVCPRO-PAL video encoder at the time. When I tried some other encoders my footage was rendered in 4:3 and looked awful, even when I specified 16:9.
I would go back into AE, an export as uncompressed. Make sure your aspect ratio and size are correct, possibly going back to fix the problem in your composition settings, not export settings.


All I need is for someone to give me a rough idea of what settings I should be using for this kind of footage, to produce an avi. I can use Sorenson to get all my other file types afterwards.

Quick summary, given you are about to recompress it:
Uncompressed! Always! :)

Thanks in advance guys n gals.

Dave

Hiya,

I tried what you said, I set the output type as uncompressed avi, pixel aspect ratio to PAL widescreen 1.422 (i think?) and made sure I was outputting 720 x 576.

Rendered my file.

Windows Media Player simply wouldn't play it, it would only play the audio and when I took it into After Effects it stated the footage properties were pixel aspect ratio 1.07. It was 4:3 footage with a letter box around it.

No joy! :(

I will upload screen shots of what I mean to better explain it if you don't mind taking a look?

Dave,

Instead of "media encoder," why not just "export movie!" The export function is probably set to Microsoft .avi format, but if not just click it. It should retain your original footage settings. Much simpler and quicker.

Try that. Then you can just import the .avi file into Sorenson.

Mike

Mike! You've inadvertantly solved the problem.

Thing is I was using the Export Movie function which was causing me issues. I didn't even know the Adobe Media Enocder existed. I tried using that and BADABOOM! 16:9, tip top quality video, no letter box and no silly mosaic effect.


Thanks for all your help folks.

Any help I give is usually an accident! :)

Mike