Can anyone help me with the best setting to get the best picture quality using Prospect HD in Adobe Premiere CS3 (or After Effects) to create files to create an (NSTC) DVD?

I tried the Premiere Export to Encore (NSTC) DVD, not only there's not much flexibility as to some specifics of the encoder settings, the image changes frame speed or other settings, and worse, the resulting DVD can only be played in computers not on regular DVD players. Anyway that's a no-no for this option since there's no flexibility in terms of the actual media file usage in other DVD creation projects.

I also tried the Premier Encoder to MPG2 file using the settings they have that best match my HD clip. Not only there's no choice but to slice and dice the original 1920 x 1080 frame size but the image quality is horrible when the DVD.

I'm pretty sure somebody here has gone through that frustration before me. Will anyone help? Do I have to buy a separate piece of software for that?

I've actually had very good luck in CS3 going straight to Encore from the timeline, both for regular DVD and BD. The discs play fine in all appropriate players and you can indeed customize nearly everything in the burn if you dig deep enough.

Sometimes I render the timeline out to uncompressed CFHD-AVI, so I can tweak the export settings a little more, using the Export > Movie choice. I then either import this into Encore, or put the resulting CFHD-AVI into a new Premiere timeline in a new project and then use the "Export to Encore" option there. Both ways work really well for me. Regular DVDs are near-HD in quality and BDs are stunning.

What are your system specs and what settings are you using?

I've actually had very good luck in CS3 going straight to Encore from the timeline, both for regular DVD and BD. The discs play fine in all appropriate players and you can indeed customize nearly everything in the burn if you dig deep enough.

Sometimes I render the timeline out to uncompressed CFHD-AVI, so I can tweak the export settings a little more, using the Export > Movie choice. I then either import this into Encore, or put the resulting CFHD-AVI into a new Premiere timeline in a new project and then use the "Export to Encore" option there. Both ways work really well for me. Regular DVDs are near-HD in quality and BDs are stunning.

What are your system specs and what settings are you using?

Thank you Adam. I will try the CFHD-AVI way. I voluntarily omitted this option because I (wrongly) thought Encore would not have been able to encode/process CFHD.

I don't remember the specifics of my system but it's a pretty decent one. Everything is done pretty fast. No complaint there for now.

When using Premiere Export to Encore seetings, I don't have the option to keep my 1920x1080 24p once I choose DVD. Everything is there only if I choose Blu-Ray (with the H.264 codec). Maybe there's something I'm not doing right.

Read this CineForm Insider: Mastering 24p DVDs from HD using Premiere Pro. (http://cineform.blogspot.com/2008/12/mastering-24p-dvds-from-hd-using.html)

you might get some pointers on 24p DVD creation from HD sources.

When using Premiere Export to Encore settings, I don't have the option to keep my 1920x1080 24p once I choose DVD. Everything is there only if I choose Blu-Ray (with the H.264 codec). Maybe there's something I'm not doing right.
Sure, because DVD is 720 x 480.

Sure, because DVD is 720 x 480.

I figured that out. Thanks.

you might get some pointers on 24p DVD creation from HD sources.

Thanks Dave.

Dave, I read the article. Good info. Thanks. I'll try it once I'm home.

Just for my understanding. I will not go the VirtualDub way. So all I have to do is:

1) Export the Cineform Premiere timeline to 1080p first
2) Open a new project in Premiere SD 24p preset
3) Load the exported 1080p AVI into the Premiere SD 24p project
4) Interpret footage back to 16×9 (I assume I'll have the option from Interpret footage)
5) And finally export with Adobe Media Encoder to MPEG2-DVD 24p

Encore will not even further transcode the final file.

Not quite. Add

Step 1b) Export the 1080p master AVI, back out as a 720x480 CineForm AVI. This assures the use of CineForm's scaling not Premiere's. This operation will be fast. Step 2-5 will use the SD AVI and will be very quick with the full quality.

Dave, you're the best!

Thanks.

Dave. I went home and followed the workflow you prescribed. And it worked. Only one issue.

In the final step 5, when I export with Adobe Media Encoder to MPEG2-DVD 24p, the movements in the clip is blurry because of frame rate issue I suspect. Encore doesn't give the option to change frame rate to 23.976. It automatically puts it at 29.97 and the option is greyed out.

So I also id the step 5 by exporting with Adobe Media Encoder to MPEG2-DVD 29.97. And the clip is much more stable but something (filmic) was lost in the quality.

Did you have that issue?

If you have 24p (i.e. 23.976p) source, the technique work great. You can even confirm the motion at each render step (I use VirtualDub for that.) If you have motion artifacts, there was a miss-step somewhere. Exporting 29.97 will add frame blending, you don't want that.

I believe the issue is with Encore then. The source is 24p and I followed your flow religiously.

In Encore, once you choose DVD (instead of Blu-Ray), you have no more options but you can see the frame rate = 29.97 is greyed out from the frame rate option. And there are motion artifacts in the final DVD.

Dave, I found something regarding the issue I brought in my post above from a poster 9of another forum):

"If you encode your mpeg2 (in final cut, premiere, etc) and import it into Encore as it's orignal 23.976 rate - it will stay a 23.976 file. Though Encore shows it as 29.97, it's actually what you started with (encore won't re-code that file). I don't usually transcode with Encore, so I can't speak for it's ability to translate frame rates when it encodes.

Sort of any annoying technical aspect of Encore."

I guess that answers my question.

That make sense as DVD is only 29.97, 24p is created with pulldown flag, but it would be nice if Encore acknownledged that. Good find.

Okay I've nearly gotten some headaches over this one but I finally exported some reasonably decent quality footage to SD DVD using the suggestions in this post. But still have a few issues--

My project was shot on HDV (1440x1080) captured in with AspectHD. I've been exporting the completed sequences out as master avi clips in the form of Cineform avi files (1440x1080 & HD Optimized). I then take the files and export them with AME using Mpeg 2 DVD 23.976 widescreen high quality. The results are good.

HOWEVER...

My project is 93 minutes long and everything is broken down into smaller segments. After creating master avi clips of all the segments and importing them all into a new Cineform 1440x1080 project, I have to adjust the target bitrate down to 4.9mb/s to burn to DVD. Any higher and I exceed the 4.7 gig DVD's disk space. This seems awefully low (and the quality suffers). Am I missing a step somewhere?

Also--an editor friend of mine says his Compressor target bitrate settings for a 90 min clip are up in the 6.5 bitrate range.

Suggestions?