I have been shooting with my XL1s for over 2 1/2 years and have been battling this troublesome video quality issue, here is what's going on. When I view my footage in Premiere Pro 2.0(already Color Corrected, etc..) it looks fine in the Sequence preview window, such as the colors, quality and no jagged edges in certain areas for the most part. Now when I output the footage to DVD using the Export to DVD function applying the: NTSC, 720x480, 29.97 non-drop frame [fps], Lower, Quality 4.5 448 [kbps], 48 kHz, 3/2 (L, R, C, LFE, Ls, Rs - 5.1 Surround), Dolby Digital VBR, 2 Pass, Min 9.00, Target 9.00, Max 9.00 [Mbps]: option set and view it on a 32 inch HD LCD set and on a 50inch set using two DVD players one connected with HDMI and the other with Component and not in progressive play mode, it looks like crap.

Not as sharp and vivid as the computer, a lot of noticeable jagged edges than the PC window, and the color reproduction is completely off. Just to answer some questions you may ask me, I do shoot in proper lighting conditions, I am very knowledgeable on how to use the camera in manual mode with shutter control, f/stop, exposure, internal settings, etc, and import my footage using another MiniDv camera(Panasonic PV-GS200) with the 29.97 fps, 4:3. 720x480 project settings selected, and shoot in Frame mode. Can someone please explain what is occurring and/or what I am doing incorrectly in capturing the footage and exporting it? Also should I deinterlace the footage prior to export? Thanks for the help.

Daniel

Try using 7MBs and 2 pass CBR.

Same Problem, it still has the problems from my original post. Thanks

for me is it just mysterium what happened to premiere's output module after premiere got in it's name addition pro. Before it(ap6.5) was only one problem - no compressed audio. Workaround was to use avisynth frameserver. Nowadays are hdd's so big that i just render uncompressed(or huffyuv..etc) video out and make next steps outside the premiere - like virtualdub and tmpgenc.

Are you sure your computer screen is calibrated correctly ? Might be the problem...

Otherwise, have you ever edit your footage with another program than PPro to see if that could be the problem (i really doubt it is actually,... i never had any problem on this kind with PPro)

Good luck

Philippe

Comments on Settings:

NTSC, 720x480, 29.97 non-drop frame [fps],

Lower, Try Upper first, see if that resolves anything.

Quality 4.5 448 [kbps], : I an bit at my home system right now, but this seems low. Are you trying to fit a lot of time on one disk. To get highest quality, I would force no more than 60 minutes on a single disk.

How about when you render to a straight mpg file ? Same issues ???

I like rendering out to another DV as my master, then compress for disk, as needed using DVD Architect, or Nero, or even use Pinnacle Studio DVD renderer.

So is everyone basically implying that I should output a master to a MiniDv tape and than do a MiniDv to DVD transfer using for example Nero or another DVD authoring program? Yes my screen is calibrated correctly and when I output to a MPEG or MPEG-2 I only get a single AC3 file? However if I output an uncompressed AVI it looks descent but not good, I honestly don’t know what is happening with Premiere’s export process. Thanks

Daniel

First of all, you don't have to port it out to tape. You can render a DV file to your hard disk. When you have your time line completely edited, you select export, then movie. You will get a screen asking what you want to name file, but select settings first on that screen. You need to select Microsoft DV, and be sure 4:3 or wide screen is selected, depending on your project, then say okay, and you will be referred back out to name the file your want to save.

Then you can take that .avi file and have it transcoded in your DVD burning program. Remember, about 60 minutes will give the best quality DVD. More than that, and you will lose picture quality.

Thanks for the advice, I will give it a try. Does anyone have any further adivce that I may try. My main concern is that it may be my camera that is causing all of these problems, but it also may not be the case. Thanks

Daniel

Remember, about 60 minutes will give the best quality DVD. More than that, and you will lose picture quality.

Are you abbreviating this portion, or do you literally mean that Encore or whatever burning program will adjust quality dependning on video length??

Are you abbreviating this portion, or do you literally mean that Encore or whatever burning program will adjust quality dependning on video length??

As I understand it, if you are forcing more than 1 hour of video onto one DVD, the encoder has to start degrading from the best .mpg2 quality level by sliding off from the optimum bitrate in order to fit it on a 4.7 gig disc. I assume most programs will do that. If it doesn't, then I would think it would force you to have two volumes for the project. Obviously the dual layer disks are a different story, and will have twice the time.

In Pinnacle Studio, this is clearly demonstrated as you approach and pass the one hour mark. You can see the bitrate change as you add more footage to the project.

Wow...thanks for the clarification. I will watch this.

Yes David, both Premiere and Encore will adjust the bitrate according to the capacity of the DVD you feed into the burner. But normally you should not see significant degradation in pix quality for up to about 90 minutes! Just use the default settings for NTSC without changing anything.

The mpeg2 encoder included in Premiere and Encore is not the best though, so if you really need higher quality, you should look into using a better encoding software.

Have you contacted MainConcept or Adobe?
Breaking the settings apart:

NTSC, 720x480, 29.97 non-drop frame [fps], Lower: Standard DV settings. However, 24p would need to store 20% fewer frames.

Quality 4.5: why is this 4.5 instead of 5?

448 [kbps], 48 kHz, 3/2 (L, R, C, LFE, Ls, Rs - 5.1 Surround), Dolby Digital: audio. Are you really doing 5.1? I thought this encoder was an option with something like three free trial runs included. On my system, it triples the estimated file size compared to MPEG audio. Not having run it, I don’t know the actual effect

VBR, 2 Pass, Min 9.00, Target 9.00, Max 9.00 [Mbps]: Why use VBR when the min, average, and max are all constrained to maximum values? It sort of defeats the purpose of using vbr instead of cbr. Using 3/7/9 instead reduces the estimated file size 20%.

The mpeg2 encoder included in Premiere and Encore is not the best though, so if you really need higher quality, you should look into using a better encoding software.

And what would be better HD to mpeg2 encoding software?
Jon

This topic is not about HD and as I am not working HD yet, I have not looked into it... but a Google search brings up several of them.

For SD, reading this and other websites, Cinema Craft comes up as the winner (and an "ouch" on the pricetag, $2000), I personally tested Sorenson Squeeze and was pleased with the results (also excellent for encoding for the web - WinMedia, QT, Real, Flash).

The mpeg2 encoder included in Premiere and Encore is not the best though, so if you really need higher quality, you should look into using a better encoding software.
That depends. Lars Siden did a test of several MPEG-2 encoders (http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=68349), including Cinema Craft. MainConcept - the encoder used in Premiere Pro and Encore DVD - came out on top.

I have tried Canopus encoder straight out of Premiere and the problem is still there. To answer a previous question I do encode in 5.1 Dolby as I have bought the Surcode rights. Just to clarify, the size of the file doesn’t matter to me as long as my problem is corrected and I receive good quality video. Thanks

Daniel

Yes Christopher - to quote you - it depends... the test Lars did lacks too many key "ingredients", so it might have brought out MainConcept on top on a certain type of footage, at a certain bitrate. Check out these pages for more complex tests with difficult to encode footage:

http://forum.videohelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=235665
http://www.tecoltd.com/enctest/enctest.htm

As Lars admits himself, he used default settings... apples to oranges...