what am i doing wrong here?

[Jack Laurie]

I took 60i vid with hg10. went to int avi with hdlink. No de-interlace, same rate, same size.
here is an exported frame from the intermed.avi on the premiere pro cs3 timeline (aspect HD 1440x1080 60i project setting):

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c1...hdlinkfile.jpg

Then I exported to cineform.avi 720x480 progressive, non-recompressed, pixel aspect 1.2 (headed to procoder for encoding for dvd) here is an exported frame of this exported cineform avi off the premiere timeline:

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c1...SEfromprem.jpg

I realize that I put the exported 720x480 file back on the 1440x1080 timeline to get my frame, but even looking at it at 50% it's not as sharp and sltly jaggy. (playing the hdlink int avi is much better than playing the exported 720x480 avi with elecard player) i didn't expect that much quality loss which is what lead to this post. I previously had pretty good results with this workflow but shot in cine mode last time due to some very hot light areas. this time I chose av at 2.0 with manual exp adjusting.

thanks

[Graham Hickling]

Both the screencaps are 800x600 so the steps you are going through here are a little confusing to follow.

Nevertheless....if you have access to Procoder I would recommend you simply feed it the 1080i60 intermediate file and let Procoder, not Premiere, do the necessary resize and deinterlace. In my experience Procoder does both those things very well.

[Jack Laurie]

ahh...actually that's a great idea since I'm just going to stitch the files together and trim for encore dvd project. In fact can procoder just take the m2t directly?. But for future editing needs before conversion, I still need to nail down the right workflow.

[Graham Hickling]

Yes Procoder can injest .m2t happily.

I do all my editing in Cineform HD 1440x1080 60i avi, then use Procoder to convert for DVD, web-based, etc...

[Jack Laurie]

ok, so you export the premiere timeline to cineform avi and leave it the way it is 1440x1080i upper field first, no recompress. Do you change the pixel aspect from 1.3 to 1.2 before exporting?

[Graham Hickling]

I leave the pixel ratio at the standard 1.33 for HDV.

Then when I pull the file into Procoder (using Add), I manually set the aspect ratio (in the "Source parameters" box) to 16:9

[Robert Young]

Jack
I got your email. The 480 image definitely is not what's expected- way too soft and a huge amount of vertical "twitter" or "Jaggies",. The image, if truely representative of the video, is not usable IMO. I'm clueless as to what caused the downscaled avi to look like that.
Procoder is an excellent compression/transcription tool. If you want output for ordinary 60i DVD, Procoder can compress your CFHD 1440x1080 60i 1.33 par movie to 720x480 60i 1.2 par .m2v for DVD. You will loose an expected amount of image sharpness and detail because of downscaling from HD to SD, but should look much better than the frame grab you posted.
If I want to get a little better image quality on DVD, maybe for my own use, I use the following workflow to make a progressive 30p DVD, which I view from an HDMI "upscaling" progressive scan DVD player onto a big screen HDTV:
1) Use the Cineform compressor (Premiere> Export Movie- select Cineform Compressor, in settings, select the proper output parameters) to downscale and deinterlace my CFHD timeline to a Cineform 720x480 30p avi movie. My personal experence is that Cineform seems to do the best job of rescaling, deinterlacing, etc., of Cineform avi files.
2) I import the Cineform SD avi into Procoder and set target as DVD Mastering Quality, 2 Pass, 6 Mbs VBR, field order:none.
3) Import the 30p m2v into Encore and make the DVD in the usual fashion.

[Robert Young]

Maybe a little off topic, but another simple workflow I'm using now that's producing even better DVD imagery: I've started shooting with a Sony EX1 in 60i, deinterlacing to 30p on capture and editing in Prospect HD as 1920x1080, 30p, 10 bit, 4:2:2. Since I need to mix Sony V1 HDV footage, I've been importing the 60i HDV as 1920x1080 30p on capture as well.
It seems like these big, square pixel, progressive images can be compressed to regular (interlaced) DVDs, Flash for web, whatever, with excellent image quality, no artifacts, interlacing issues, etc. I'm kind of sold on this, for now anyway.
My next step is to try editing AVCHD as 1920x1080 CFHD and see how well that travels to web and disk.

[Jack Laurie]

thanks Bob,
I realized what I did wrong. I spaced out and chose the 29.97 cineform project preset instead of the 60i, so if I understand this (and that's a big leap of faith :) ), I'd be getting 1/2 the frames and then resizing it . Anyway, as inspired by Graham, I simply went from m2ts straight to procoder since I really only needed to stitch this all together and not really edit it.

However, for future reference when you mention exporting to 30p cineform from premiere....do you mean 29.97p which is what I thought it really is even though it says 60i?

[Robert Young]

30p (29.9p) is progressive, non interlaced video stream, 60i (59.9i) is standard NTSC interlaced video stream. They are both 30 (29.9) fps, but 30p encodes 30 single full images per sec, 60i encodes 60 fields per sec. 2 fields (an "upper" plus a "lower") together make a full image. This is a very important subject for anyone working with video. Making incorrect settings in this arena can result in unpleasant surprises.

[Ray Bell]

Robert, What program are you using for the capture?? and what settings??

thanks

[Jack Laurie]

hmm. I follow the progressive vs interlaced, just want to make sure I'm not missing something.
When opening a new project in prempro the choices are straight forward as expected 30p or 60i and the description 29.9 and 59.9 respectively. But when exporting to cineform avi the choice of frame rate is quite varied including 29.9,30,59,60. (of course separately choosing interlace or progressive). I figured my source and project is say 60i and if I downsizing for dvd and going progressive I pick 29.9fps not 30, right? What situation do you pick 30? I thought for all practical purposes I'd always be using 29.9 or 59.9 (based on ntsc tv std) and see it commonly referred to as 30 and 60. Just not sure when "30" or "60" are literally used?
(I hope I'm understanding this well enough to at least ask the right question, lol)

[Robert Young]

The fractional frame rates (29.9, 59.9) are the standard settings (called "drop frame timecode"). For convenience, people refer to it as 30p, 60i, etc., so don't let it confuse you.
I use Prospect HD Link to convert video to CFHD for Premiere CS3 project. You should set the HD Link preferences to match your Premiere/Cineform project parameters. For example, if you are importing HDV 60i into a 1920x1080 30p project, then set HD link to those specs. HD Link will then rescale and deinterlace the HDV clips from 1440x1080 60i to 1920x1080 30p CFHD .avi.

[Ray Bell]

Robert, Thanks for the reply...

My mind was playing with me... I kept looking for the 30P option as I would choose
the 24P option... then with your post it jogged the noggin back and I realized the
default progressive conversion from 60i is 30p...

duh.....