premiere pro cs3 export question

[Jack Laurie]

Hi,
cineform related.

Maybe dumb but I have a multicam project from dv , edited with premiere dv 48hz wide 720x480 setting. I want to export now to tmpgenc to encode to mpg for dvd.
I usually export in cineform with the hd stuff but with dv is that just another good quality but uneeded compression vs just exporting as same project settings: dv wide 1.2 par 48hz audio without recompress? (will it then be untouched?) It has a little sharpening and has been rendered on the timeline.
If it's best (or time and space efficent) to frameserve....I need a step by step because I just don't get how to do it :(

Thanks,
Jack

[Graham Hickling]

If you render out to DV that will be a lossy step for all segments of your timeline that you have applied corrections to. If there are segments that you havent touched they should be 'smart rendered' and not lose any quality.

So yes, it would be better to render out to Cineform codec than to DV codec, for input into TMPGenc.

Frameserving would in theory be even better but I doubt you will see a noticeable improvement for SD footage - sorry but I'll have to let someone else step you through that process as I haven't bothered with it recently.

[Ray Bell]

When you started Premier then you had to chose a preset... Cineform does not have a
DV preset so you had to chose a standard DV preset that comes with Premier... that
preset has created a DV timeline to where you have placed your DV footage and made the
changes/edits to the footage... when you export you should stay within the preset range
unless you are going to downconvert to a lower resolution ...

If your in DV resolution there should be no need to use Cineform output at all...

just export as AVI, there should be no loss to the quality of your footage this way.

[Graham Hickling]

DV is a poorer codec than Cineform when it is being used as an intermediate to TMPGEnc in this way.

(I wasn't suggesting you change your resolution settiings though - keep those matching your timeline as Ray recommends)

[Ray Bell]

not trying to make the DV to DV export process any more complex, but just in case
you didn't know or have not tried it out... the Cineform HDlink also has a converter
that will allow you to take your DV footage and upscale it to "quasi" Hd resolution if
you need to do that instead... I can't say how your particular DV footage will fare
with that solution, so your results may vary, but if you do need to up convert the
footage, that is available to you too...

[Jack Laurie]

Thanks,

So, first of all I don't need to convert up.
So the question is , even though dv avi is a loss*ier* codec then cineform . If I keep all aspects of the project the same and don't check the recompress, am I possibly better off with cineform because having added even just a little sharpening will mean that compression is necessary and therefore it might still be better to use the better cineform codec?,,,,
or is that not a quality problem when staying with the same project settings , no recompression and going to the same dv avi that was originally imported into the project?
relevantly, what is the point of unchecking the "recompress" anyway? (=smart rendering).
Actually, If during my edit i've rendered the sequence, have I already committed to the dv avi codec anyway?

This is interesting. My wife on the other hand can't see what the hold up is and is wondering whether it wasn't worth saving some bucks having me do this in my spare time then hiring a pro for her dance recital dvd's. I'm very happy with the editing I did, but i sure want a good dvd and a happy wife, both. She was getting so frustrated making her recital program because she kept hitting 'cut' instead of the crop she wanted. The kids and I just looked at eachother.....And she's going to understand these issues?....don't think so... LOL Just had our 25th last week and she's amazingly intuitive, efficient and sharp in 'actual reality'.Runs circles around me, but have to kick her out of my space and just show up with it. :)

[Graham Hickling]

Unfortunately the 'little bit' of sharpening means the footage will be recompressed - simple cuts are the only editing that won't trigger the recompression.

If you export to a different codec than the project settings (e.g. to Cineform from a DV project) then a completely fresh render from the original clips is done during the export - so no, the editing you have done has not committed you to a DV compression step. But at the same time, you will not benefit during your export from any pre-rendering that was done during your editing session.

You may find you are completely happy with a render to DV and then to TMPGEnc - the initial capture of the footage and in-camera conversion to DV is the most lossy step; recompressing lightly edited footage to a fresh DV stream adds only a small amount of extra loss.

[Jack Laurie]

ok..so to finish this train of thought, would you agree (and I think you would) that since it will be recompressed any way, cineform will be better?
And it brings up one other question. So If I do only cuts and simple editing without effects and export to dv avi and then do sharpening in tmpgenc, one could argrue that's better because one less compression step.
I'm getting the feeling it completely becomes splitting hairs and theory since:
1. the most lossy step is in the cam to dv
2. everyone will pick their own 'champion' for software manipulation in say sharpening, gamma, color, etc vs whether you get to skip one more compression or not.
I think at this point I need to take one of the edited dances ~4min and export to dv avi and cineform with and with out sharpening and then tmpgenc with sharpening if not done in premiere. say at 8mb cbr 10bitdc, and high motion detect. and take screen caps in photoshop blown up and also watch it. (oh yea....it's going to get watched ;) ) I sure would love the golden grail of workflows to be present itself to 'goldstandard'.com

[Graham Hickling]

Quote: So If I do only cuts and simple editing without effects and export to dv avi and then do sharpening in tmpgenc, one could argrue that's better because one less compression step.

That's an excellent option if you are happy with the tools within TMPGEnc - it has the dual advantage of being fast and lossless to export the intermediate DV file (because nothing is rendered), and also you get to retain an unmanipulated master that you can tweak as you see fit in later encodes.

The main drawback is that any sharpening, color correction etc that you use will get applied uniformly to the whole footage.

[Robert Young]

I'm not sure which CF product you are using, but the CF to DVD could well be better than DV to DVD because:
Prospect HD (for example) will convert your 8 bit 4:1:1 color sampled DV timeline to CF 720x480 10 bit 4:2:2 color sampling- by extrapolation of the original DV data.
Both avi files will look about the same if you compare them, but converting the CF 10 bit 4:2:2 avi to 4:2:0 DVD should be less lossy than converting the DV (4:1:1) straight to DVD (4:2:0).
To get the best DVD, it would have possibly been better to convert all of the original footage to CF SD 10 bit, 4:2:2, and edited the CF clips, as the CF avi would be more tolerant of filtering, tweaking, CC, etc., plus the better transcode to DVD.
At the end of the day it comes down to what's your acceptable standard for the final DVD image quality. If you edit the DV footage, crank out a DVD and it looks "good enough", it may not be worth it to get into hairsplitting workflows. On the other hand, if it looks soft, some of the more heavily treated clips look flakey, then every little bit of improvement you can get throughout the chain may make add up to a significant difference in the final DVD.
Then there are the issues of viewing the final product: DVD on a SD CRT TV? (get away with murder), DVD on upscaling player to HDTV? (potential to look pretty professional with good footage, best possible workflow), or DVD non upscaled to HDTV? (most often the kiss of death).
Honestly, shooting & working in DV for DVD output was always massively frustrating to me. For a quite a while now I have only shot HD, edited in CFHD.avi and am finally satisfied with the DVD quality I routinely get. Sometimes I will do a bit of sharpening, gamma, or color sat adjustment as part of the final DVD transcode, but that's just tuning to taste, not a rescue operation anymore.

[Jack Laurie]

Thanks guys.

This time I've already done my editing with dv files so I think I'll just export in cf and then encode.

Graham,
re: "any sharpening, color correction etc that you use will get applied uniformly"
Yea, I only needed sharpening on wide shots so since its mixed I'll need to leave it in premiere, take the recompress hit .export and then encode for dvd. next time cf all the way. (prospectHd)

What kind of Hd cams do you use or would reccommednd for general use, but most importantly for inside theater useage? rather spend 2k but for compelling reasons might go a little higher. Currently using the hg10 although the footage i'm working with now was shot by some hired guns. The hg's pretty good in the right conditions, but even with the sd I can see the color richness and DOF appearance better with the better sd cams they were using.

[Robert Young]

There are an awful lot of good HD cams out there.
Keeping it under $2K narrows the field a bit, so I would recommend that you take a hard look at the latest generation of small AVCHD cams.
The new Sony XR 520, for example, is a high end consumer cam ($1,500), but produces awesome full raster (1920x1080) HD images. The auto exposure system has become very intelligent, and most astounding to me, the low light performance is very good. In particular is the reduction in low light noise. The blacks in night shots are silky black. It records to internal HD or Duo cards, conversion to CFHD.avi is fast & easy, and the CFHD edit will transcode to excellent DVD, Blu Ray, and web formats.
This technology seems so good that I suspect AVCHD will start working its way up to the more expensive cameras fairly soon.