exporting Mpeg2 with cropping in Prem 6.5

[Ben Gurvich]

I have a file that i would like to export as mpeg and put a 16:9 cropping on it.

Usually in premiere you export the file and selext cropping hoewver when you sue the adobe mpeg exporter there is no option. Does anyone know how i can do this without re compressing the video.

It is Mjpeg so i dont wanna compress to dv then to mpeg2.

Cheers,
Ben Gurvich

[Rob Lohman]

I think you are mixing a view things. Cropping is always seperate
from the encoder. So simply crop in Premiere and output to what
you want.

I'm not sure why you are thinking you need to convert your
input source (MJPEG) to DV and then to MPEG2. You can convert
the MJPEG directly to MPEG2 either in Premiere or in an external
MPEG2 encoder like TMPGEnc or ProCoder.

Keep in mind that if your output is for DVD you cannot simply
"crop" to get a 16:9 aspect ratio. The output resolution must
always be 720x480 (NTSC) or 720x576 (PAL). The pixel
aspect ratio dertmines whether it is plain 4:3 or widescreen 16:9.

So in Premiere you'd first have to stretch your footage vertically
and then crop it to the correct resolution. All this has left me
wondering why you are doing this in the first place. Perhaps it
is best to learn all the basic things first (like how to encode an
mjpeg to MPEG2 [see your DV remark]) before going after these
advanced things like 16:9 widescreen.

Because getting 16:9 is one thing. Correctly encoding an MPEG2
file and then correctly authoring a DVD in widescreen is a different
game.

[Ben Gurvich]

Thanks,s
howeve,r i am experienced with encoding mjpeg to dvd and if anyone is having any problems , the trick is to use a constant bitrate.

The strange reason i am was thinking of reencoding to dv is because it is less lossy than say if i export to mjpeg again.

The reason i need to do this is because I have half of the movie in cropped 3:4 making it quasi 16:9 and i need to match the other footage by applying the black bars to the whole thing.

I am guessing you can do a crop (not strecth ) in the timeline from what you are saying. without exporting to any codec and applying cropping.

(keep in mind exporting to adobe mpeg encode doesnt give u the same options as just exporting to say DV.

Cheers,
Ben Gurvich

[Rob Lohman]

You should be able to do stretch as well (I can in Vegas). You
can even do different stretches and crops on clips, so no need
to go to either MJPEG or DV at all. Again, you can go straight
to MPEG.

DV is actually more lossy if you use a high quality MJPEG codec.

I wouldn't say that "if anyone is having problems, the trick is
to use a constant bitrate". I'd much rather use a multi pass
variable bitrate encoding. The quality of any mpeg encoding
is definitely in the encoder you are using and choosing the
right settings and bitrate.

Ofcourse exporting to MPEG doesn't give you the same "options"
as exporting to DV, but why would you want to. I'm not sure
what you are trying to "tell" with that statement.