rendering mpeg using twixtor for premiere

[Dwight Flynn]

I just saw a high def render applying twixtor for premiere pro (23.97fps option) on a 1 minute mpeg using an athlon 64 with 1 gig that took almost three hours to render. Is this typical or is it just the mpeg file (as opposed to avi). Please can anyone help explain this because I need to know if I should render my mpegs into avi before applying twixtor while using premiere.

[Rob Lohman]

Yes, rendering to mpeg2 can be very time consuming. The most
important factor is CPU speed. It also depends on resolution
of your files and the specific settings. If you do VBR encoding the
more passes the longer it will take.

Normally a 1 minute encode should not last 3 hours. That's way
too much.

Are you on a MAC system?

[Dwight Flynn]

I am on a PC. The demo I saw was of a mpeg2 file that had been converted from m2t (basically a transport stream) from the jvc hd10u camera. Since I have a similar setup (Athlon 64 with one gig and 300gb sata) I thought I might run into the same problem, and I was wondering if I needed to convert the file into an avi before rendering with twixtor for premiere (30 to 24fps) to save time.

[Rob Lohman]

I'm only familiar with general mpeg2 encoding and not your
specifics. May I ask why you are going to use Twixtor? With a
setup you have mpeg2 encoding should be a LOT faster.

But again, it all boils down to settings. CBR (constant bitrate)
encoding is the fastest but yields larger files for the same quality
as lower bitrate VBR (variable bitrate) encoding. VBR basically
needs at least 2 passes to be succesful. Each pass is basically
a full encode. So if your CBR encode takes 1 hour, doing a 3
pass VBR will probably go to 3 hours (not entirely accurate, but
you get the idea).

The easiest way is to simply try. If you want to know for sure
before you buy a product perhaps you can try out a demo if it
is available? I believe Premiere has its own mpeg2 encoder
in version 6.5 and Premiere Pro. There are also other standalone
encoders available like TMPGEnc and ProCoder

[Dwight Flynn]

I am trying to find a reliable way to take the 30fps that comes out of the jvc hd10u high def cam and convert it to 24fps. Twixtor for premiere or AE seem to be the best way of getting this done. The cam exports its file in a m2t format (basically a transport stream). I can then convert it into a mpeg2 or avi file for edit. The reasons for this is that jvc screwed over its customers by not making the camera capable of export to uncompressed avi or quicktime (only m2t, but I have conversion work arounds). So the question is whether I need to convert the file to avi or mpeg2 before editing? Basically I need to know which format will be rendered faster when I apply twixtor for premiere or AE to achieve 24fps.

[Rob Lohman]

AVI is always better then MPEG2 if you still need to edit it. Because
MPEG compression uses intra-frame compression (5 frame GOP
for the HDV "standard" your using). Final output can then be done
to MPEG2 after editing using any compressor you want.

Most NLE's don't like MPEG2 editing much.