HD to SD

[Roy1]

I am currently using Adobe CS5 and I wish to convert an HD video to SD to burn to a DVD. Starting from the HD video on the timeline of CS5 premiere PRO, can someone instruct me STEP BY STEP how to achieve this. I presume I go to export > media and into encore. I have gone thu the procedure, but after making an Mpeg file for DVD I can't find a way of burning it to a DVD. I've tried IMGBURN with no luck. I was thinking of putting the MPEG file back onto the timeline of Adobe premiere pro and then thu Dynamic link to encore to make a disc image file of the SD file. But Premiere pro won't accept it. HELP Needed. Happy Xmas to all.

[Roy1]

Further to my first post. I have managed to make an Disk image in SD but neither windows disc burner noe IMGburn will burn it to a disk I am trying to burn it with a Ritec GO5 disc.

[col lamb]

Roy

See my tutorials on Vimeo

They show you how to make a sd/hd/mpg/mp4 file and also there is an Encore tutorial

[Roy1]

COLIN. I have followed your instructions contained in your tutorial on VIMEO.(BTW I can't download them onto my PC. I've even logged on in Vimeo and still can't download) Following your advice to the letter I have made an SD file in Mpeg2 with a size of .98 GB. However when trying with IMGBURN to burn it to a disc it gets as far as saying "writing leadin" and goes no further. On looking at the info displayed it says "write speed mis compare" it wanted 2X and got 4X" it goes on to say that "drive only supports writing this disc at 4X,8X. My Burner is LG GGW-H20 and the disc being used is RITEK GO5. SD file from HD made with CS5 encore. Any Ideas what is wrong. I've done this job successfully before but forget how I did it. If this won't work I might have to tranfer the HD video from the timeline to DV tape using the Sony HDV camera and then set the camera output to SD and transfer it back to the time line of Adobe premiere CS5 and try to process that to a DVD. Hopefully

[Michael Slowe]

Roy, at the risk of you saying "Oh no, not more instructions", may I say what I do, and I'm not at all 'techy'.

I edit in HD as you do. I then export my HD programme as a QT .mov in the ProRes codec, which is still HD. Now, you want a DVD which is of course SD. In my opinion by far the best DVD encoder is BitVice. Not only does it do brilliant encodes (with two passes if you want) but, and this is key, it does a very good downscale before encoding.

BitVice is sold by a Swedish company called Innobits, is easy to use but it suddenly occurs to me might only be operational on Mac. I'm not sure about that.

[TimStannard]

.. but it suddenly occurs to me might only be operational on Mac.

as is the ProRes codec, or so I believe.

[Roy1]

Michael and Stan. Thanks for your input.

[col lamb]

Roy

Use the SD file in Encore and make an ISO file, then with IMGBURN select the ISO file and burn the disc.

If this process does not work then it is likely you have a fault on the burner or within Windows

How old is your disc burner?

When did you buy your blank discs?

Have you updated the firmware on your burner?

I had just the same burner as you have and all of a sudden it would not burn a new batch of discs, I updated the firmware with an LG patch and still it would not work, ended up buying a new drive

I know Michael is an advocate of making Prores files, but in my opinion that is totally the wrong way to go for any PC/Windows user. Prores is an APPLE based file system, it is classed as an itermediate codec (that is not intended for long term use). Now if anyone keeps Prores files for a significant period of time then they are reliant upon Apple continuing to support Prores and releasing updates or indeed supporting the codec, the net effect may well be that a Prores file can only be played on the source PC and any other that just happens to have the codec in place. Any PC user of Apple based software/products has to ask themselves the question.......do I trust Apple to support my continued use of Windows? I know the answer from my perspective, no.

[Michael Slowe]

Col, I'm sure that you're right to warn PC users about the Apple codec ProRes but all I can say is that all the professional editors around the world (I know this from the Creative Cow forum), who edit on Macs and mostly Final Cut, do so in the ProRes codec. It is the most efficient way to compress HD material without any apparent loss in quality. A 30 minute timeline in full HD is shown within my Media 100 as being 150 GB's. In the ProRes codec it would be 55 GB's. Therefore there is a big space saving as far as storage is concerned. For your information I, along with many others in the worldwide film making community, archive my final production file in ProRes. If Col is right a lot of archived films are going to disappear! I'm 77 years old so I'm not too worried but maybe others should be.

[col lamb]

Michael

I agree with you that Prores is an efficient way of editing and saving files but.....................

ProRes is a line of intermediate codecs, which means they are intended for use during video editing, and not for practical end-user viewing. The benefit of an intermediate codec is that it retains higher quality than end-user codecs while still requiring much less expensive disk systems compared to uncompressed video.

The above is the definition of Prores from Wikipedia, Prores also comes in many, many forms with the name Prores being generic for the family. It is like the big brother of .MOV format MAC files and MOV files have so many varients that it is impossible to be certain that the file will play in all but its created device.

Hence caution should be observed, save in Prores by all means but also save in MPG and MP4 formats

Also please bear in mind that PC users who have a powerfull enough PC have absolutely no need to convert source video files (AVCHD) into AVI's for editing, converting AVCHD into an AVI is what users of Edius can do with their source files, the HQ AVI files can then be easily edited on less powerfull PC's, users can also export the finished movie as an HQ AVI but if someone on another PC wants to view the file they have to download and install the codec pack from Grass Valley. Friends who edit on MACs have to convert the source AVCHD files into what Apple term AIC files (apple intermediate codec) to be able to edit them.

Now to be able to view Prores files the PC has to have the right codec pack installed, I have a stable editing PC and under no circumstances would I ever install another codec pack just to view a file........user be warned........there are too many posts on the Adobe website of Apple updates to quicktime screwing up systems.......if it aint broke dont fix it

One thing you can be certain of and that is files created under the MPEG2 and MPEG4 formats will continue to be supported, the DVD MPEG 2 standard is incorporated within the Bluray MPEG 4 standard hence we have backward compatibility, in the future once the next generation of hidef is agreed MPEG 2 and MPEG 4 will be incorporated into the new standard and hence backward compatibility will be retained hence files will continue to be played.

[Michael Slowe]

Col, I read what you say. I'm never going to try and play my archived ProRes files, or expect anyone else to. I merely want to be in the position of being able to re import the file into my edit system in order to create more BD's and DVD's should I run out of the copies that I have. As the files are in HD I still have the choice of distribution format.
Actually, come to think of it, last year, when the London Open City Film Festival showed one of my films, they requested a file on a drive and I gave them my QT ProRes file. They projected the film from MacPro computer as they did all the exhibited films. Five cinemas, five MacPro computers.

[col lamb]

Michael

Can we finish off the debate on Prores once and for all?

Prores is presently for MAC users only and is NOT easily available for Windows users.

For a Window user to encode to a Prores file they have to encode using a third party product and the results are no better than encoding to an MPG2 file in fact the actual encoding process is not easy so any Windows user should not even bother to try when MPG2 and 4 files will play back perfectly well on either Windows, MAC or even Android systems.

This is my last post on Prores on this thread as we are highjacking Roy's original request for help which was about Adobe Premiere & Encore

[Roy1]

Colin. I think you are right when you say I have a fault with the LG blu-ray burner. I've found that although it burns Blu-ray Discs perfectly, it won't accept any DVD discs when attempting to burn SD files. This is my second LG blu-ray burner to act this way. I've had it less than a year. However I've worked round my problem by exporting the HDV video back onto a Mini DV tape using the same Sony Cam. on which the original was shot. I altered the settings of the Cam. so that it would play back as SD.Using another PC I captured the SD output onto Adobe 6.5. Then using Sonic MYDVD I saved the file as an ISO. Finally I used IMGburn to burn the DVD using a DVD only re-writer. Result-success. A bit long winded, but cheaper than buying another Blu-ray burner. I shall still use the PC with HDV and the burner solely for HD production. Seasons greetings to you and all other users of this forum.

[Roy1]

I am happy and somewhat bewildered that everything is now back to what it should be. Encore is working perfectly. It is making DVD Iso files from an HDV file on the timeline of Premiere Pro 5 via the dynamic link. Stranger still the LG burner (usually blamed for everything by me) is now accepting all types of blank discs including DVD-RW. Encore and LG burner are now producing short Blu-ray videos on DVD blanks as blu-ray videos, as well as DV onto DVD blanks which will play back on any unit. Actually the LG burner would do none of this when I first bought it. So there is nothing wrong with the burner, the fault must of been in Encore. The only thing I have done, and I don't know if it made any difference, was to remove WinXP from the same PC as I am using with Win7 64bit