PPRO v3.1.1 Export Workflow - MXF to AVI & MXF to WEB

DCERVENKA

DCERVENKA

Well-known member
What's your PPRO v3.1.1 MXF workflow for exporting out to WED (.mp4, .mov, etc) and DVD (Encore)

In PPRO v3.0 I used the Raylight plugin to edit MFX files. So my workflow was:
  1. Export from PPRO to a "self contained" raylight .avi (RAVI)
  2. Import the RAVI into Sorenson Squeeze for output to WEB (.mp4)
  3. Import the RAVI into Encore for output to DVD
However I can't seem to find an elegant way to do this in v3.1.1...?

For the web I can use Adobe's compressor, but I perfer not to... And I can export my final MXF edits back out to MXF... but how do I get that into ENCORE or into Sorenson? I've tried the "uncompressed .avi" option, but that results in the 2+ GB file for a 1 min clip of 720 24PN footage with very poor quality... :embarasse
 
For MP4, I've found that the Adobe Media Encoder does a pretty good job, and gives decent flexibility. Just be sure to select "H.264" as the format, and not QuickTime with MP4/H.264.

But, here's another option that is pretty awesome: Debugmode Frameserver.

NOTE: I'm assuming here that you're on the Windows platform...

What the frameserver does is let you export a tiny AVI file that basically functions as a shortcut to your finished sequence and its requisite media. It takes only a few moments to export, and when you open the exported AVI "pointer" file, the frameserver, well, serves frames to the requesting application. This means that you can drop this AVI into Squeeze, Encore, or whatever other application you're using (encoding apps, generally speaking) and you're not going through lengthy export times, recompressing your media to an intermediate format, or hogging drive space with those exports. Don't worry if the pointer AVI doesn't seem to playback in realtime (you can open it with most/any media player): the frameserver will dish out frames just as fast as the encoding app can process them. Pretty sweet...

Hope that helps...
 
Thanks! Yes I'm on Windows and running VISTA 64... so I will check it out.

Have you used Frameserve with PPRO CS3? It looks like the app hasn't been tested for any of the CS suites yet? "Adobe Premiere - tested with Premiere 6.0/6.5/Premiere Pro 1.0/1.5/Elements 1.0"

I found a few posts in their forum http://www.debugmode.com/userforums/viewforum.php?f=29, but nothing conclusive and their does not seem to be a lot of support.. :(
 
Use it virtually everyday for serving from PPro CS3 to Squeeze for Flash... works fantastically well. Took a little bit of setting up and experimenting, but it's a really time saver. I recommend saving a few export presets to accommodate each project type you work on.

To use it, you select File>Export Movie. On the General tab for File Type, select "DebugMode FrameServer". You can setup your export range as desired; I'd suggest unchecking "Add to Project when Finished". I don't think it'll make a difference, but there's no reason to do so.

Under the Video tab, Compressor should be automatically set as "DebugMode Frameserver". Color depth will be Millions. Frame size should default to whatever your project settings are; I haven't experimented with it, but I don't think you'd want to do any frame size changes here--save that for the encoding app. Frame rate: same deal. PAR: ditto.

The Keyframe and Rendering tab shouldn't need any changes, though you might want to check that your field order is correct. Most of the time, I'm exporting from a 24p project, so this will say "No Fields (Progressive Scan)". Again, these should be properly set based on your project settings.

The Audio tab is a different critter, and here's why: most of the time, you'll want to leave it at 48kHz, but I've found (repeatedly) that Squeeze totally jacks up 48kHz audio. I don't know why, but it's acknowledged on their website--has been for a couple years. And yet, there's no fix. It manifests as random pops and clicks in the compressed audio track. I should note that this only seems to be a problem if you're using Squeeze to encode to a web format (WMV, MOV, FLV, MP4, etc). So what I do is select 44.1kHz as the sample rate if I'm heading to squeeze. Ideal? No, but the audio still comes out fine whence compressed. This is a good reason to set up export presets, because you could create ones for web export and for DVD export.

Finally, and maybe most importantly, tell the exporter where you want the AVI saved. What's cool is that this is a totally temporary file: as soon as you're done serving, it'll be disappeared from the system. NOTE: I've found that sometimes, when doing re-exports, PPro will forget to append an AVI extension in the file name box. Be sure to add an extension, if you see that it hasn't (you'll see the file name and a period, but no extension)--it creates non-functioning exports that for one reason or another, are extremely difficult to delete from your system :)

Once you hit OK, the FrameServer itself will launch. If it's not selected, select the YUY2 option--this is the colorspace PPro works in, so you'll avoid a colorspace conversion--nifty. I'm not sure if it's necessary, but I always have selected the "Write audio as PCM samples in signpost AVI" option. While you can serve audio along with video, I've had better luck with this option, as it forces PPro to export mix down the audio and include it in the signpost AVI. I'm assuming it has something to do with the fact that with video, you've only got 24, 30, or 60 samples per second, whereas with audio, you've got almost 50,000 samples per second. The downside? I guess it takes a couple seconds to export the audio, and the resulting AVI is anywhere from a few to several MBs, depending on the length of your audio track--pretty small concessions for better operation, in my mind.

When you're done, hit the "Start serving" button. The export will churn for a few seconds, and your signpost AVI will be created. Navigate over to it, and you'll be able to dump it into whatever program you want. When you're done encoding, be sure to hit the "Stop Serving" button--the FrameServer app will stay open this whole time, serving as a live link between your PPro media and your encoder. That will automatically delete the signpost file. I do recommend closing your encoding app first--they tend to get cranky when you take away whatever they're chewing on.

What's cool is that you'll be able to go over to Premiere and watch the export bar moving through the footage, and the Frameserver window will give you a frames per second readout. It's a little more exciting than watching paint dry, but hey: we're geeks.

Hope that helps...
 
Awesome! Thanks for the detailed instructions!

For the benefits of others I was able to get this to work on PPRO v3.1.1 (VISTA64) using Frameserver out to Sorenson Squeeze v4.5.7 to render a h.264 file.. So far so good!


However importing the frameserver .avi into ENCORE did not work.. The video on the timelime plays back, but it's just black.
 
It'll work. Once the FrameServer launches, change from YUY2 to RGB24 or RGB32... it'll work just fine then.

(REASON: PPro works natively in YUY2 colorspace, and apparently Squeeze does too. Encore, on the other hand, is expecting RGB input. Go figure...)
 
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