Good quality in, Garbage out!

P

philgood

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I bought a Rt.X100 package and went the DIY route on the computer, as I successfully assemble computer all the time. I've reinstalled everything so many times when I reinstall WinXP (just to start fresh) that Microsoft makes me jump through a few extra hoops to activate my software.

The System is a P4-3Ghz (ASUS P4C800 Deluxe) w. 1 GB RAM, three EIDE HD (80GB - System, 250GB - Video, 250GB - Export), Matrox card (slot one), Nvidia videocard. The video I'm using is recorded and played on my old Sony TRV310 D8 camcorder. If I plug the S-video out from the TRV310 to my monitor it looks great except for the colors are off due to poor lighting, but other than that it is a good solid image.

I've captured using both the Matrox (16:9) settings and the NTSC (16:9) settings and right away you can see some picture degradation. There is a broom handle in the picture and it looks like a barber’s pole, with stripes moving up and down, depending on how it is moved.

When I use the Send to DVD function of PPro (V1.0) it all goes to hell in the form of jagged edges and any image that moves to fast ends up looking like a comb. One of the gents in frame is wearing a black cowboy hat and standing against a gold curtain. As he tilts his head back and forth, the leading edge of the hat gets reduced to a series of black and gold lines.

I've worked with Adobe PPro support (yearly service contract) and they tried everything playing with every combination of DVD custom settings with no success.

It's too light to be a boat anchor, but it's certainly not a video editing system. Maybe I'll give it to David Letterman to drop off a building then the thing will have purpose.

Help!
 
Re: Good quality in, Garbage out!

Ok, so it sounds like you are doing an analog capture of your D8 footage, yes? If so, then yes, you are going to get a one-generation picture degradation.

Generally, when I am worried about the quality of my footage when it is destined for DVD, I export the finished clip (or timeline, or whatever) to an AVI file then use TmpgenC to do a two-pass render to MPEG2. If I am not so worried about quality, I usually use the RTX100 MPEG-2 realtime encoder to generate MPEG-2 files.
 
Re: Good quality in, Garbage out!

[quote author=philgood link=board=Premier;num=1099430636;start=0#0 date=11/02/04 at 13:23:56]If I plug the S-video out from the TRV310 to my monitor it looks great[/quote]

You mention viewing the output through the S-video port but not how you are capturing. Are you using the firewire port for capture? If your aren't and are using the s-video port then you are downgrading the quality as speedbump noted above.

Also, are you viewing the broom handle on your computer when you see the stripe problem? Or on the external monitor.

Oh, I also see that you say you captured as 16:9 video. Shouldn't you be capturing as 4:3? By capturing 16:9 that would throw off the image.
 
Re: Good quality in, Garbage out!

I used 1394 but I had tried using analog with the same results.

Are you saying not to use the Export to DVD built-in to PPro? I tried every combination listed, in fact the folks from PPro support had me create a couple of custom settings to try and improve the DVD.
 
Re: Good quality in, Garbage out!

Hans, the stripe on the pole is on both screens.

As for the 16:9 vs 4:3, well I wish it was captured in 4:3 if that would solve my problem. I've got to work with the 16:9 format. I've already verified I'm using the .9 pixel, as specified with the 16:9 defaul presets.
 
Re: Good quality in, Garbage out!

[quote author=philgood link=board=Premier;num=1099430636;start=0#4 date=11/02/04 at 15:01:34]As for the 16:9 vs 4:3, well I wish it was captured in 4:3 if that would solve my problem. I've got to work with the 16:9 format. I've already verified I'm using the .9 pixel, as specified with the 16:9 defaul presets.[/quote]

Hmm, you have me confused here. The TRV310 is a 4:3 camera and the footage should be captured as 4:3. Also, 16:9 footage uses a 1.2 pixel ratio and not 0.9 which is what 4:3 uses.

Are you trying to create a widescreen video (16:9) but using the 4:3 footage from your TRV?
 
Re: Good quality in, Garbage out!

The TRV310 has that ability to shoot 16:9 (not judging if that's good or bad) and that's what was used. If I start the PPro project in 4:3 the image is squished. If I start the project in 16:9 everything looks normal.

Sorry, maybe I've got the 1.2 and .9 reversed.
 
Re: Good quality in, Garbage out!

[quote author=philgood link=board=Premier;num=1099430636;start=0#6 date=11/02/04 at 15:20:46]The TRV310 has that ability to shoot 16:9[/quote]

Ah, cool. Then you are correct in having a 16:9 project.

And, to verify, you are capturing using your firewire cable? If not and you are capturing with the s-video then I would first point to that as the problem. Also, if you haven't captured with firewire can you do so to verify the quality?
 
Re: Good quality in, Garbage out!

Yes, I captured with Firewire and just for s&g's I also captured with S-Video. About the same.

and the story continues... Last night I installed a copy of Pinnacle Studio 9 Plus. Captured and burned a DVD.. Drum roll please.... It looks great! What the hey! I send mucho bucks on PPro (Matrox) and I get garbage. I use a $99 prorgam and everything looks great. I'm going to try doing a capture in Studio 9, multicam edit and color correct in PPro, and burn the DVD back in Studio 9. A heck of a way to build a project.
 
Re: Good quality in, Garbage out!

Very strange.

I have a similar hardware setup (P4 3.4Ghz with the RTX-100) and haven't experienced the problem you are having. In addition to capturing footage from my DVX I also capture from my old TRV30.

Btw - Have you tried importing the footage, captured with Pinnacle, into Premiere? If it imports clean and looks good then we have narrowed down the problem to capture within Premiere.
 
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