How to convert 720 50p to PAL (25i) - CS5 Premiere Pro

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davdav

Active member
Hi,

I have the HMC152 (PAL version of the HMC150) and love it. On the weekend I filmed a small opera in 720 50p and I am thrilled with the results (both video and audio). One of my friends in the cast wanted a copy on PAL SD DVD.

I used Premiere Pro CS5 and File>Export and chose DV PAL, Microsoft AVI. Then I brought it into Encore CS5 and made a DVD.

The resulting footage looks poor with jerky movements and noticable flickering. It's as though the conversion from 50p to PAL 25i went wrong.

I have search these forums with no luck, and looked through all the help files I can find that should address this issue.

Can you help with advice on how best to convert 720 50p to PAL (25i)?

Your help is greatly appreciated.

Regards
DavDav
 
davdav said:
The resulting footage looks poor with jerky movements and noticable flickering. It's as though the conversion from 50p to PAL 25i went wrong.

Can you help with advice on how best to convert 720 50p to PAL (25i)?
Click to expand...
I discovered this very issue last weekend, ie that 720p50 > MPEG2 PAL 25i has some random jerky moments. If i step forward frame by frame there is repeated frames here and there in the MPEG2 file, thus the jerkyness. Note that you cannot see the issue in the DV avi file. It seems that the MPEG encoding engine in CS5 has problems because any render from either 720p50 *or* any avi that has been exported *from* a 720p50 Timeline to PAL 25i shows this issue. I have tried DV avi, the CineForm codec and the Lagarith codec. All avi formats looks good, but once transcoded to MPEG2 one can see repeated frames in the transcoded footage. It happens if i transcode in: Encore CS5, Premiere Pro CS5, Adobe Media Encoder CS5, After Effects CS5.

The very same footage in looks perfect when i transcode it to MPEG2 in CS4.

I have tried to transcode the PAL 25i file with MainConcept MPEG Encoder 1.0.5 and ProCoder 3 with perfect results. MainConcept MPEG Encoder 1.0.5 cannot be purschased anymore, i bought mine in 2005.

I have reported the bug and has provided test footage and hope that Adobe will fix it in a future hopefully-soon-to-be-released cost free update. They are looking at it as i write this and i really hope that they find a solution.

I have reproduced it on Win and Mac. GPU Acceleration on or off does not matter. I have never seen this issue when using 1080i footage as a source.

If you import your DV avi into Premiere Pro CS5 and step forward frame by frame, can you see it there? Compare it with the transcoded file Encore did. It seems to happen when there is lots of motion in the footage. Static shoots looks good.

So, a third party transcoder will fix it today. (I have not yet tried Sorenson Squeeze.)

/Roger
 
Thanks for your response. Let me know if/when you get a response from Adobe. I did what you said and loaded the PAL avi file back into Premiere Pro CS5 and viewed it frame by frame, and it looks fine. However when I use the same file in Encore CS5 and burn a DVD, then it appears jerky where there is movement and it looks like the interlacing is not working correctly. I looked everywhere for MainConepts (the version you mentioned) but cannot find it. Assuming that this is a bug with CS5, I am very disappointed as this should be part of the core application capability.

I'll keep you posted with my investigations. Note that I just upgraded to CS5.0.1

Cheers
 
I just noticed that Adobe have released an update to Premiere Pro CS5.0.2, and an updatecto Media Encoder. Have a go with these, as I will, and let me know if you experience any improvements.
 
PAL should be 50i not 25i. You need double the frame rate for interlaced, so 50i is roughly the same as 25p, but interlaced.
 
Exact said:
PAL should be 50i not 25i.
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davdav and i are both talking about an interlaced video stream @ 25 frames/second. Some say it is 25i and some says it is 50i, but they are all talking about an interlaced video stream @ 25 frames/second. :)

AFAIK Avid says 25i and Adobe says 50i while both are speaking about the very same thing. (Its like 13.00 hours or 1 PM... ;) )

However, the export issue was not solved with the latest updates.

/Roger
 
Averdahl,

Would you believe that less than 24 hours after I installed 5.01 Adobe came out with v5.0.2. Further, and more importantly, they came out with an update to their Media Encoder.

I installed both and everything has been fixed for me. From my timeline in Premiere Pro I exported the same contents as previously (5.0.0) to PAL DV avi, and resulting avi file was a slightly different size. Next I used these avi files in Encore and built and burnt a DVD with great success.

I'm interested whether these update (Premiere Pro and Media Encoder) helps you too.

Regards Davdav
 
davdav said:
I'm interested whether these update (Premiere Pro and Media Encoder) helps you too.
Click to expand...
No, i see the same issues here despite the updates. Now i use Procoder 3 to transcode to MPEG2 before i burn DVD's and now i get better quality MPEG's and it works as a charm. :)

/R
 
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