Up to date compression from 1080p to DVD and web based format

M

MattRozier

Member
Hey everyone,
I'm hoping that someone out there might be able to help me out with a problem I have. I've been reading plenty over the last week - but I'm not sure how much of the information is currently up to date. I've just finished editing a 1080p 25 fps short film (shot on 5d Mk II) and need to encode it for two purposes...

a) A screening DVD for festivals and a few interested film companies
b) A version to be shown online embedded on a website.
I've been editing in Adobe Premiere CS5.5 and After Effects CS5.5 and am on a Windows based system.
From what I've read I've found the following....

DVD....
My options are to export out of Premiere as an uncompressed AVI and then use Media Encoder to compress it down to a MPeg2 for DVD.
The other option is by using other programs such as AVIsynth and VirtualDub etc.

Exporting out of Premiere or Media Encoder churned out results of a lower quality all the way up until CS4, then people start saying that the quality improves but how much? Does it now equal the quality of the Avisynth/VirtualDub method? If so - great. But if not, could anyone give me an idea of what I should be doing to get the BEST possible quality DVD (I know DVD is SD and 1080p HD, and so expect a loss in quality - but I'm just trying to retain as much quality possible).

STREAMING....
Same as above. If I use a service such as Vimeo Pro and embed that on our page am I losing quality? Should I encode to Flash and just host it from our site? What would give the best balance of quality and playability - the people watching the footage are big players, so I don't want to dissappoint them by uploading stuttery footage. Obviously you can't have great quality and smoothness on the web, but what would be the way of ensuring that both are good?

Quite a long post, but I'm tearing my hair out looking for up to date info on CS5.5 and its compression/encoding capabilities. If anyone has any better suggestions for software or workflows I'd LOVE to hear them.

Massive thanks for your time and thoughts in advance !

Matt
 
I work on a Mac, so I cant help with the DVD question for your needs. Since I use Compressor and then DVD Studio Pro. (Im getting very good quality between 7.8 up to 9Mbits Data rates on DVD)
I cant give you solid information about Adobe's encoders, since I havent bothered with Adobe other then After Effects... until recently with AVCHD, I now use Premiere.
But you could easily borrow a computer with CS5.5 or a Mac with Compressor and compare the results to AVIsynth and VirtualDub.
As for the steaming, hosting it allows you more control as well as a certain professional aspect.
But Vimeo and Youtube offer variable data rates for many different types of connections and devices. (iPhones, Tablets, TVs, and of course Computers.)
Your streaming quality will be a solid 720p HD through both of them... I know youtube offers 1080p, but I've heard its a poor quality 1080.

Having your video on either of these sites also gets you more exposure, and is easy to share without worry about the viewer's hardware.
 
First thing is to create a sequence in Premiere pro with the resolution of your compressed format. So if you are going to standard def DVD then create a sequence at 720x480 (1.2 PAR for widescreen). Then nest your other sequence into the SD DVD sequence and resize. Add a small amount of unsharp mask to retain the edge sharpness loss you are getting from downrezzing your footage. Even if you don't add the unsharp mask, premiere pro does a much better job at downsizing footage than you will get by exporting an HD timeline at SD resolution through media encoder.

The next step is to choose your compression. Not sure why you choose to export as an uncompressed avi. Save yourself a step and encode directly to MPEG2 - DVD with adobe media encoder (don't encode in adobe encore). Not sure what the m and n frames are supposed to be in PAL land so you will have to look into that if you don't already know. Don't set your bitrate for DVD too high since some players won't be able to handle the spec limits and will simply not play your DVD.

If you want to compress for the web then yes the best quality option would be to export your own compression from your source footage...f4v or mp4 h264 are great. The only drawback as mentioned is that it won't get the exposure, cross platform compatibility and options for resolution that you get with vimeo or youtube. The benefit is that is doesn't have to go through another generational loss when youtube/vimeo re-compresses your footage.
 
Thanks for the info daihard.

egproductions, I'll certianly give that a go - it sounds like a good way to go - resizing before compressing. I was going to get an uncompressed AVI purely because we may be approaching festivals with the work and may need to get things transferred onto HDCam etc. I presumed having an uncompressed version to hand them on a harddrive would be a good way to go to retain all quality. It also means that as it's a pretty processor heavy project I can render from the uncompressed AVI instead of having to re-render the entire project each time. (If I've got any of this wrong and am making a school boy error I'm more than happy to take any advice on board). Just thought it may be easier to get further copies from that uncompressed version - eg. one for DVD, one for the web, one for mobile etc. etc.

But yeah, def I'll try bringing it onto a DVD sized timeline - 720x480 (or is it 720 x 576? - I'm in PAL land) and adding unsharp mask. Obviously the answer is - 'it depends on the material' but do you have a rough range of the quantity of unsharp mask I should be applying? Even a rough average idea would be incredibly useful.

To WhiteMonkey - thanks for the info - are you saying that the media encoder turns out as high a quality DVD as by going any other route? I've heard it's good and have used it for every single web based film and project so far and been happy with the results. I just need my DVD and online copy to be as high quality as I can get them to be (and am prepared to go a 'long way' to get there if needs be).
 
The quality from Media Encoder is fine, in fact it's better than that, it's industry standard. I create a TGA timeline to master from. After all these years the only files that still work are the tga sequences and they're uncompressed and easy to archive.
 
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