Web video and Premiere Pro 1.5

Jones · Nov 2, 2004

I'm putting together a low budget (ie no budget) talk show for a friend. I bought one of these used:

http://www.dvspot.com/reviews/sony/trv130-review/index.shtml

but I need a firewire, PCI card, external HD, and compression software to get the video on the web. I'm wondering if should resell it (paid 200) and get one of these:

http://www.usfreeads.com/271346-cls.html

the seller claims:

these camcorders are so cool that you
don't need a tape for them. They're all digital. They accept memory cards as
high as 512 mb (about 2 hours of recording time). They do come with 16 mb of
internal memory. We have a bunch of these, as this is the uprgraded version
of our older models, which did not have the internal flash, mp3 player, and
could not play mpeg movies that can be downloaded from the internet.
However, these do. All recordings go into the internal memory and memory
cards, and you can playback video on the 1.5" lcd screen, the television, or
your computer via the usb cable included with the camcorder, where you can
send video via e-mail to friends.

Since I'm only putting video on the web do I need all the resolution the Sony will provide?

Second question: Where can I find someone conversant with Premiere Pro 1.5? I'm trying to add credits to a 2mb quiktime clip but when I resave it becomes 30mb.

Thanks!

Zensteve · Nov 2, 2004

Keep your current camera.

The one you are thinking of getting is not even comparable... unless you are planning on making quarter-sized (maybe half) web-only videos exclusively.

It's handy for a lot of things sure, but side by side, that Digital-8 you have will serve you much better.

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As far as your QT clip, is your project the same settings as the clip when importing, and are you exporting the same? (CoDecs, size, etc)

Jones · Nov 3, 2004

Re: Cameras - are you saying that 120min (~500MB) of compressed .mpg footage off the Sony will look (or sound) better than 120min (~500MB) imported directly off the Aiptek?

Here's a screenshot of this clip: http://justinwjones.com/Video/SpaceCat.mov

in Premiere

How do I get rid of the black area around the video so the credits will be as wide as the video?

Thanks again

rizien · Nov 3, 2004

That video's resolution is smaller than your Projects resolution...

So you'd either have to recaputre/export that video in the screenshot at the same res as your project.

Or make your projects resolution the same as that video clips...

If there are any other options anyone else knows about, please let me know

haha

Jones · Nov 3, 2004

I guess I should change the project res, because if I make the video bigger it will get blurry. When I go Project -> Project Settings -> General -> the video frame size boxes are grayed out and set to 720 x 480

Jones · Nov 3, 2004

I started a new project, and under the custom settings tab, I switched from DV playback to Video for Windows and was able to change the size to 160 x 120. The black border is gone in the monitor window, and I resaved the clip as a 1.9MB quicktime file, but now it is much blurrier.

Edit - OK I got it to work pretty good, I'll post the details soon.

Zensteve · Nov 3, 2004

Re: Cameras - are you saying that 120min (~500MB) of compressed .mpg footage off the Sony will look (or sound) better than 120min (~500MB) imported directly off the Aiptek?

Yes.

The Aiptek records its version of fullscreen (640x480) at 10 frames per second, and heavily compressed into mp4 CoDec.

The Sony will record its version of fullscreen (720x480) at a whisker under 30 frames per second, and be uncompressed. (If not counting the actual DV format itself)

The Sony footage can be reduced down in quality and size, if you need to. You cannot improve the Aiptek upwards.

_______

On the other hand, 120 mins of DV is going to be 26 gigs of harddrive space. You can easily compress that down in size and quality though, to match the Aiptek. For example, you could reduce the Sony footage to 360x240 (half-size) mp4 format, at 3mb per minute... 180mb per hour... 360mb for 120 minutes... and it would still be running at 29.97fps.

_______

Here are the settings you should keep in mind, when making a project to fit the Space Cat.

160x120
15 frame per sec
CoDec is CinePak
DataRate at 95.5

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A side question... Why are you attaching your credits to someone else's video?

Jones · Nov 6, 2004

It's taken a couple days, but, I've come to the conclusion that Premiere Pro is complicated.

I was able to solve the border problem by starting a new project in the Video for Windows editing mode.

I added my credits in the Project window (R click, new item, title) and dropped it on the timeline. I shortened the default time of 6 seconds to 3 seconds.

I tried saving the new movie a million ways and only File-> Export-> Media Encoder -> Select Quicktime - > Cinepack worked

The new movie is 3.7 MB from an original 1.93, even though I only added 3 seconds of credits.

I also saved it as .wmv, this is only 655k, but a bunch of frames are missing before the credits.

How do you select the best format to save in and the compressor (codec?)

Side note, is there a link we can send for referrals?

Zensteve said:
A side question... Why are you attaching your credits to someone else's video?

Oh I see what you are suggesting. OK, I guess I should be fair.

http://justinwjones.com/IndieTalk/WMV.wmv

http://justinwjones.com/IndieTalk/Cinepak50.mov

Zensteve · Nov 7, 2004

Oh I see what you are suggesting. OK, I guess I should be fair.

http://justinwjones.com/IndieTalk/WMV.wmv

http://justinwjones.com/IndieTalk/Cinepak50.mov

While technically you are correct in what you placed in that credit, I am sensing more than a wee dose of sarcasm there.

_______

I tried saving the new movie a million ways and only File-> Export-> Media Encoder -> Select Quicktime - > Cinepack worked

The new movie is 3.7 MB from an original 1.93, even though I only added 3 seconds of credits.

I also saved it as .wmv, this is only 655k, but a bunch of frames are missing before the credits.

How do you select the best format to save in and the compressor (codec?)

The problem is this...

You are using existing footage that has already been encoded to a specific CoDec. It's already had reductions in size, data rate, FPS, colour palette, you name it.

Then you are adding material with completely different properties... into a project that has settings that don't even match the original source material.

Strange things happen, then... one of the most common being bloating. Have the settings "wrong" enough and you can easily turn a 5mb file into a 100mb version with no problem.

Have your initial project settings match the Vomit-Comet Cat properties as closely as possible, for starters. You'll have to go into "Custom" to do it manually but that will stop a lot of the bloating, as the software won't have to make so many adjustments for each frame. If you are exporting to a different CoDec from another directly...

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...It may be easier to create a new source. Create a new project (full size DV-ntsc) and plop the cat into it, with no resizing. Export as DV footage. Toss the old file; use the new DV file as original source. It's going to be a lot larger than the 3mb original. It will also be much more versatile.

It will also look a lot better if you can find a better copy of that video clip to start with. It's not that hard to find.

With the file now in DV format, you can pick from a few CoDecs for web-use. CinePak was fine a few years ago, but more recent ones allow for better compression. Export timeline, cropped down to cat-size.

Sorenson 3 and mp4 are both pretty good, for QT.

WMV usually has a few wizards (or at least simple drop-boxes) for getting the filesize (and quality) you need.

Side note, is there a link we can send for referrals?

Not sure what you mean. Embed a link into a video file, with referrer information attached to the URL?

Will Vincent · Nov 7, 2004

Re-encoding already compressed (and therefore lossy) video is always kind of nightmare-ish.. Your best bet is to capture the video uncompressed initially, if possible, edit and save it uncompressed (because it's usually faster, and then you KNOW it saved) then compress it using an additional program, other than the editor. That's my opinion, I'm sure others have different ones.

As far as encoding and such goes, there's a LOT of info, and free software, over at VdieoHelp.com. Start looking around over there and you could get lost in mountains of useful info for days!

These guys have done a pretty comprehensive comparison between codecs (9 testing sequences! 11 days total compression time! 33 tested codecs! 190 pages of comparison report! 2430 resulting sequences!) They also have a number of highly useful plugins from 'VirtualDub' and have apparently developed their own lossless codec, and are working on new video and image resampling algorithms (look at the comparison chart on the resampling algorithms page..t looks promising.)
Also might want to check out the Deblocking filter for virtualdub, which could definately come in handy for web-destined video keep the file size small, and the blockiness away. Sounds good to me.

Good luck

Jones · Nov 8, 2004

^ Thanks for the info, maybe I'll get into that as soon as I stump Steve (I mean he can't know everything, right?)

Zensteve said:
While technically you are correct in what you placed in that credit, I am sensing more than a wee dose of sarcasm there.

Not on my Internet!

> If you are exporting to a different CoDec from another directly...

What does this mean? I converted the original into full size DV then exported to MPEG4, I not sure how it returned to the original 160 x 120 size from the 720 x 480. I think it also exported more frames when I did it this way, so maybe it's the best way.

> It will also look a lot better if you can find a better copy of that video clip to start with. It's not that hard to find.

:huh:

You even have friends at NASA?

> Not sure what you mean. Embed a link into a video file, with referrer information attached to the URL?

If we want to refer people to this site

Zensteve · Nov 8, 2004

as soon as I stump Steve (I mean he can't know everything, right?)

You even have friends at NASA?

Through JPL... yes, actually. (Geeky strategy boardgame players... I don't work there)

Higher-res footage is on the 'net for sure, regardless.

Here is the website with information on how those kids were able to get aboard the Vomit Comet, btw.

Link To Programme

> Not sure what you mean. Embed a link into a video file, with referrer information attached to the URL?

If we want to refer people to this site

You can embed it in to the information file that gets attached to the video, maybe? Or add a title overlay? As best I know, you can't have an active http link in a QT or WMV video itself, although some presentations done in Flash, Shockwave, and the other one can. Maybe you can... I'd like to hear about it, if it's possible for a straight video file.

What does this mean? I converted the original into full size DV then exported to MPEG4, I not sure how it returned to the original 160 x 120 size from the 720 x 480. I think it also exported more frames when I did it this way, so maybe it's the best way.

That doesn't sound right.

Might be time to hit F1, and then follow up on Will's links he posted earlier.

Jones · Nov 9, 2004

Zensteve said:
Through JPL... yes, actually. (Geeky strategy boardgame players... I don't work there).

I googled but nada. If you can find better footage I'll buy a ticket to your next flick.

I meant if I want to tell the world about this gangbusters forum do you have an official referral page/link/email