Let's say I make a master copy of my movie and I render the movie with the level at 5.1, the highest, for the best quality. However, can I downgrade it later if I want to put it on DVD? Or do I have to re-render the movie again in order to make a DVD copy?
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Can a movie's levels be downsized when it comes to DVD?
- Thread starter harmonica44
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It just says 5.1 in Premiere Pro. It doesn't say anything else, but it asks for which 'level', I want and I have choices ranging from 1.0 to 5.1
Is this a quality slider for the compression? What format are you exporting to?
Edit: nevermind, I just googled it and this seems to be the profile/complexity slider for h.264 export. A few issues here...
First, I wouldn't choose h.264 for a master. You should be using a higher quality post format like ProRes, Cineform, or DNxHD, or you could do uncompressed if you have a lot of disc space.
Second - the profile determines the complexity of the encode, you may have to use a lower profile depending on the types of devices you're trying to deliver on. More important to overall quality will be the data rate, there should be another slider for this.
As for your original question - h.264 won't work on a DVD, so you'll have to export a new copy to MPEG2 for DVD compatibility anyway. You shouldn't do this from a h.264 version, you should do this either from a high quality master (one of the formats I listed) or directly from your timeline.
Edit: nevermind, I just googled it and this seems to be the profile/complexity slider for h.264 export. A few issues here...
First, I wouldn't choose h.264 for a master. You should be using a higher quality post format like ProRes, Cineform, or DNxHD, or you could do uncompressed if you have a lot of disc space.
Second - the profile determines the complexity of the encode, you may have to use a lower profile depending on the types of devices you're trying to deliver on. More important to overall quality will be the data rate, there should be another slider for this.
As for your original question - h.264 won't work on a DVD, so you'll have to export a new copy to MPEG2 for DVD compatibility anyway. You shouldn't do this from a h.264 version, you should do this either from a high quality master (one of the formats I listed) or directly from your timeline.
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Okay thanks. I just want to make a master copy and use that to make blu rays, DVDs, and send out over downloading to festivals. However, if H.264 is not good, what is for the master, so I can downgrade to other formats later? I use Premiere Pro, but it does not have ProRes, Cineform, or DNxHD. It lists a lot of other export formats though. What should I do? I just want a back up mastercopy of the finished edit, so I need to export to the highest format. But I do not have enough space for uncompressed though. Can I export in a format that was just as good as it was shot at, which is H.264, with the sound in wav? Cause an uncompressed copy will take up more space than all the original footage combined.
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I really wouldn't recommend using h.264 - it's a lossy codec that makes things worse each time you re-encode. It's for delivery, not mastering.
You can download the DNxHD codecs for free from Avid, once they're installed they should show up as an option in Premier. Here's the link with info:
https://www.avid.com/US/industries/workflow/DNxHD-Codec
You can download the DNxHD codecs for free from Avid, once they're installed they should show up as an option in Premier. Here's the link with info:
https://www.avid.com/US/industries/workflow/DNxHD-Codec
Okay thanks! I have a question. Before when I would give an EDL container for someone to do post production work, all the video was in H.264, since that's what the camera was shot in. I was told to give it to them in H.264, in an EDL container. However, why is H.254 so bad for the master, when it was used to do post production work on anyway?
The site also gives different options or different versions of DNxHD to download, that are different sizes. Is their one I should be choosing specifically?
The site also gives different options or different versions of DNxHD to download, that are different sizes. Is their one I should be choosing specifically?
Like I said before - h.264 is a lossy codec. Each time you recompress you lose quality. It's fine to edit with if your system supports it, but when it comes time to render it out - either to add graphics, do effects work, color correct, etc or for your final master - you want to go to a higher quality format so you don't lose any quality.
From here:
http://avid.force.com/pkb/articles/en_US/download/en423319
Just click the windows download.
Once you have it installed you should probably use the DNxHD 220x codec for your master.
From here:
http://avid.force.com/pkb/articles/en_US/download/en423319
Just click the windows download.
Once you have it installed you should probably use the DNxHD 220x codec for your master.
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Oh okay, I thought that if you export H.264 format from Premiere Pro, that it would stay the same, without loss, since it's still H.264, same as in the camera. I installed it, but it's not showing up in Premiere. I'll keep trying. Thanks!
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You really need to start using google.
Here's a tutorial that came up when I searched "premier export DNxHD":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmNKvgT-HRU
Here's a tutorial that came up when I searched "premier export DNxHD":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmNKvgT-HRU
Okay thanks. Your right I should use google more and I will. There is one thing I do not understand though. In the tutorial the guy selects quicktime, as well as DNxHD. Isn't quicktime a lower quality format though, and shouldn't it just be DNxHD only? He also says to set the movie's resolution to whatever the original resolution was. But what if I want it to be 24 fps instead of 23.976? Since 24 fps is more universally accepted, I would like to upconvert it, if that's okay, but he says not to, so is that a problem? Premiere Pro does not have quicktime so I will google on how to get it for it.
Wikipedia describes DNxHD as lossy as well though, so if that's lossy than how good is it though really?
Wikipedia describes DNxHD as lossy as well though, so if that's lossy than how good is it though really?
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What does FPS have to do with resolution ?
It sounds like you have no idea what you're talking about.
The guy in the video said to choose 23.976 so that the resolution is the same. I am just going by what he said. I did some research and found out that I need to download a quicktime that is compatable with DNxHD, but which one is compatible? No site tells me which version specifically so far. I already have quicktime installer on my computer but DNxHD is not working with it so far.
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No, there really isn't!!! Unless of course by one thing you mean pretty much everything! You've got to go and do some research/learning. Start with finding out; what a container is, what a codec is and what frame rates are. Then, find out which ones are suitable for DVD.
It's bad enough that you appear to know so little after having spent so much time filmmaking/posting about filmmaking. What's worse though is that the little you appear to think you know is often completely wrong! How did you arrive at the conclusion that 24fps is more universally accepted? Is this just another example of you hearing an isolated or unrelated piece of info and then trying to make up a universal filmmaking rule and apply it to everything?
So, try using a lossless format at 24fps in a quicktime container on a DVD and see how far you get! When you don't get anywhere at all, then try some research/learning.
G
Quicktime is just the container that holds video and audio encoded with a codec - the codec is what determines the quality. You can put nearly any codec into quicktime - DNxHD is a codec, as is h.264.
Leave the frame rate at 23.976.
Most codecs are lossy - the one's that aren't don't reduce the file size very much. The goal is always to balance the amount of quality lost against the data rate to meet a particular need.
h.264 is designed as a delivery codec. That means it's optimized for producing low data rates for delivery online, broadcast transmission via satellite & cable, or on discs like Blu-ray. What it's not designed to do is maintain quality across multiple generations very well, because it achieves those low data rates by throwing out a lot of the original picture information.
Codecs like DNxHD and ProRes are designed for post production. They don't reduce the data nearly as much as h.264 - they'll typically run at 10-100x the data rates typically used with h.264. The trade-off for that higher data rate is that a lot more of the original quality is retained, and if you do have to re-encode multiple times there is very little generational loss.
Unfortunately h.264 has also become common as an acquisition format due to the capacity & write speed limitations of inexpensive solid state memory used in consumer & prosumer cameras. So now you're starting with an h.264 file, and if you master to it you'll add a second generation of quality loss. Then if you compress from your master to h.264 for online delivery, etc you'll add a third pass of h.264 - by this point you'll start seeing visible degradation of your image.
When you go from h.264 to a higher quality codec like DNxHD you essentially don't lose any appreciable quality. So now when you use that master to generate delivery files you've basically removed a generation of encoding loss from the process.
Ideally you'd shoot on a camera that recorded uncompressed video, then you'd stay uncompressed through the post process, and then only compress when it's time to deliver. Unfortunately that's not practical if you don't have a lot of money to spend - requires too much storage, and storage that's too fast (and therefore expensive), at every step of the process. So the trade-off is you work with lossy codecs, but you try to use the least lossy codecs you can at each step of the process. In your particular case that's going to be DNxHD for your master.
Okay thanks, I understand now. I thought that the H.264 format was 'lossless', since that's what the camera is, but I understand. Some film festivals have told us though, that they want 24 fps, and that 23.976 may present problems cause that's not the spec they ask for. That is why I thought about exporting to 24, cause of that. I think when I created the Premiere Pro file though, it asked me if I wanted 24, and I said yes, way back, so is that a problem?
No, h.264 isn't lossless - it's used in cameras because it produces good looking video at manageable file sizes. Better cameras use better codecs - Blackmagic's for instance use ProRes when you shoot compressed video on them. Raw is the highest quality in camera - it's essentially uncompressed - but it produces very large file sizes as a result, requires a lot more processing in post, etc. So you're always having to balance between quality and file size/data rate.
As for the 23.976/24 issue, I'd personally stick with 23.976 for your master since that's what you shot and edited with. It'll work fine for online and disc-based (DVD or Blu-ray) delivery. If you do get into a festival that requires true 24fps then I'd conform (not convert) a copy of the master to 24 - this basically just speeds up the playback to the correct frame rate without altering the picture at all. The audio sample rate will bump up slightly - you may need to do a sample rate conversion to make it compliant with their requirements, there's a variety of ways to do this with audio programs like Logic, etc.
Personally I wouldn't worry about it until someone actually asks for 24 though.
As for the 23.976/24 issue, I'd personally stick with 23.976 for your master since that's what you shot and edited with. It'll work fine for online and disc-based (DVD or Blu-ray) delivery. If you do get into a festival that requires true 24fps then I'd conform (not convert) a copy of the master to 24 - this basically just speeds up the playback to the correct frame rate without altering the picture at all. The audio sample rate will bump up slightly - you may need to do a sample rate conversion to make it compliant with their requirements, there's a variety of ways to do this with audio programs like Logic, etc.
Personally I wouldn't worry about it until someone actually asks for 24 though.
A small point in an otherwise very helpful post, but raw is not the same as uncompressed. Raw simply means that the data from the sensor has been stored without any sort of processing, e.g. ISO, white balance or picture profile. Most raw data is compressed before recording: both RED's cameras and the Sony F65 offer a minimum compression ratio of 3:1. Newer and upgraded Alexas can record uncompressed raw internally.