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  • Mon, Oct 24 2005 1:47 PM

    • rsandelius
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    Confused [*-)] OT: Procoder Express Settings

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    Anybody here use Procoder Express? If so, could you please list your settings for CBR/VBR encoding from a QT Ref file? Also, are the settings templates pretty much the same between Procoder Express and the full-featured Procoder Version (2.0?).

    Media Composer Adrenaline HD 2.7 HP xw8400 2gb RAM Nvidia Quadro FX1500 Avid Media Drives [view my complete system specs]
    Life is like a sequence... some parts you want to overwrite, you will always have to wait while life catches up, and people will step in and out, changing everything. My point? That huge pointer hovering over my head is really starting to freak me out!

  • Mon, Oct 24 2005 3:20 PM In reply to

    • xyedit
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    Re: OT: Procoder Express Settings

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    I pulled this from the old forums... but these are my settings.

    Here are my MPEG-2 Target settings in ProCoder... (and I get very nice results)

    Stream Format: Generic ISO MPEG stream
    Stream Type: MPEG-2 Program Stream
    Width/Height: 720/480
    Frame Rate: 29.976 (NTSC)
    Interlacing: Lower/Bottom Field First
    Aspect Ratio: 4x3
    Quality/Speed: Highest Quality
    Bitrate Type: CBR
    Video Bitrate: 8000
    Audio Stream Type: MPEG Audio Layer-2
    Audio Bitrate: 384
    Sample Rate: 48kHz
    Channels: Stereo

    The important thing to note is that before you export out of Avid as a QTref you need to do a Video Mixdown of your sequence first. In your export settings make sure you're using DV non-Square (not 640x480 square)

    Then when you load it into ProCoder check to make sure the Aspect Ratio and Pixel Aspect Ratio are 4:3 and 8:9 respectively. If they are not 4:3/8:9, then post back and I can walk you through a solution.  One way to ensure that you will get 8:9 is to only Mixdown 8 mins at a time, if your segment is over 8 mins, Mixdown in two parts, export in two parts, then use the "Stitch" option in ProCoder to put them back together into one file. 

    The reason being that the Vid Mixdown creates new media, the media files are limited to 2GB file sizes... and 8 mins equals 2GB of DV25 footage.  When the VM is over 8 mins, for some reason it messes up the pixel aspect and causes longer encodes.  If you've got all the time in the world it's no big deal to sit and wait on it to convert, but I had one file take up to an hour to encode.  I split it, then stitched it and it took less than 15 mins. 

    There are a few differences between the PCE and full version, but if you're doing mpg conversion for DVD (which I assume you are) you won't see any difference at all.

    Let me know if you have any other questions comparing the two, I have them both. 





    Dell PWS360 P4 2.4GHz 1.5GB RAM 80GB system drive 500GB internal SATA2 media drive >1TB... [view my complete system specs]
    Kenton VanNatten (will edit for money)

  • Mon, Oct 24 2005 4:31 PM In reply to

    • rsandelius
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    Re: OT: Procoder Express Settings

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    doesn't the QT Ref do a mixdown for you? I mean, it prompts you to flatten and mixdown video and audio tracks (respectively). I'm not doubting your methodology, but I think that not doing a video/audio mixdown vs. doing one doesn't really make a difference, since it's just pointers. The only difference, as I understand it and could very possibly be wrong) is that there are many more pointers in a non-mixdown sequence. The company I work for does network-based QT refs for our Cleaner XL station to pull from our hard drives and we've never done a mixdown once.

    That being said, thanks alot for the settings. For some reason, a CBR of 8000 seems a little bit high to me, but if that's what it defaults to, then it must work (ie: if it works for you, then I'm going to trust it!)

    In the Avid export settings, you're saying that I want to use a non-square option? I've been checking the "4x3 Square" option. Is this distoring the image?

    Media Composer Adrenaline HD 2.7 HP xw8400 2gb RAM Nvidia Quadro FX1500 Avid Media Drives [view my complete system specs]
    Life is like a sequence... some parts you want to overwrite, you will always have to wait while life catches up, and people will step in and out, changing everything. My point? That huge pointer hovering over my head is really starting to freak me out!

  • Mon, Oct 24 2005 5:24 PM In reply to

    • xyedit
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    Re: OT: Procoder Express Settings

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     rsandelius wrote:
    doesn't the QT Ref do a mixdown for you? I mean, it prompts you to flatten and mixdown video and audio tracks (respectively). I'm not doubting your methodology, but I think that not doing a video/audio mixdown vs. doing one doesn't really make a difference, since it's just pointers.

    If you don't do a mixdown, then you have to fill your black spaces with a black.mov file (Filler exported as a standalone QT) otherwise, you may experience some sync issues with your QTref files.  The common practice is to either replace all "blank" sections with this QT filler OR do a VM. 

     

    The only difference, as I understand it and could very possibly be wrong) is that there are many more pointers in a non-mixdown sequence. The company I work for does network-based QT refs for our Cleaner XL station to pull from our hard drives and we've never done a mixdown once.

    Another reason why I like doing the mixdowns is it gives the ProCoder only one video file (or a few if the piece is over 8 mins) to concern itself with referencing rather than 100's or even 1000's, this in turn speeds up the encoding.

    That being said, thanks alot for the settings. For some reason, a CBR of 8000 seems a little bit high to me, but if that's what it defaults to, then it must work (ie: if it works for you, then I'm going to trust it!)

    That's not default...those are MY settings.  I have found that 8MB CBR looks fantastic...the sequences I am putting to DVD are short enough to allow the larger bit rate.  If I have a longer project, then obviously I need to drop the bit rate or change to VBR to fit it on the disc.

    In the Avid export settings, you're saying that I want to use a non-square option? I've been checking the "4x3 Square" option. Is this distoring the image?

    Just make sure you're not selecting 640x480...

    Dell PWS360 P4 2.4GHz 1.5GB RAM 80GB system drive 500GB internal SATA2 media drive >1TB... [view my complete system specs]
    Kenton VanNatten (will edit for money)

  • Tue, Oct 25 2005 3:48 PM In reply to

    • rsandelius
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    Re: OT: Procoder Express Settings

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    Cool. Appreciate the input. I tried those settings for creating both elementary streams and creating a VOB for directly burning to DVD, and came up with some interesting errors. They both exported just fine, but here are the issues....

    VOB Export. Creates the VIDEO_TS folder just fine, but when I bring it into Nero to burn the DVD in DVD Video mode, it asks for a .ifo or .vob file that doesn't exist (at least, it wasn't created by Procoder). It's like, all of the files generated were vts_01_01 or something to that extent (don't have it right here in front of me) and it's asking for vts_01_02. In addition, it's also telling me that it couldn't reallocate the files and that the files that I included were not "DVD compliant."

    m2v Export: Do the export. Import them into Adobe Encore 1.0. Play through the timeline, I get video, audio, etc, no problem. When I go to build a DVD folder, it'll prompt me, saying that I the sectors have headers on them, and whether or not I would like to proceed without them. I tried proceeding either way, and ended up with DVD's that would not even play, even with verification in Nero.

    Now, my thought on this was that since the program is 35 minutes, and the chapter creation interval was set to 15 minutes, that maybe something got fouled up there. So, before I left for work this morning, I started another render (with fresh QT Refs) to create the VOB folder WITHOUT any chapters, in hopes that might solve the problem. So, that's where I'm at right now. If anybody has any more ideas, please let me know! I would REALLY like to avoid dumping my DVD master out straight from the timeline... the hardware on the DVD-R recorder isn't that great....

    Media Composer Adrenaline HD 2.7 HP xw8400 2gb RAM Nvidia Quadro FX1500 Avid Media Drives [view my complete system specs]
    Life is like a sequence... some parts you want to overwrite, you will always have to wait while life catches up, and people will step in and out, changing everything. My point? That huge pointer hovering over my head is really starting to freak me out!

  • Tue, Oct 25 2005 4:01 PM In reply to

    • xyedit
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    Re: OT: Procoder Express Settings

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    What are the settings you're using in ProCoder Express?  The reason I ask is, I've never had an issue burning a DVD when using the settings I listed above, it creates an .m2p (I change the extension to .mpg) and bring it into DVDit!  Works great everytime. 



    Dell PWS360 P4 2.4GHz 1.5GB RAM 80GB system drive 500GB internal SATA2 media drive &amp