slowly going crazy

[Yeti22]

OK, I have editted a movie in Adobe Premiere CS3 and I am trying to export using the H.264 codec. I have tried 3 times with various different settings, yet whenever I play back the finished video in quicktime, the image is jumpy and has kind of a lagging or ghosting look to it. I can't seem to get this right. All i want is it to look good and play smooth because its final destination is vimeo. I have followed their compression settings perfectly but everytime i get the same thing. I'm pretty sure its not my computer because in Adobe premiere it plays fine, and the raw footage (.m2t) plays fine, and all HD videos on Vimeo plays fine. Could somebody pleeeease help.

Settings for export
Codec: H.264
Audio: ACC
Frame rate: 29.97
1280 x 720
Bitrate: 5.2 Mbps

Is it better to export to MPEG 2 first then conver to MPEG4 afterwards?

[Yeti22]

P.s. I also followed Eugenia's suggestions but still same result

http://eugenia.gnomefiles.org/images/pcs3-h264.jpg

[Eugenia Loli-Queru]

If the final doesn't look as it looks for the rest of us, then it means that your importing of the footage was wrong. Maybe you haven't set Premiere to edit in HDV format and the right timeline preset? Maybe you used a plugin that creates the ghosting?

[Yeti22]

I have the project in Premiere set up for editing in HDV, so that shouldn't be a problem. Also I did not use any effects on the footage to make it ghosting. But it plays fine in Adobe premiere during the editting process, its only once i export then the final product, seems to be missing frames and ghosty. I'll check my settings again and do some trial experiments.

[Yeti22]

what should my editting mode be for my project. I have been using HDV
1080i with a time base of 29.97 fps.

[Eugenia Loli-Queru]

The HDV 1080/60i preset. Export a 5 second sample that shows the problem using my tutorial. BTW, make sure you haven't recorded in PF24.

[Yeti22]

thanks, thats what im trying to do right now, set up a project with 24 fps and exporting it as 24 fps. I'll let you know the result. Time to just experiment with very short clips until i get it right

[Yeti22]

all the settings i try with the H.264 codec are not working for me. Is it possible to export it as MPEG 2 and upload that file to vimeo?

[Eugenia Loli-Queru]

>set up a project with 24 fps and exporting it as 24 fps.

So you are saying that you recorded at PF24??? If yes, THAT'S why you are getting ghosting. Because you didn't remove pulldown before hand: http://eugenia.gnomefiles.org/2007/0...-24p-pulldown/

You first need to remove pulldown, and then you have to download 24p timeline preset I think for CS3. If that's the case, no need to export for me, I have seen the ghosting a lot of times.

And h.264 does work on CS3.

[Yeti22]

I definitely did not remove pulldown, I did not know that I had too. So I'll go through your tutorial and hopefully, i will finally get the product i want.

[DaFireMedic]

I've found that when exporting from Premiere for Vimeo, .wmv seems to produce a better quality file than .h264 does. Export variable bitrate, 2 passes.


I like Premiere, and you should be able to get a decent export in .h264, but one of its weaknesses is its .h264 encoder.

[Yeti22]

The footage I am using was not filmed in 24P so do i still have to do the pulldown?

[tcindie]

I agree, the h264 encoder included with Adobe is poor when compared with other choices. When I've needed h264 in the past I've found the best way is to render out the edit in whatever codec you are using that won't visually degrade the quality much, bring it into Quicktime Pro (It's only $30, you really SHOULD buy it if you don't have it) and do the conversion there..

Exporting to a quicktime format from adobe directly doesn't produce nearly the same quality as a result.

[tcindie]

The footage I am using was not filmed in 24P so do i still have to do the pulldown?

If it wasn't shot in 24p, then you shouldn't be working in a 24p timeline.

you want a regular HDV/60i timeline if you shot standard 60i footage.

For what it's worth though, it is possible that it's your computer.. it takes more processor power to decode the h264 stream than an mpeg2 stream, and there is always the potential that you have some jacked up codecs somewhere too..

[Eugenia Loli-Queru]

>>>>BTW, make sure you haven't recorded in PF24.
>>>How do I set up a project with 24 fps and exporting it as 24 fps.
>>So you are saying that you recorded at PF24???
>The footage I am using was not filmed in 24P so do i still have to do the pulldown?

Ah. Please be clear.

No, if you didn't record in PF24, but you recorded in plain 60i auto, then you don't need to remove pulldown.

And in this case, you need to export that sample we talked about so we see the problem.

[Rumpelgeist]

The footage I am using was not filmed in 24P so do i still have to do the pulldown?

I suggest reading about 24p, 60i, interlaced/progressive/pulldown stuff. Most likely you deinteraced into 30p using "blend" method, the suckiest one if you ask me. This is why you have ghosting.

[Yeti22]

sorry about being so unclear, these were just all thought processes and experiments i tried with different project settings and such. The raw footage was shot in standard 60i and edited with a regular HDV/60i timeline. But the H.264 codec is still giving me trouble. I will export a small clip to show you. Thanks for all the help guys, right now im thinking that exporting as MPEG2 then doing the conversion in Quicktime Pro there.

[tcindie]

You probably want your final h264 render to be deinterlaced too.

[Yeti22]

OK i gave up on Adobe's H.264 codec and exported my little project as MPEG 2 and the quality is perfect, large file size, but excellent quality. Now quick question for TC indie if I get Quicktime pro will I be able to open this MPEG 2 file in Quicktime pro and convert it using the H.264 codec. Will this file then be Vimeo ready?
Thanks

[Eugenia Loli-Queru]

No.

First, Quicktime Pro doesn't read mpeg2 without the purchase of a special codec addon.

Secondly, even if you buy the codec, the newer than 5 months Quicktime versions have a bug and it does NOT de-interlace properly. You click the "De-interlace" checkbox, and it still comes out as interlaced. And Vimeo doesn't de-interlace either, so your video would be full of lines.

Plus, exporting to mpeg2 and then to h.264 is from a lossy codec to lossy codec.

So unless you export in a lossless codec that Quicktime can read, in progressive format, don't try it. If you do manage to do that, then export like this: http://eugenia.gnomefiles.org/2007/1...ktime-in-720p/

[DaFireMedic]

So unless you export in a lossless codec that Quicktime can read, in progressive format, don't try it. If you do manage to do that, then export like this: http://eugenia.gnomefiles.org/2007/1...ktime-in-720p/

Exactly, and Quicktime Pro does not recognize Lagarith, etc. It can only convert files that are Quicktime compatible. You would want to use an Apple lossless codec such as Animation or just export as an uncompressed .avi from Premiere. But if you do that, you will find the quality to be quite good.

[Merric Reese]

Would it be safe to assume you could frame serve from Premiere to Quicktime Pro and then perform the compression.

I currently frame serve from Premiere (using Debug frameserver http://www.debugmode.com/frameserver/) to Mainconcept Reference and encode in h264 (or any other codec available). I find that I get better results using the external encoder rather than the internal mainconcept h264 built into Premiere (even though they are suppose to be the same) - I'm not quite sure why yet.

I use CoreAVC as my h264 decoder and get excellent results. If there is a better H264 encoder that can provide better results then I would really be interested in finding out.