Thread: Newbie - Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 + Wedding Video editing

Hi all

I shot a 5 day wedding extravaganza in Manchester (my nephew). 5 days you ask? - yes... it was a traditional Indian wedding.

I shot using Canon XHA1 and have now got 7 hours of footage. I shot in the HD mode.

I have captured using HDV settings and this is an example of one file

Type: MPEG Movie
File Size: 53.7 MB
Image Size: 1440 x 1080
Pixel Depth: 32
Frame Rate: 25.00
Source Audio Format: 48000 Hz - compressed - Stereo
Project Audio Format: 48000 Hz - 32 bit floating point - Stereo
Total Duration: 00:00:15:21
Average Data Rate: 3.4 MB / second
Pixel Aspect Ratio: 1.3333

Now the fun begins. I bought a Lynda tutorial and have now started the editing. Great fun must say. Picking up a lot of things along the way like only using the dissolve transition and not going over board with them.

One thing I've not looked at yet is how to burn on a DVD and leaving the quality as is. I'm hoping to get the complete project down to 90 mins.

Any suggestions?

Also, any other advise for a newbie doing this for the first time?

Thanks for reading

At this point you will learn more from taking action than reading. Lucky for you, you have tons of footage to experiment with. Just make sure you are composing a narrative for the wedding and for organization split your sequences by day or segment.

As for the DVD, you will have to re-encode and author with DVD software such as Adobe Encore.

Originally Posted by CapVideo

At this point you will learn more from taking action than reading. Lucky for you, you have tons of footage to experiment with. Just make sure you are composing a narrative for the wedding and for organization split your sequences by day or segment.

As for the DVD, you will have to re-encode and author with DVD software such as Adobe Encore.

Thanks

Just completed the editing and the newly weds love it. Have actually just shown then the mpeg format

Now to use Encore and burn onto DVD

The mpeg files are 28GB in size and they want to retain the quality - which means 7 DVD's right?

It sounds like you have transcoded at a very high data rate, how long in time is your final edit?

The DVD format has a maximum data rate of 9.8Mbps for video or 10.08Mbps combined with audio. So even if you have a 1 minute long video it's not like the DVD format can fill the full disc capacity at the highest possible data rate.

Bit budgeting for DVD can be pretty complex but Encore does a really good job of automatically transcoding unless you have a 9hr long video, which would fit on a single layer DVD at VHS quality by the way, not so great.

If your final edit is an hour or an hour and a half you should be fine just putting it all on there with automatic transcode settings. If your up close to the 2 hour mark or over look at how much of the disc capacity has been taken up, if it's lower than full capacity you have the maximum possible, but if your right at the top end sticking it on a dual layer DVD might help you get that little bit extra quality out of it.

You'd also be a lot better rendering out your edit as DV, or another non Long GOP format, and letting Encore transcode from there. It will get a better quality than encoding from higher bitrate mpeg file to a lower bitrate mpeg.

David

Originally Posted by david walsh

It sounds like you have transcoded at a very high data rate, how long in time is your final edit?

The DVD format has a maximum data rate of 9.8Mbps for video or 10.08Mbps combined with audio. So even if you have a 1 minute long video it's not like the DVD format can fill the full disc capacity at the highest possible data rate.

Bit budgeting for DVD can be pretty complex but Encore does a really good job of automatically transcoding unless you have a 9hr long video, which would fit on a single layer DVD at VHS quality by the way, not so great.

If your final edit is an hour or an hour and a half you should be fine just putting it all on there with automatic transcode settings. If your up close to the 2 hour mark or over look at how much of the disc capacity has been taken up, if it's lower than full capacity you have the maximum possible, but if your right at the top end sticking it on a dual layer DVD might help you get that little bit extra quality out of it.

You'd also be a lot better rendering out your edit as DV, or another non Long GOP format, and letting Encore transcode from there. It will get a better quality than encoding from higher bitrate mpeg file to a lower bitrate mpeg.

David

Hi David

It was a 5 day event, the total of all 7 events is 3.5 Hours.

From your suggestion, i could put 2 of the major events on it's own DVD and the rest on the 3rd one.

You should be able to get the full 3.5 hours on one dual layer DVD at the highest possible supported quality no problem. That way you could have a single menu with the choice to play each of the 2 major events, any of the other sections or to play all from start to finish.

That'd how I'd do it, but if you want to use single layer DVD's it's worth knowing that the average DVD isn't transcoded at the highest possible quality. As a rough figure putting 135mins on a single layer DVD is normal and considered to be high quality DVD.

David.

I have exported from Premiere Pro CS5 to mpeg.

Should i import the mpeg into Encore or use the Dynamic link and import the sequences?

What's better (and easier?)

Thanks John

Whether you shot DV or HDV Encore will give you a better transcode using Dynamic Link than it will from your exported mpeg video.

Out of interest, I got curious and dug out an old reference book last night, the average bit rate used on DVD is between 3.5Mbps - 6Mbps.

David.