MPEG 2 Encoding on Adobe Premiere (1 Viewer)

[Andrew-V]

I'm having some difficulties here and would greatly appreciate help from anyone who knows anything about the MPEG 2 format and/or Adobe Premiere Pro.

Here's my situation:
I have downloaded some MPEG 2 files that I intend on editing together using Adobe Premiere Pro and ultimately hope to export onto DVD for player viewing. When I view the individual files in certain software programs they appear to look normal, despite being encoded at 352x480. Once I edit the filea in Adobe Premiere Pro, export the final to DVD, and play it back in a program such as Power DVD, the image clearly appears to be vertically stretched.

I realize this method of encoding is common, but shouldn't Power DVD should have compensated for this? Is there any setting in Premiere that can alter this ratio when exporting to DVD so it will not be vertically stretched in any software?

Thanks in advance.

 

[sarah99]

Click on the movie in the output window, and drag the handles until it is filling the window.
Then fle/export to DVD.

Then click on the "settings" in the export window to see if it looks OK on the preview.

 

[Andrew-V]

What do you mean by "output" and "export" windows?

 

[sarah99]

Output window..... window on top right of screen

Export window ....... Select File/Export, export window pops up.

 

[Andrew-V]

Is the output window the same as the monitor? When I fit the video sequence to the "monitor" I get the black vertical bars to the right and the left of the image. If I click the video image I don't see any way to drag the sides with handles to fill the window.

I think I am in the right direction though, I'm probably just making some stupid minor mistake. I appreciate your help so far.

 

[sarah99]

If you have small vertical bars either side of the output window
my guess is you need to compensate for your source pixel shape.

Click on the file you want to alter in the list top left,
then file/interpret footage/conform to PAL 1.067 (or whatever), then OK

PS I'm talking about Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0

 

[Andrew-V]

Here's a picture of what I am talking about. I tried conforming the pixels but that did not appear to solve it.

http://img212.imageshack.us/img212/6...emiere1vm3.jpg

 

[Ken Chan]

Looking at the image you posted, it clearly has the black bars on the side, so that's what you get. Those black bars are encoded into the MPEG. Probably the simplest thing would be to set the project settings to 4:3 352x480. Then when you put the imported MPEGs on the timeline, it will be correct. If the project settings are 720x480, you will want to stretch each imported clip to 704x480 -- exactly double the width. You will end up with tiny bars on the side, but that would be correct. I forget exactly how to do that in Premiere Pro. Maybe click on the clip, and there's a Resize on the Transform palette?

 

[Andrew-V]

I'm aware that the MPEG is encoded "legally" and that an actual DVD player is supposed to compensate and display it at the correct aspect ratio. Windows Media Player Classic does play the file at a correct aspect ratio. The properties indicate this:

Video: MPEG2 Video 368x480 (4:3) 29.97fps

It seems that certain software does the necessary correction but Premiere Pro is not.

I was going to try the DVD in an actual player to see if it was corrected, but I am running into yet another problem as both players I've tried it in have failed to read the disc.

If someone could kindly help me solve this disc reading failure I'm hoping that this compression problem will be solved simply by the DVD player.

Here's the process I've been doing to encode my edited video sequence on a DVD+R with the intent on having it play on an actual DVD player.

File/Export/Export to DVD/

Then for the encoding preset I have been using NTSC DV High Quality 4 Mb VBR 2 Pass

Here's the record summary:

General
Disc Name: 20061109_214612
Timeline Markers: No
Loop Playback: No

Preset
NTSC DV High quality 4Mb VBR 2 Pass
Comment: High quality, low bandwidth VBR transcoding of DV content (max bit rate = 7)

Video
Codec: MainConcept MPEG Video
Quality: 5.00(high quality)
TV Standard: NTSC
Aspect Ratio: 4:3
Frame Rate: 29.97 fps drop frame
Program Sequence: Interlaced
Field Order: Lower
Bitrate Encoding: VBR
Encoding Passes: Two
Target Bitrate (Mbps): 4.0000(low quality)
Maximum Bitrate (Mbps): 7.0000(high quality)
Minimum Bitrate (Mbps): 1.5000(low quality)
M Frames: 3
N Frames: 15

Audio
Codec: PCM Audio
Sample Rate: 48 kHz

Encoding
Export Range: Entire Sequence
Fields: Lower
Maximize Bitrate: No
Force Variable Bitrate: No

DVD Burner
Burner: D:SONY DVD+-RW DW-D56A
Speed: Auto
Burner Status: Ready
Number of Copies: 1
Record Options: Record


Now, I don't know if I am just using an old player or what, but I haven't been having luck with the disc being read by anything. Hopefully if I can get the disc to be read the player will display it at 4:3 and the problem will be solved.


Again, your help is greatly appreciated.