Premiere -> VirtualDub -> XviD?

[Jaester]

I *need* to edit my DV video on Adobe Premiere. What is the best sequence to have the least loss of quality in the process of acquiring from camera, editing, and encoding to Xvid?

I currently acquire to DV format and edit on that. Then I export as DV format (avi) and load it on VirtualDub. Apply filters and encode there?

Is this good? Any possible improvements?

[communist]

You're current process is pretty much *lossless*. The only thing is that you're filtering in VirtualDub - it converts DV's YV12 colorspace into RGB32, applies the filter and sends it to the encoder which in this case is XviD which converts this back to YV12.
You can do the filtering in AviSynth (http://avisynth.org/) where most (internal and external) filters work within YV12 colorspace. Though the scripting part is not everyone's strength - there are endless possibilities and high quality plugins available for it.

[Jaester]

Alright, I'm ready to try out avisynth but I'm stuck. How do I enconde to xvid on avisynth?

All online references I find tell me to frameserve from avisynth to virtualdub but that will defeat the purpose of using it in the first place.

[communist]

When you load your AviSynth script in VirtualDub and set it to Fast repack (instead of Full Processing) it will pass on the color space (information) directly from the source (decoder) to the encoder - ie no conversion to RGB32 etc. will take place.

[absinthe]

When you load your AviSynth script in VirtualDub and set it to Fast repack (instead of Full Processing) it will pass on the color space (information) directly from the source (decoder) to the encoder - ie no conversion to RGB32 etc. will take place.I would do this exactly. In fact, since you've supposedly done all your editing in Premiere, I don't see why you'd need much in the way of filtering at all. I export DV from Premiere, reference that DV in what is usually a 1-line or 2-line AviSynth script, and encode it to XviD through VirtualDub, selecting "fast recompress."

Come to think of it, you could likely skip the AviSynth scripting altogether and just open the exported DV in VirtualDub.

-abs

[Jaester]

Currently, I do deinterlacing, cropping and resizing (for aspect ration correction) in virtualdud. As far as I know Premiere wouldn't be a good option for that. Or am I wrong?

Can you guys give me a sample script for deinterlacing and resizing/croping a DV in avisynth?

[absinthe]

Currently, I do deinterlacing, cropping and resizing (for aspect ration correction) in virtualdud. As far as I know Premiere wouldn't be a good option for that. Or am I wrong?

Can you guys give me a sample script for deinterlacing and resizing/croping a DV in avisynth?First off, if by "DV" you mean DV shot with a DV camera, I think I would leave it interlaced unless I just absolutely had to change it.

Of course, if you're going to resize it, then you are going to have to deinterlace. There's so many different ways to do this. Here's a very simple and straightforward one:

AVISource("nameofyourfile.avi")
FieldDeinterlace()
Lanczosresize(640,480) #or whatever size you want

You might replace FieldDeinterlace() with TomsMoComp(0,5,0), which is a good deinterlacing filter. There are many other ways. But the three little lines above would get the job done. Just be sure to deinterlace before resizing.

-abs

edit: Oh and BTW, whenever I try to feed Premiere output to VirtualDub via AviSynth for XviD encoding, my XviD video comes out upside-down. I think this is due to some colorspace issue that I don't really understand, but if it happens to you you can simply add the line "FlipVertical()" at the end of your script. That'll fix 'er. -abs

[Jaester]

Hey thanks, I'll try that script with TomsMoComp(0,5,0). I deinterlace to XviD encode (it seems like we both are going through the same process).

Let me ask you some other questions:

1 - Do you export a DV file from premiere and then go avisynth->virtualdub->xvid?

2 - It seems that if I compress 1hr of my DV cam ouput into a 700MB XviD I get much worse results than a 1hr of DVD movie into a 700MB XviD file. Any reason why would that be? Suggestions?

[absinthe]

1 - Do you export a DV file from premiere and then go avisynth->virtualdub->xvid?Yes. In Premiere, I do Export > Movie, which exports uncompressed DV. I then jot my little script and open that up in VirtualDub.

2 - It seems that if I compress 1hr of my DV cam ouput into a 700MB XviD I get much worse results than a 1hr of DVD movie into a 700MB XviD file. Any reason why would that be? Suggestions?Well, I don't think DV footage is probably of the same quality as a high-bitrate MPEG ripped from a DVD. Also, the necessary deinterlacing of DV (blending fields together) is also going to result in a lesser quality output. From DVD, you should be able to encode progressive frames, which will look quite good even if you resize them.

Just my thoughts.

-abs

edit: Oh, and BTW, if you can skip resizing, XviD can encode as interlaced, though I don't have any real experience with that.