greetings. i have lots of material captured with Studio 8 (MPEG1) and now want to use Premiere for editing. I have read it is not a good practice to import MPEG's directly..So what is actually suggested as a good practice? Perhaps re-encode using VirtualDub and an MJPEG Codec (PicVideo, Morgan) and then import in Premiere...!? Any opinions will help!
There is Nothing wrong with importing mpeg files into Premier...The problem is that mpeg files are Not meant to be edited as you will allways Loose Quality when useing a Editor like Premier to edit Mpeg Files..If you want to Keep the files in mpeg Format and Not loose any quality then you should be useing a Proper Mpeg editor Like "Mpeg2VCR" which is a Frame Accurate Mpeg editor that edits Mpeg files Losslessly which Premier can not do as you allways have to render your Projects in Premier which entails re-encodeing the files to create the edited File which will allways Cause you to loose quality .... If you want to use Premier to edit your Captured Files and Not Loose a Lot of Quality then you should be Captureing to a Full resolution Low compression AVI format Like the HuffYUV Codec or even PicVideo Mjpeg and then edit those files in Premier but Captureing to such a Lossy Format Like Mpeg1 will allways Produce sub-standard Results....Cheers
you're the greatest.. thanx! one more question: how are the 2 (PicMJPEG and HuffYUV) compared in terms of file size??
Well The HuffYUV Codec is a Lossless Codec so It Produces Very good Quality captures but at full resolution and Frame rate it can take up to 500mb per minute of Video..The PicVideo Mjpeg codec on the Highest Quality setting Produces very good Quality also and uses Very little CPU to use and the File size is about Half of what the HuffYUV codec uses but the Quality isn"t quite as High as files captured useing the HuffYUV Codec does...The HuffYUV Codec is good because you can edit and export to the HuffYUV Format and not loose any Quality because it is a Lossless codec but you need a Lot Of Disk Space to use it if you Plan on storeing a Lot of Video in this Format on your PC...I have about 250gb of extra Space for Video files on My PC, I have never used it all up but I would if I were to store say 8 hours of Video in this format on my PC, and Because it uses up so much disk space it is good to Capture to a seperate Fast drive because the Drive that your OS and Programs are installed on usually can not handle the Sustained transfer rate that is Needed to capture HuffYUV Files...Good Luck
minion> the thing is that using Pinnacle's MovieBox USB i can capture (to MPEG1) only using Studio, since no other program i have used (i.e. VirtualDub) cooperates with Moviebox. I have read that Pinnacle has developed it's own driver and no VFW/WDM exists for Moviebox. So, i am actually forced to use Studio and actually edit MPEG's in Premiere. I guess that due to restricted I Frames editing MPEGs will be a nightmare, so wouldn't it be better (or dumb, anyway) to re-encode MPEG to PicVideo / HuffYUV..?? Thanx for your advice on the subject!
If you Just want to do Cut and Paste editing then you can do it Losslessly if you use a proper Mpeg editor, If you use a Program Like "Mpeg2VCR" then you can do Frame accurate Lossless editing and even add some Transitions and Titles and Not loose any Quality...But if you do not want to do this then Just Load the Files Directly into Premier and edit them because converting them to AVI first will just degrade the Quality and Premier can edit Mpeg files the same way it edits any other Format accept DV AVI files which it can edit Losslessly.... You would have been Better off getting a $15 TV Card for your Captureing because at least with them you can Capture Full resolution Files in any format you have Codecs For and useing any Capture Software you wish and still produce Better Quality than any Mpeg1 Capture device can.... Pinnacle has a Very Bad Reputation with it"s Entry level Capture devices and only has Good Capture devices in the $800-$4000 Range... I just looked on the Net and Found out that you can Capture directly to Mpeg2 also and at DVD Resolutions but only if you have USB 2.0... You should maybe think about getting a Simple PCI TV Card and see if you can get Better results , I have seen a Basic TV Card on E-Bay for under $20 that would work with Pretty Any capture Software you have ,Even Premier 6 or 6.5 can capture from these Cards....Cheers
