Best way to convert DV files for Premiere Pro?

[rogerinlondon]

What are you using to bring in old DV-files to Premiere Pro now that they are no longer supported?

I was thinking of a (higher quality settings) conversion in Handbrake, but the output will be MP4, which has  compression and I understand that PP does not work great with large and many MP4-files as sources? Would convert to MOV be better and what would the best way to do that be? Thanks.

[Brandon Loshe]

Generally yeah, you have the right idea. If you're going to convert files, something like QuickTime ProRes or a higher quality codec would be best, especially if you're doing addional editing to the footage.

[rogerinlondon]

Thanks. Yes, it is original footage that will be edited.

Any views on how to get it done with QuickTine ProRes? Compressor is still reading DV-files? Wondershare Uniconverter? My son uses a copy of FCP, so maybe open the DV-files there and export with QuickTime ProRes? There are a lot of files to convert though....

Really inconvenient that Media Encoder an not read DV-files anymore. 

[Brandon Loshe]

Yeah, agreed. I think the logic was such a small percentage of users use that anymore that it didn't make sense to support any longer. And since you're on Mac, I assume that the older versions (early 2018 and older) are not compatible with your operating system any longer, either - if you even have those older versions installed (I believe they are unavailable to download now).

But yeah, any software that reads the DV footage and converts it (preferrably to ProRes) will be your winner.

[rogerinlondon]

You are right. I followed Ann's suggestion below and Shutter Encoder is really excellent. I did not find any other free app that converts DV to ProRes, (not sure why it did not show up in my searches before).

It also does not blast my fans up to max immediately as Handbrake do, so I am all set to go now!

[Ann Bens · Accepted solution]

At present, I am editing old 4:3 dv footage.

Converted it all to prores 422 HQ and made it PAR 1.0 ( you need to do the math for height and width).

Editing is like a breeze. Then exporting to 720p to put on Bluray.

Guessing this is mac. Might work with: Shutter Encoder encoding|converting video FREE PC|Mac 

[rogerinlondon]

Thanks, it looks good and I will definitely check that out (and yes, I should have mentioned that I am on a Mac.....).