Encore CS6 produces Pixelated and Grainy DVDs...????

[KateMorgan]

I edited my video clips in Premiere Pro CS6 (as I usually do), then sent it to CS6 Encore.  The video looks grainy and pixelated on the monitor window in Encore and records it this way as well.

The image in PPro's monitor is crisp and in great focus.  I shoot in HD.  I've never experienced this before.  Is this a bug???

Help.

Kate

[KateMorgan]

I will go there. Its possible there is a specific way to set up my hardware to run CS6.  I never had any issues in CS5.5.  PPro and Encore worked beautifully and fast.  CS6 must be a lot harder on the hardware.. ;-).  CS6 has tons of great qualities so I hopefully, in time, will be able to fix this issue. I appreciate your patience and tiem Stan.  I will be back to let you know how it goes. 🙂

[Keith_Clark]

is the text a title? or is that like a PSD file? have you tried dropping the HD footage into a 720x480 timeline, resizing it to 720x480, and adding the text in a native 720x480 timeline? its worth a try at least to see if the text is getting messed up by all the resizing. may not work though.

[KateMorgan]

That is an interesting idea but its not the text alone, its the entire video.  The titles are done in PPro as titles.  I've never had problems in this nature before.

[KateMorgan]

I managed to make the DVD before the computer crashed, and I will be purchasing a third hardrive.  I thought 12gig was enough but they recommend 16 or more...so I will do that as well. It makes sense.  But... my original reason for this thread was to find out why the project looked great in PPro and pixelated in Encore and the resulting DVDs.  My settings are okay,  tried different combos, nothing worked.  They aren't grainy, just pixelated around the edges of the people.  Very odd.  I am moving onto another project so if it turns out looking great then I can say my last project was just jinxed somehow.  Cheers

[KateMorgan]

I've done a 10 minute video/DVD and with more research....using Video2Brain lessons...many are free..... I realized that no matter what, DVD will look aweful unless one goes to Blueray.  I wish I new how the big movie makers can make such gorgeous DVD's unless they are still using film.  As I have learned, my full HD AVCHD video is compressed to the standard DVD size...then its stretched to fit a full HD TV...  I guess its like takeing a 300dpi full res Tif image, downsizing to a 72dpi jpeg and then stretching it to fit 1920 x 1080pixels... 😉

[Alan_Craven]

Standard Definition, is inevitabley less "sharp" than high definition video, and downscaling is not achieved without loss of quality, so you have to bear this in mind when viewing your results.  The best methos that I have found is this:

Export your HD timeline to a 1920x1080 *.avi. using the Lagarith codec (a free download).  Use Virtualdub (another free download) to downscale to standard definition NTSC, again using the Lagarith codec.  Look at Anton's video website for the method to do this.  The first of these files will be huge, but the lagarith codec is vbisually lossless.

Import your new NTSC file into Premiere in an appropriate sequence, check the sharpness, it may seem OK, if not add a touch of sharpness effect - say 5-10% - then export a DVD legal *.m2v file.

That will give you as good a conversion quality as you can get short of using very complex methods, or very expensive hardware.

Commercial downscaling is carried out using dedicated hardware - some years ago, a retired Chief Technical Engineer of the BBC once described their hardware as about the size of a 3-bedroomed semi in Bolton, and costing rather more than that!  Being in NTSC land 3-bedroomed semis may not be familiar, but you get the idea!

[KateMorgan]

Thank you Alan, Sorry for not responding sooner..... work and life got in the way.  It worked! 🙂

[Johnson_MG]

Kate I'm running into the same issue. Are you saying that the detail instructions Alan gave you fixed the issue ?

[Filmbaker]

Just a quick comment to all this discussion: DVD is not HD, so you should not expect the same quality after exporting HD footage to MPEG2-DVD. It is always like a downgrade.

[Claude_King]

Filmbaker, I think you missed the point. It is pretty obvious that 720 X 480 will not equall 1920 x 1080. At the same time, I must say my DVD projects come out looking better than I ever would've expected. Kate's prob is what brought me to this forum, because for the first time ever, I've picked up a similar problem I also shoot in AVCHD 25 & 50p, used Dyn Link to send to Encore. Besides being some of the worst archaic software design there is out there, cumbersome & unfriendly, Encore did the same thing to my latest project (just in clips which have very fast movement). When I did the same DVD in Nero 12, although a smaller pic on my flatscreen, it did not present those edge artifacts, and other than a smaller pic, looks just as good.

This brings me to another dilemma: I was so perturbed by this incident, that I thought upgrading from my CS 5.5 to 6 may sort the problem out - now I have serious doubts as to whether I should actually spend the money.

To Kate: sorry about the 17-hr transcode: it sounds outrageous. My latest project is a 32-minute program, shot in HD, authored to DVD. Once I hit "Build" for the very first time, it was all done exactly one hr later. If you pull out the file to re-author using a different encoding setting, once you've dialled in the setting then hit "Build", it takes only minutes for the new DVD to be done (I also have a Dell i7)

Logic says our problem can only be one of two things: a wrong encode setting, or Encore has a bug.

PS: I tried various encoding settings, no luck so far - of course, I will keep on experimenting.

[carport888 · Accepted solution]

I know exactly what you're talking about regarding the pixelated-looking edges...this is something that has also caused me some frustration, but I now have a solution.

What I think is happening is Encore is taking the footage and transcoding it to the default settings, which is interlaced...unfortunately, there looks to be no way to change this initial setting.  What you get from this is Encore doubling up every other line of resolution, so instead of 480 horizontal lines, you get 240 lines, doubled up.

Here is how to fix this:

In your Encore project panel, right-click on your Permiere Pro Sequence and choose "Transcode Settings...".

Now click on "Edit Quality Presets...".

From here, you should see far more settings that can be changed.

Make sure "MPEG2-DVD" is selected for the "Format".

Then, scroll down to "Field Order" and choose "None (Progressive)".

From here, you can also change various quality settings.  Once you've decided on the quality, click "OK".

This will bring up a dialog box to name your new preset.

Once you confirm its new name, make sure it is selected for "Quality Preset" and click "OK".  Now, your sequence should list this preset in the "DVD transcode Settings" column.

Now you should be able to build as before, but without the interlacing artifacts.

Let us know if/how this works for you.

[mayk_]

wonder if the last post has solved the problem or is the lagarith method solved it.

i have a similar issue and has been pulling my hair out.

[PMK3]

mayk` wrote:

wonder if the last post has solved the problem or is the lagarith method solved it.

It was the last post that solved it.

[mayk_]

thank you.

[cgipperich]

I'm having this same problem, only my "Transcode Settings" option is grayed out. So I don't know where to turn. I exported my footage 1080p and it seems that Encore is automatically converting it to Interlace without asking me beforehand.

A still directly from my export that shows the crisp image:

A still from the DVD I burned showing the evident interlace issue:

A still of my transcode settings grayed out:

However, something I just noticed, when I right click the actual video file the transcode settings are available, but the instructions say to select the timeline which I have pictured above.

I'm wondering what I should do.

[cgipperich]

Update: I edited the Transcode Settings on the video file per the instructions listed as the answer in this thread. Exporting the ISO now, will reply with results.

[Stan Jones]

What is your source footage and your PR sequence settings and Encore project settings. What you are seeing is before or after you transcode?

[Jon Geddes]

You can also encode directly from Premiere, and if you have the supported hardware, it will use your graphics card to downscale the HD to SD, producing the best results. If you export an HD master from Premiere, then use Encore or the Adobe Media Encoder by itself to downscale (not using a dynamic linked sequence from Premiere), it does not use the graphics card to downscale, producing lower quality results.

[mayk_]

apologies, i'm new to premiere and encore. what do you mean by "encode directly from Premiere"? i'm very interested on your reply but can you please make it a bit more simple so a newbie like me can understand it a bit more? thanks for your help.

[cgipperich]

Well it seems to have worked! Sorry for the bother, but I hope my posts may help someone else in the future!

[thxapproved]

I know this is old now, but also note, encoding to MPEG2 (for DVD's) using the CPU (through Media Encoder) produces much better results than does the MPEG2 codec the uses the GPU.  Just finished a documentary and was preparing it for DVD.  During fades to black, I would get grey macroblock errors on the first full-black frame.  Also the encode quality was very poor.  Rather than exporting directly from the timeline, I decided to queue to Media Encoder (which on CS6, only uses the CPU).  While this increased the render time from 20 minutes up to 55 minutes (for a 57-minute show), the resultant file was of much higher quality (less mosquito noise, no macroblock errors, less pixelation).  Both of these encodes had the exact same parameters.  Exact.  I really wish they would re-write the codecs that use the GPU.  When I switched from CS5 to CS6, I noticed H.264 GPU encodes (with identical settings) did not look as good in CS6.  Coding is a lot of work, but I would think things would get better in later revision, not worse.

[devonc36895410]

I am having the same problems with burning a dvd using Encore. All my clips are shot in HD and look good in premier pro and also once I export the video. But as soon as I take it to Encore the quality goes down and after I burned a DVD the video is still very pixelated. Is there any chance someone has found a solution to this problem?

[Ann Bens]

If you want to keep your hd image quality make bd disks and not dvd disk.

DVD is Standard Definition, no way to change that.

[devonc36895410]

Well unfortunately not that many people own blue ray dvd players

[Ann Bens]

If you need DVD then you are stuck with a low quality image.