Shift only clears the plug-in cache.  To reset all of your preferences, use the technique shown here: Adobe - Blog: Having weird behavior with an Adobe video product? Consider tossing your preferences away -Jeff ... View more

That method is affectionately known as "trashing your preferences". -Jeff ... View more

I tried to take your advice and put the disclaimer at the top of the AC3 tutorial, but alas, there is no edit button for it anymore. Done. ... View more

Terrachild, First, nice tutorial.  Thanks for making it available. I'd like to jump in the middle here and say that you and Jim make some valid points, but you are each working from a different perspective. You said: Now if you need the Dolby TM on your product, I'm sure paying for the Surcode encoder is the right way to go.  However, 99 percent of the users of Premiere probably don't fall into that category. I think you significantly underestimate the percentage of Premiere Pro users that deliver content to paying clients.  Those folks need to know the potential hazards to their business from using freeware AC3 encoders. you are going to be tracked down by the Overlords.  I don't mean to scare you, but hey, the law is the law! Even more important than this concern, however, is the concern for ethical business practices.  Using a Dolby logo on your deliverables without paying for licensed encoder is wrong.  Not to mention very misleading to your clients.  However, you also said: for commercial purposes, this free method is not recomended.  However, for non-commercial, private use, there is nothing wrong, or unethical about creating AC3 files for free Using free and open-source tools, I whole-heartedly agree!  Please consider making the above statement a disclaimer at the beginning of your tutorial. More perspective.  Neil and Jim are businessmen who make their living by providing their clients with quality products.  When a client sees the Dolby Digital logo on a delivered DVD, that client must be able to rest assured that the audio has been mastered and encoded to Dolby's stringent quality standards.  (The analogous video situation would be THX-certified DVD or BD discs).  I'm sure Neil and Jim wanted to make it clear that commercial entities can't afford to put their reputations at risk, or their livelihood, by using something other than fully-licensed versions of Dolby encoders. I'm a big believer in open-source software, licensed under the GNU.  One just has to be careful how they are used in commercial endeavors.  For personal use, there aren't any such concerns, IMO. -Jeff ... View more

Firstly it's not an accidental double post. I posted in two threads in order to reach a "wider audience", as both threads are related to the post. Don't do that.  It's not allowed for a number of reasons. -Jeff ... View more

Do you have Quicktime installed? -Jeff ... View more

When did this start happening?  It's important for you to pin it down. Think back.  At that same time, what changed on your system?  Is that when you updated your video drivers, for example?  How about updating any software (Quicktime, iTunes, other video or image applications, codecs, anything)? Did you change your export settings, your source media, or add/change any plug-ins that you're using? Windows Updates (automatic or manual)? Did you install any new software? And so on - any changes at all. -Jeff ... View more

I downloaded a nvoglnt.dll file, and replaced the one I had in Windows\system32." That sounds to me like you simply replaced one file out of all the files that make up the driver.  Did you do something other than that? -Jeff ... View more

ericdugard wrote: I downloaded a nvoglnt.dll file, and replaced the one I had in Windows\system32."   I tried the same, my error message pointed to ImageRenderer.dll which seems to be a file used by Photoshop.. Dont know why Photoshop is linked to this (maybe because the still pictures I have were trimmed down and turned into japegs in Photoshop??). Don't just replace one file; update your entire graphics driver. PhotoshopServer is a process that runs with Pr all the time.  So ImageRenderer.dll could be part of that. -Jeff ... View more

Eric, Please don't cross-post.  I deleted your other post, and am adding my answer to this thread. -Jeff ... View more

Curt, I've been working with both - interlaced and progressive - and you are correct. Pr does a lot better with progressive. I expect folks will be shooting in 1080p24/30 and 720p24/60 anyway (720p30 seems pretty useless). To get good results from high-motion subjects, you either need 1080i60 or 720p60. For almost everything else, I'm leaning toward 1080p24. Plus, 1080p24 plays back in its native frame rate on my BD player/HDTV setup. -Jeff ... View more

You can spend your time rendering in Premiere using MRQ, or you can spend your time putting together a free, fast, high-quality solution.  You decide. -Jeff ... View more

Promter wrote: So basically, leaving the Premiere timeline as HD (without nesting to an SD timeline) (and mine happens to be 720p/24fps)  and sending that to AME using MRQ, 2 pass VBR gave me the same results as the one where I nested my HD timeline into an SD timeline first, scaled it, and then sent it to AME. I guess that would make sence since in "nesting" there is actually no conversion happening there. The scaling is more a visual edit. The recompression happens in AME from the original HD anyway, right? I would like to add that ever since I went from my mac with FCP, which on that program I used to export directly to COMPRESSOR and by selecting the preset for standard DVD, I never had any complaints. The quality was always great. Actually, there is additional processing when the nested sequence is rendered or exported.  This is indicated by the increased render times and visually noticeable quality difference in some footage. Given your tests, and mine, I'd say that exporting the HD sequence to directly to the AME and selecting an MPEG2 DVD preset (and Maximum Render Quality, of course) will produce the best (or almost the best) results out of CS4.  That's the same workflow you're describing on the Mac.  Please let us know how the AME output compares with the Compressor output. -Jeff ... View more

Promter wrote: The one where I exported my HD finished timeline directly to AME selecting MPEG2-DVD and letting the AME do the conversion to SD and I also burned the one where I created and SD timeline, nested my HD sequence, scaled it properly and exported to AME just like Jeff said. It appears that they both came out the same. I really didn't see a difference from one to the other. I did notice a little noise in both of them. I don't remember seeing that noise when the edit was finished in Premiere. I've just finished some extensive new tests on converting HD to SD using Dan's hd2sd script and Pr CS4.1 with different kinds of footage, and I've reached some new conclusions.  Promter is basically correct. hd2sd produces superior output in significantly less time than any Maximum Render Quality method in CS4.  Sometimes the increase in quality is worthy of "Wow!", and at other times it is barely noticeable.  I think the greatest quality improvement is seen on footage with a lot of contrast and a wide color gamut.  In other words, real-world footage. The quality difference between using MRQ with a nested sequence and letting the AME handle the scaling using MRQ is highly codec and footage dependent.  The codec that shows the most variation, unfortunately, is MPEG2 DVD.  MPEG2 I-frame and Lagarith show almost no quality difference on any footage.  MPEG2 DVD encoding in CS4 does introduce noise into the footage, but at similar bit rates using HC Encoder and Sorenson Squeeze 5, similar noise was also introduced.  For the record, I prefer Squeeze's MPEG2 DVD encoding to either HCEnc or CS4. Frame size of the original HD footage plays a role, too.  1920x1080 footage is affected more by any quality difference in the methods than is 1280x720 footage. Based on these new tests, I can't recommend nesting/scaling the HD sequence any more.  The possible, and often small, quality improvement just isn't worth the twofold or threefold increase in render time, especially if you are using 2-pass VBR. I have to modify my upcoming tutorial to reflect these new results. -Jeff ... View more

Try changing the file extensions to .epr if you haven't already. -Jeff ... View more

I feel another 200-post thread coming on... @Ann, How about the Dirty Harry Blu-ray collection? -Jeff ... View more

Ann Bens wrote: I tried out your i-frame mpeg with DGIndex and that turned out pretty good. If you use Dan's latest version (@ Dan - is it out of beta yet?), then the DGIndex step isn't required any more.  Just list the .m2v file as an argument for the hd2sd function and hd2sd will invoke the proper source for AviSynth, as well as find any matching audio files.  Like this: hd2sd("myI-frameMPEG.m2v", interlaced=false) Very cool! -Jeff ... View more

Usually, I use 2 passes because I'm testing for worst-case scenarios.  That's why my render times for the AME and MRQ are as long as they are.  Just remember that I use Dan's hd2sd script for all of my real-world stuff.  Another thing to consider even if you can't or won't use Dan's script is that if your timeline approaches 2 hours, then 2 passes are a good idea for use with the lower bit rates that are needed.  That said, 1 pass may produce acceptable quality for shorter programs. -Jeff ... View more

My bad.  I mistyped.  Set N=12 and M=3. EDIT: I just saw your most recent post.  Better to start with the NTSC Widescreen 23.976 preset and modify that. -Jeff ... View more

Actually what I thought was that exporting my HD timeline the AME would just convert it to SD when selecting MPEG2-DVD on the encoder drop down templates You can do that.  But one of life's great mysteries is why you get different results by doing it that way than by nesting first.  Even if you select Maximum Render Quality from the flyout menu of the AME Video tab, you still get different results. Here's the deal.  If you don't nest, but you still select MRQ in the AME, the render takes 2 - 3 times as long as without MRQ, but only 1/2 to 1/3 the time required for rendering the nested sequence using MRQ.  The quality falls somewhere in the middle as well.  I don't know how Adobe pulled that off, but I bet it's not intentional.  Try testing that method on a short segment of your sequence.  See if the quality is "good enough". -Jeff ... View more

"Easiest" is to use Dynamic Link to add your Pr sequence to the En SD DVD project.  Put it in a timeline and build the project.  Done. Unfortunately, the finished disc will have issues: The frame rate will get converted incorrectly by Encore and it will stutter and jump on camera pans and cross-frame motion. The quality of the scaling from HD to SD will be well below average, and you will lose a lot more of the original HD quality than you should (maybe even to the point of sucking out loud). The "best" way to do it in CS4 is: Nest your finished HD sequence in a progressive 24p SD sequence and scale it down appropriately.  Set the SD sequence to Maximum Render Quality.  That ensures that the AME will encode with MRQ, which triggers Premiere's high-quality scaling algorithm.  The downside to MRQ is the render time.  I get about 4 - 5 fps on an 8-core, 16 GB RAM Vista 64 machine with all 8 cores pegged during rendering. Export the SD sequence to MPEG2-DVD.  Start with the NTSC Widescreen High Quality 23.976 preset and adjust the video encoding parameters to reflect an appropriate target, min and max bit rate.  For your 23-minute program, setting min to 3.5 Mbps, target to 7 Mbps and max to 8 Mbps should produce very nice results.  If you have quality media, a quality burner with up-to-date firmware and you burn at no more than 1/2 the rated speed of the blank media, you can probably get away with a target bit rate of 8 and a max of 9.  Set the GOP to M=12 and N=3.  You can encode your audio to AC3 either in the AME or in Encore. After you've had time to watch the entire extended version of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the finished .m2v and .wav (.ac3) files will be ready to import into En.  Make sure the .m2v (and the .ac3, if you chose that format) imports into En as "Don't Transcode".  Add them to a timeline and build the project. Your results won't be as spectacular as using Dan's hd2sd() script, but they'll be pretty darn good nonetheless. -Jeff ... View more

one-iron wrote: UNTILL I LOOKED IN %$^&*#$ (x86) Adobe Folder.   The freakin' installs it in the 32-bit sectio of the OS, and does Adobe mention that anywhere ( I have several help memos)----Not A Word. Why would it be anywhere else besides the (x86) folder?  That's where all 32-bit apps get installed in Vista 64, and last time I checked, Encore was still a 32-bit app. -Jeff ... View more