Adobe Premiere CS3 for compressing video?
 

I have started to experiment with using Adobe Premiere CS3 for my editing projects. [I know it's old but it's what I have :oops:]

• I capture using Huffyuv and use some VirtualDub filters to enhance the video. (In this instance, a beta tape of a football game).
• I open the AVI in Premiere and do some minor edits - fades, some cuts.
• When I am done, I export to "Movie" so I can encode with Procoder.
• When I checked on the size of the file, it was only 20 GB for a 1 hour and 37-minute video where the original was approximately 150 GB.

I like to use Premiere when possible because I create videos where I use different sources (1 tape for the pregame, another for the actual game, etc.)

Procoder does not have a plugin for Premiere CS3. Is there a way to export/save without compressing the original?

Any feedback is appreciated.

If your original huffyuv capture was 150GB, you pparently captured to RGB. Not a good idea. You should capture to YUY2, which mimics the original YPbPr. Crushed darks and blown out highlight are the usual consequence of RGB capture. 90 minutes at YUY2 should be about 35GB.

Procoder is not lossless. If you want lossless intermediates use huffyuv, Lagarith, or UT Video codec.

I re-captured my video using Lagarith capturing to YUY2.

After editing in Premiere Pro CS3, how should I export - Procoder 3 or the built-in Main Concept?

Main Concept

So even the Main Concept from CS3 is superior to Procoder?

Actually huffyuv is superior to Procoder IMO, depeedning on your purpose. Procoder and huffyuv are for for edit, intermediate processing, and archiving. Neither are final delivery codecs. If you want PC or Mac playback only, never burning to disc or external drive for external play, and don't want internet or streaming, use an edit or archival codec.

What do you want for final playback purposes?

I would like to ultimately burn the final product to a DVD. I use Premiere for editing - fades in/out, cuts, combining from different sources (usually sports broadcasts).

You can't create DVD using Procoder. DVD is MPEG2. Period. Why would you save your render to lossy Pocoder, then send it thru another lossy encode for MPEG? Intermediate working files should be lossless (huffyuv, Lagarith, UT Video codec, etc.). Procoder is lossy, OK for archiving. Don't save intermediate working files as lossy codecs.

So based on what I am trying to do, my workflow should be:

* Capture using Lagarith to HDD
* Use video filters (if needed) in VirtualDub
* Premiere for edits
* Export to Mainconcept for eventual authoring.

Am I missing something?

IF you are following a lossless workflow until the Main Concept encoding step, you're doing it correctly. Lossy encoding with Main Concept for final delivery formats is the last step.

@sanlyn: You're confused. Procoder is a professional MPEG encoder that existed in the early 2000s. It was a software product of Canopus before it was sold (and all software discontinued, plus about half their hardware). It was an extremely nice encoder, superior to the overhyped CinemaCraft (aka CCE, which was mostly loved due to widesoread piracy), and vastly superior to TMPGEnc Plus. There was no freeware at the time. MainConcept didn't yet exist. Procoder v1 Mastering mode was better than v2.

MainConcept displaced Procoder.
Avidemux (FFMPEG) displaced TMPGEnc Plus.

So back to my earlier question. Is my Premiere CS3 with built-in Mainconcept plug-in workflow an efficient one? Or is encoding with Procoder the way to go? I have Procoder 3.

MC is overall better.
Premiere uses the MC SDK, not full MC, so the only real gain over PC is speed. Quality comparable.
PC is not multicore aware, while MC is.
Both can be unstable. AME in CS3 can be a pain at times.

MC = MainConcept Reference
PC = Procoder
AME = Adobe Media Encoder

Export setting in Premiere, but actual encoding happens in AME (using MC SDK).

This info all matters when you're having issues, trying to troubleshoot. Been there, done that. ;)

As long as DVD is the final output, why fool around with an encoder that's nothing but problems, from what I've seen in other forums. Folks use Procorder and then go to some authoring programs that complains about DVD non-compliance and encodes the whole video all over again. May as well go straight to MainConcept.

I ran my video capture file through Virtualdub's temporal cleaner. Mainconcept has a noise reduction feature during its encode. Is this effective or overkill? I am thinking of using it at a low setting - 20/100.

The better noise reduction filters are in Avisynth, more sophisticated than Virtualdub or Adobe's or the usual encoders. "Noise" is a very general term. What kind of noise? VHS has chroma noise, tape noise, dropouts, halos, ringing, chroma shift, color bleed, noisy gradients (block noise),posterizing effects, the usual head-switching noise, staining, spots, comets, and numerous nonlinear color problems. So the filters you select, and the compensating procedures for the effects of "noise reduction", are part of the restoration process. So I'm uncertain about which VirtualDub and MainConcept filters you refer to. If you've found some good workarounds, you might share some of them with us. But overall your workflow seems appropriate.

-- merged --

Had to stop and re-read this thread, more slowly and later in the day. I mis-read earlier, thinking Procorder was proposed for intermediate working files, which still isn't a good idea. For final output, MainConcept is cleaner, renders motion better. For DVD, I've seen complaints in the past about some authoring programs balking with Procorder output.

Gotta stop cruising so fast thru these posts.

I sometimes do it too. :o

Your point about intermediary/lossless/uncompressed is accurate. It's something I'd not considered. I'm actually not sure Adobe Media Encoder (AME) uses MainConcept SDK for encoding to non-MPEG and non-H.264. AME allows Huffyuv, Lagarith, uncompressed, etc. But I'm not sure MC is doing it within AME.

Procoder obviously cannot, and is strictly MPEG from what I remember.

To me, the conversation was obviously about MPEG. But you added some (although confused) interesting points. :2cents: