Editing TIPS and TRICKS and Advi

So again, I offer: the BEST way to encode something you have done in Avid is to send it OUT of the Avid in either Same-As-Source 709 (unchanged, as is) or QT Reference. Then take that file, and use an application like Sorensen Squeeze to manipulate it to correctly be displayed in the delivery format of your choice.

CONVERSION OF VOB files

Using Sorenson Squeeze to convert it to MOV and keep the same quality, I use Avid 1:1 myself, DV 50 might also be a good choice, both of them will fast import into Avid (MJ)

To get some ideas about how to setup Squeeze, you might want to follow the link from this post, the tutorial is for HD but the settings could as well be adjusted for SD and will also make it possible for you to get a grip about codec and aspect settings View this post at http://community.avid.com/forums/p/89880/510476.aspx#510476

When converting .vob to .mov, I have found that freeware MPEG_Streamclip www.squared5.com produces significantly superior results in much faster time as compared to the same process in Sorenson Squeeze. To put it briefly, with my Streamclip settings, coverting a 1GB .vob yields a 2GB .mov of superb quality. I convert to QuickTime (.mov) selecting the Apple Photo codec with settings at default including the 50% Quality then select 720x480 unscaled with bottom field dominance. Works GREAT for me!

PRO RES and

Getting Pro Res into Avid may have been eliminated with MC5.5.

Over on the Adobe blogs, Karl Soule shows you how to have an end-to-end ProRes workflow with Premiere Pro on the Mac (and an almost end-to-end workflow on the PC). It requires a bit of set-up but it is possible and, according to Soule, easy-to-use. Read his post here.

FREE WARE PROGRAMS

MPEG_Streamclip www.squared5.com -

AVANTI -

Avanti GUI is a free front-end for FFmpeg with the option to insert Avisynth as pre-processor.
It can be used with almost all Windows OS builds of FFmpeg. It offers user friendly control over all basic and advanced FFmpeg options.
A number of template examples are included. There's no need to be familiar with Avisynth to use the predefined Avanti/Avisynth pre-processor options.

TS Muxer

The reason I ask is that MTS is most often the native format from a avchd cam, which is not exactly M4V. (It's H.264). If I dump a MTS file into TSmuxeR it breaks down to a AC3 file, a SUP file, and a H.264 file

(TSmuxeR btw is a free download and will strip all from its container with no re-encode)

You Tube Encoding

you should ALWAYS use the Apple H264 compressor to ensure the best possible visual quality. Ensure that B-Frames (Frame Re-odering) are/is always DISABLED. The de-selection of the B-Frames option applies to any video you intend to compress with the Apple H264 compressor.

When exporting out of Avid, always ensure that your exported file is in a square-pixel format and NOT a thin-raster/DV pixel format. YouTube needs those square pixels as it does not recognise pixel aspect ratio flags.

If your material is not natively a 16:9 aspect, such as 2:35:1, 2:40:1 then pre-apply a suitable reformat/mask effect in order to add enough letterboxing to fill a 16:9 frame.

The Guide:

If the community video embedding feature is not working, you won't see the tutorial here. You will instead have to visit the dedicated Videos section to view it.

General Settings:

	*360p Settings*	Compressor: H264 - Select Multipass & De-select B-Frames Frame Size: 640x360 (Better downscaling ON if source is a greater resolution) Bitrate: Between 750 & 1500Kb/s should work.
	*480p Settings*	Compressor: H264 - Select Multipass & De-select B-Frames Frame Size: 854x480 (Better downscaling ON if source is a greater resolution) Bitrate: Between 1500 & 3000Kb/s should work
	*720p Settings*	Compressor: H264 - Select Multipass & De-select B-Frames Frame Size: 1280x720 (Better downscaling ON if source is a greater resolution) Bitrate: Between 4000 & 6000Kb/s should work.
	*1080p Settings*	Compressor: H264 - Select Multipass & De-select B-Frames Frame Size: 1920x1080 (Better downscaling OFF) Bitrate: Between 8000 & 10000Kb/s should work.

This page lists the file formats YouTube accepts, and Quicktime (MOV) is among them. If your uncompressed Quicktime movie is under 2GB and under 10 minutes in length, you could just upload it directly and YouTube will do the rest. That'd be the easiest workflow

This post from YouTube's forum says essentially what I'd say, and that is to give them the file at its native size and let YouTube do whatever it does to it.

Encoding High Quality Video: For YouTube (last post is feb 2009),

Re: Export for Youtube (last post is Jan 2008)

Re: youtube upload (dec 2008)

Re: Encoding for Youtube (nov 2008)

Re: encoding for youtube

	Doug@Stun - I do this type of stuff a lot. The secret is that you need individual projects for each correct frequency. In this instance you'd need three seperate projects. Then simply open the footage bin from the other projects in the frequency you want to finish in. You'd need a 1080 23.98Psf, a SD 30 for 29.97i, and a 720p 59.94. Open the AMA files in the appropriate project frame rate and the Avid will take care of the rest.
	Kenton - I would recommend using the same compression as what your footage is. If you're going to end up on DVD, then DV25 would be sufficient. I use Mixdowns quite often My main reasons are: when I do a QTref export, my exported QTref file only has to reference 3 files (the video mixdown media file and the two audio mixdown media files) That alone can prevent a lot of headaches. Another reason is that I found that when I exported a QTref without a V/A Mixdown sometimes my encoder of choice wouldn't handle the Filler or any Titles properly. If I need to send a review cut to a client (or even get ready to start Onlining a cut), a Video Mixdown of my cut placed on a new blank track will give you a nice reference to make sure you're stuff is lined up. If I embed a TC burn in my client review file the client then makes their notes based on that TC. If I take their notes and cut out a bite or shot and shorten the piece, then the rest of their notes make no sense as the TC numbers would be off. But, if you put the VM on the upper track then it'll have the TC burn embedded into the video and it won't ever change if you Extract or shift something around. You will rarely find anything that can "improve" the quality of video. You can certainly apply effects that will alter the footage and possibly make some footage a little more palettable, but by and large all anyone can ever do is "maintain" the quality as much as possible.

	File Export / gets you to a lot of choices. My general pattern is to export to a wmv for upload to the interent. I used to fuse to an avi and then use media encoder. Here is what I did..... Choose Export / WMV / and since timeline was 1440x1080, I choose 720x540, progressive, dv 16x9, 30 frames. I did a 10 second test - looked good, so I did the full 2 minutes - 50 minutes, and about I then exported the same