Don't pick a random setting... you need to know the details of your file, starting with the camera brand/model you used

Read Bill Hunt on a file type as WRAPPER http://forums.adobe.com/thread/440037

What is a CODEC... a Primer http://forums.adobe.com/thread/546811

What CODEC is INSIDE that file? http://forums.adobe.com/thread/440037

.

Report back with the codec details of your file, use the programs below... a screen shot works well to SHOW people what you are doing

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For PC http://www.headbands.com/gspot/ or http://mediainfo.sourceforge.net/en

For Mac http://mediainfo.massanti.com/

To be sure your project matches your video, See 2nd post for picture of NEW ITEM process http://forums.adobe.com/thread/872666

CS5 User Guides - online and PDF (right click PDF link to save PDF to your hard drive)

http://blogs.adobe.com/premiereprotraining/2010/08/help-documents-for- creative-suite-5-pdf-and-html.html

Here Tutorials

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/913334

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/845731

-and http://forums.adobe.com/message/3234794

Encore http://tv.adobe.com/show/learn-encore-cs4/

A "crash course" http://forums.adobe.com/thread/761834

A Video Primer for Premiere http://forums.adobe.com/thread/498251

Premiere Tutorials http://forums.adobe.com/thread/424009

CS5 Premiere Pro Tutorials http://forums.adobe.com/message/2738611

And http://blogs.adobe.com/premiereprotraining/2010/06/video_tutorials_did acticiels_t.html

And http://blogs.adobe.com/premiereprotraining/2010/06/how_to_search_for_p remiere_pro.html

CS5 Tutorials http://bellunevideo.com/tutlist.php

PPro Wiki http://premierepro.wikia.com/wiki/Adobe_Premiere_Pro_Wiki

Tutorial http://www.tutorialized.com/tutorials/Premiere/1

Tutorial http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/forumdisplay.php?f=21

Tutorial HD to SD w/CS4 http://bellunevideo.com/tutorials/CS4_HD2SD/CS4_HD2SD.html

Premiere Pro Wiki http://premierepro.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

Exporting to DVD http://help.adobe.com/en_US/premierepro/cs/using/WS3E252E59-6BE5-4668- A12E-4ED0348C3FDBa.html

And http://help.adobe.com/en_US/premierepro/cs/using/WSCDE15B03-1236-483f- BBD4-263E77B445B9.html

Color correction http://forums.adobe.com/thread/892861

Photo Scaling for Video http://forums.adobe.com/thread/450798

-Too Large May = Crash http://forums.adobe.com/thread/879967

After Effects Tutorials http://www.videocopilot.net/

Authoring http://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials/dvd_authoring/

Encore Tutorial http://www.precomposed.com/blog/2009/05/encore-tutorial/

And more Encore http://library.creativecow.net/articles/devis_andrew/

Surround Sound http://forums.adobe.com/thread/517372

The fastest way is to drag your footage to the New Item button and Premiere will create a sequence that matches for you.

GLenn

Red doesnt mean you have to render.  It only means you might not get real-time playback.  If its playing back in real time then you dont have to render it.

GLenn

Its OK to just re-render if you need to.

http://blogs.adobe.com/premiereprotraining/2011/02/red-yellow-and-gree n-render-bars.html

Glenn

I tend to not ever use the Match Sequence button.

Im always exporting to a specific format for something.

Glenn

For me I tend to just stick with the .h264 with my bitrate high and that gives me a nice copy viewing in HD

Glenn

1: I tend to just set the bitrate to 6-10 and find that good enough for me.

2: I tend to use VBR 2 pass myself.

3: I do tend to use maximum render quality.  I figure the extra time spent exporting is worth the quality.  The faster your computer the better the times are.

I hope your snowboarding videos come out well.

I remember when I was boarding I only had a Sony 8mm Viewcam.  Much larger then your Contour HD.

We always found it hard to get out since we were haveing so much fun.  With the Contour you can put it on and forget it.

The Contour and the Hero HD look nice.  I like the waterproof of the Hero.

I havent boarded in about 6 years but need to get back on the slopes.

Hope this helps.  If you dont like the rate you can always raise it.

GLenn

Here is a quote from John Rofrano that I use for setting bitrates:

.................................................................

VBR has the potential to yield better quality for the same amount of bits. CBR will give the best quality at max bitrates.

To understand why this is, first you have to understand what they both mean because absolute qualitydepends on bitrate:

Variable Bit Rate means that you can vary the amount of bits used to represent a frame so that the overall average amount of bits-per-frame is achieved. It does this by stealing bits from frames with less information to encode (that don't need them) and giving them to frames that have more information to encode (and does need them).

Constant Bit Rate means that each frame uses the same amount of bits regardless of whether it needs them or not.

If you encode a video at 6Mbit CBR and 6Mbit VBR the VBR can have better quality. This is because it will vary the bitrate perhaps giving some frames as much as 8 or 9Mbit while others only 3 or 4Mbit but in the end it will average out to 6Mbit. CBR, on the other hand, will never give any frame more that 6Mbit. If there are frames that need more than 6Mbit to encode, CBR will look worse than VBR.

Having said that... if you are making DVD's and the DVD spec says that 9Mbit is the highest bitrate you can use, then a CBR 9Mbit is the best quality you can get because each frame will use all 9Mbit. So if your project will fit on the media at the max bitrate then CBR will give you the best quality. If it won't VBR 2-Pass should yield better results at the same bitrate.

BTW, VBR 2-Pass is a method of making 2 complete scans of the media, once to calculate the bits needed for each frame, then formulate a budget for where to best spend the bits, then a second pass to actually do the encoding. It takes some of the guess work out of budgeting bits which could make VBR 1-Pass look worse than CBR if bits are not allocated efficiently.

~jr

www.johnrofrano.com
www.vasst.com