What Premiere 13 publishing choice to get best quality AVCHD on DVD.

[Guest]

I have a Canon Vixia HF S30 video camera that records AVCHD video with MPEG-4 AVC/H.264
compression.  I have been recording at 1920 X 1080 resolution.  The video quality
when the camera is hooked directly to the TV gives great resolution, and the video
movement is smooth.  After downloading the camera video to the computer hard drive and burning it to a DVD it plays
with the same quality on a Blu-Ray player.  When I edit the video in Premiere
13 and then publish it I cannot find a format to choose that will give the same
quality as the unedited DVD version.  The lower quality is seen mostly in the scene panning; the video becomes blurry
during the pan.  I have tried using the DVD burn choice for AVCHD 1920 X 1080p; I tried saving to the hard drive first
using HDTV 1080p 29.97 High Quality, MP4 – H264 1920 X 1080p 30, M2T – H264
1920 X 1080i 30, and others, then burning to the DVD.  All gave much lower quality than the video
burned to a DVD directly from the hard drive unedited.  Can anyone give some suggestions on how to
make better quality DVD’s with Premiere 13 edited videos?

[Steve Grisetti]

DVDs are standard TV resolution: 720x480 pixels. You can't make a high-resolution DVD.

BluRays are high-definition video: 1920x1080 pixels.

AVCHDs are BluRay files that are burned to a DVD disc. They are 1920x1080 pixels resolution but THEY CAN NOT BE PLAYED ON DVD PLAYERS. because they are technically BluRay videos -- that just happen to be a on a DVD.

That said, when you say "quality" are you talking about something other than resolution?

[Bill Sprague]

Steve is, as always correct.  But, he left out one possibility.

Some Blu-Ray players will play data files.  They can be songs (MP3), pictures (JPG) and video clips (MT2S or MTS).  It varies from player to player.  At one point I had three different players, a Panasonic, a Sony and a Samsung.  They all worked differently. 

If I copied the clips from my camera to an "optical disk", generically referred to as a DVD, it would play in one of my players.  I think it was the Panasonic, but forget.  The Sony has a USB port. I could copy the clips directly to a memory stick and they would play.  The Panasonic has a slot in the front for SD cards and it would play from the card straight out of my Panasonic camcorder.

I found I could make a collection of clips into a video with Premier Elements, output a MP4 final file to match the 1920x1080p60 originals using the AVCHD menu choice in PrE13.  I could copy that file to a "DVD" and, on one player, it played in full HD glory.  I emphasise, it was not a "DVD".  I did not use the It was video files on a "data DVD".  I did not use the Disk choice under Publish and Share.  I used the Computer > AVCHD choice. 

My videos are always short so I can use the AVCHD Disk that Steve mentions.  It is format that is is rarely understood or used.  It should be because you can make typical home videos in HD on an ordinary DVD drive.  You don't need a Blu-Ray burner.  He left out that they only work for videos under twenty minutes, maybe even 15.  As he said, they are mini Blu-Rays.  Blu-Rays, both the mini version and the real ones, are of HD quality, but always "interlaced".  Consequently, depending on your source clips, there can be a difference in viewing quality when playing a 1920x1080p60 file and watching that same file after it has been "burned" to a Blu-Ray. 

Interlacing is a complex process I don't understand.  But, I've seen examples of where "progressive" clips become "blurry" when converted to interlaced, especially when the clip is a panned shot. 

Good luck and I hope this helps a little. 

Bill

[Guest]

Thanks for your reply Bill.  My camera stores video in PF24, PF25, PF30, or 60i.  The manual said that for television system the PF24 and PF30 are converted, then recorded on the memory as 60i; I have the camera set at PF30 for recording.  I do not see a choice in PrE13 for publishing in 60i, except for 720 HD which is 60p in the menu.  Do you think that if I got a Blu-Ray burner it would give me better videos?

[Guest]

Thanks for the reply Steve.  I understand that DVD's are not designed for HD, and that AVCHD allows me to put HD on them and it plays on my Blu-Ray player.  My confusion and question is why does my AVCHD video clip from the camera play well when burned to a DVD, but when I edit the clip in Premiere 13 and than choose the same AVCHD format as my camera to publish and save to my hard drive, and then burn the file to a DVD it does not play well; pan shots become blurry.  I would think that if the camera, and Premiere publish formats are the same, the playing quality (no blurring pan shots) should be the same.  This makes me think that Premiere 13 is reducing the video quality.

[Bill Sprague]

"why does my AVCHD video clip from the camera play well when burned to a DVD" 

I'm sure Steve will answer.  But it could help to figure out how the AVCHD video clip is getting to the DVD.

How are you doing that?  "Burn" is a confusing word.  Are you creating a video DVD?  Are you copying camera files to a DVD disk? 

Once that is clear, the two likely choices that may be causing a problem are the project settings and the output settings. 

My experience with AVCHD 1920x1080p60 video from a few different cameras has been good when making MP4s to play or creating AVCHD Disks.  It has been poor when creating DVDs. 

Bill

[Guest]

I am copying my camera video files to my hard drive.  Then, I am burning (copy) the file to a DVD.  This plays as good on my Sony Blu-Ray as hooking the camera directly to the TV.  The only info of type of file on hard drive is the file is a MTS at 29f/s with a data rate of 16226 kbps.  What do you suggest I match that to in PrE13?

[Bill Sprague · Accepted solution]

If your videos are longer than 15 or 20 minutes and you want to play then on a Blu-Ray player you may need a Blu-Ray burner.

If shorter than 20 minutes I would try two things.

First try to Publish, pick disk and then pick the third choice AVCHD.  That should produce a Blu-Ray quality video on an ordinary, cheap DVD. 

Second, I would try Publish to Computer, pick AVCHD and pick a 1920x1080i30.  Canon choices confuse me, but that might be close.  There is also in that menu a button labeled Advance.  Press it and you should see a button labeled Match Source.  After you output this file, you should be able to play it on your computer.  You should also be able to copy it to a DVD like you did with the original clips and play it the same way. 

If none of this works, I might ask you to send me a couple clips via dropbox.  There is no reason that you can't get good HD quality out of Premier Elements. 

[Guest]

Bill, you are a genus!  I picked in publish "Disk" then "AVCHD".  In that menu I chose H.264 1920 X 1080p the first time and it played very bad.  This time, at your suggestion, I chose H.264 1920 X 1080i, and it played great, the same as when I play it directly from the camera.  The interesting thing is that when I chose "Computer", and then M2T - H264 1920 X 1080i 30, and then saved the file to a DVD it did not play well; I thought the two were the same, I guess not.

Can you tell me why the DVD disks will only play on a Blu-Ray for 15 to 20 minutes?

Thanks for staying with me.

Ed

[Bill Sprague]

edwardc13569364 wrote:

Bill, you are a genus! I picked in publish "Disk" then "AVCHD". In that menu I chose H.264 1920 X 1080p the first time and it played very bad. This time, at your suggestion, I chose H.264 1920 X 1080i, and it played great, the same as when I play it directly from the camera. The interesting thing is that when I chose "Computer", and then M2T - H264 1920 X 1080i 30, and then saved the file to a DVD it did not play well; I thought the two were the same, I guess not.

Can you tell me why the DVD disks will only play on a Blu-Ray for 15 to 20 minutes?

Thanks for staying with me.

Ed

Thank you for calling me a genius! 

I think I can explain the 15 to 20 minutes. 

Disks of any sort are storage devices for data.  To put a full length movie on a disk it is a LOT of data.  So, Sony and Panasonic (and maybe someone else) invented the Blu-Ray standard.  There was a fight in the market with a Microsoft-Toshiba product called "HD DVD".   Both teams wanted to control the format for the distribution of Hollywood movies for playing on the then new HD TVs.  Royalties were involved.   Blu-Ray won and HD DVDs disappeared.

The Blu-Ray standard included a new type of disk with the capacity for a LOT of data.  It also includes a format.  Tyhe apparently decided that the format could still be useful for disks that hold a relatively TINY amount of data.  The LOT of data disks are called Blu-Rays and cost a couple dollars.  The TINY disks are called "AVCHD Disks" and use cheap old DVD disks that cost about $.50. 

In other words, the data required for 15 to 20 minutes completely fills a DVD where it would only use a fraction of a Blu-Ray. 

Another advantage for home producers of 15 minute videos is that they can be created on the common DVD drive in many computers.  To make a Blu-Ray, you have to have a Blu-Ray burner.  The look the same, but are not.

[Guest]

Makes good sense.  I have been limiting the amount of video I put on my DVD's to just under 4GB.  I measure that by looking at what PrE13 states as the memory required to store my edited video in the format I have chosen.  So far, most of my videos are a little over an hour long.  I can only assume that if I re-publish my projects in the Disk menu with the 1920 X 1080i format the storage required will go up and I will have to shorten the videos per DVD.  Does this make sense?

[Bill Sprague]

edwardc13569364 wrote:

........ I can only assume that if I re-publish my projects in the Disk menu with the 1920 X 1080i format the storage required will go up and I will have to shorten the videos per DVD. Does this make sense?

Yes, it makes sense.

There is a DVD known as double sided that will hold 9+ GB, but I don't know how they work.  You can buy a Blu-Ray burner and Blu-Ray disks.   Single layer Blu-Rays hold 25 GB and there is a dual layer version.