I have been writing DVDs to read on the PC successfully for a few months but have only just purchased a Sony DVP NS700 player. I noticed that some of my early DVDs played flawlessly and later ones showed distortion etc. so decided to do a comparison DVD using different encoders. I used the same 1 minute DV video edited in Premier of a 'busy' swimming pool/kids playing scene. I then encoded the file using FOUR different encoders, keeping as many settings the same as possible, as follows:
LOWER field first, VBR
Maximum Bit Rate 8000Mb/s
Average Bit Rate 5000Mb/s
Minimum Bit Rate 2000Mb/s
GOP structure M=3, N=12.
The Mpegs produced were then used as separate chapters in DVDit(SE) and an image file was written, which I then burned using Instant CD/DVD on an A03 with a Pioneer DVD-R.
The FOUR encoders were :-
1) LIGOS premiere plug-in (time = 6m 40s)
2) Pinnacle DV(500+) (time = 5 min 13s)
3) Cinema Craft Encoder premiere plug-in (time = 6m 10s for TWO passes)
4) Pure Motion MpegXS for premiere( time = 4 m 53s)
RESULTS: The Pure Motion video was FLAWLESS and ALL the other THREE were barely watchable at certain points of high activity.
Guess what, my early efforts at writing were ALL done using the Pure Motion encoder. What a shame that it was taken out of circulation - but at least I have a copy of it!!
Interestingly there was NO difference in quality of picture when played on PC using POWER DVD
Very interesting. Your results are similar to mine when comparing the Puremotion plugin to editstudio3 and TMPG.
The two produce very similar quality output but TMPG takes three times as long and is not quite as good in handling fast motion.
The pure motion package is a very good buy if you pick up the free Magazine disk with 2.5, upgrade to 3 for £20 and buy the encoder plugin for £20.
To ensure a balanced view, I will say that I do all my editing in Premiere as it has always been my favourite program due to its ease of use.
Andy
Where can I get the Pure Motion Plugin for Premiere ? What Magazine ?
Thanks.
I too would be interested in a source for this, as I have a small 4 minute promo that I initially converted using the Premiere 6.5 mpeg encoder and wasn't happy with the results so left TMPGENC encoding it before I left the house this morning.
The slightly alarming part is that for a 4minute clip, TMPGENC said it would take 1:20:00 to encode it, and this is on an athlon 1800 XP. I'm hoping that the end result will be worth the time.
Gordo
> Where can I get the Pure Motion Plugin for Premiere ?
You can't buy it any more - it had to be withdrawn by PureMotion. The encoder in Prem 6.5 is basically the same (MainConcept) encoder core as is used in the MPEGXS plug-in for EditStudio 3
> What Magazine ?
The current ('video') edition of 'PC Tools' mag has a cheap offer for Puremotion EditStudio 3 (£20 for the download version).
There is some info on tweaking the MC encoder settings to get better quality here: http://www.dvdoctor.net/cgi-bin/ubb/Forum6/HTML/001481.html , but I don't know how much tweaking is possible in Prem 6.5 as I've never played with it.
(...and I would agree with embsay36 and Andy Smith on the relative merits of the various encoders, except that I've never used the DV500 hardware encoder so I can't comment on that one)
Tony
Gordo,
I have an 1800XP athlon and a 4 min clip would take 30 mins with TMPG on slowest setting for motion search and 12 min with MPEGXS. PC HOW has editstudio on the cover disk.
Andy
What is "PC How"; where do you get it?
PC HOW is like PC Answers. I saw it in my local Sainsbury's Savacentre a couple of weeks ago. I'm sure WHS would have it.
Andy
I hope I'm not being dumb here, but as i need a version to link into Premiere, can I get this via the editstudio 3 version?
Is there any other way of getting this plug in to work with Premiere?
Regards
Jez
jez275@mail.com
> Is there any other way of getting this plug in to work with Premiere?
You could try frameserving from Premiere into EditStudio3+MPEGXS using the 'wrapper' export mode from the Premiere VideoServer plug-in ( http://www.videotools.net ).
I've not tried this with EditStudio but I have done it with Ulead VS6 and DVD MovieFactory in the past - just don't breath too hard while it's running 
Tony
[This message has been edited by owlsroost (edited 04 November 2002).]
Interesting results.
I tried Puremotion and thought the results were awful.
Despite my old DV500 not being the greatest card for reliability, it always produced superb results and was faster than most things I've tried.
Now I've got a Storm, it produces everything I want every time
I have done a further trial and found that I can reproduce my findings except that the PUREMOTION encoder must use LOWER field first for both DV source material AND for composite. If UPPER field first is set for composite material, then the quality of the playback on my Sony 700 is POOR.
>You could try frameserving from Premiere into EditStudio3+MPEGXS using the 'wrapper' export mode from the Premiere VideoServer plug-in ( http://www.videotools.net ).
Just tried it with a short file - provided you use the 'wrapper' export mode with 'raw' audio - it works!
Tony