9-10 hours to export as 720p a movie that is already 720p?

[George Tyndall]

I am using Premiere 3.0 to export as HD WMV 720p a 50-minute movie that is composed of 11 separate "chapters," each of which is already in HD WMV 720p.

My equipment is described below.

Given the limitations of my equipment, does 9 hours 38 minutes to complete the export seem right?

[Paul LS]

Does seem a long time George... 10x the video length. I would need to do a trial to see if I am seeing the same sort of times. I will give it a try over the weekend.

[George Tyndall]

Does seem a long time George... 10x the video length.

Paul, I forgot to mention that is for 2 passes. (I performed a test previously that compared 1 pass with 2 for HD WMV 720p, and the winner was 2 passes, by a landslide.)

BTW, I have no other programs running, but my Task Manager informs me that I am using between 60-100% of my CPU and that my RAM usage is 1.87 GB. (I have only 2 GB.) Would more RAM make a big difference?

With regard to my scratch disk, it's over 400GB and recently defragmented, plus it's internal and not my C Drive, so I doubt that is a factor.

Finally, the 50-minute video is being exported,via USB2.0, to an external 1TB drive that has 400GB of defragmented space available.

[Chuck Engels]

George, I exported a 59 minute sequence in Premiere Pro captured as MPEG M2T files.
I exported also to MPEG M2T 1920 x 1080i, it took about 50 minutes.

[George Tyndall]

George, I exported a 59 minute sequence in Premiere Pro captured as MPEG M2T files.
I exported also to MPEG M2T 1920 x 1080i, it took about 50 minutes.

Thanks for sharing that, Chuck.

My 11 separate chapters were all created in PSE4.0 with HD stills, roughly 2250x1500 pixels each, then exported as HD WMV 720p. Each looked really good, however, when I imported them into Premiere 3.0 to create an 11 chapter 50-minute movie, then exported the movie as HD WMV 720p, the export took over 9 hours (2 passes)--and the result looks terrible. Specifically, there is lots of very obvious pixelation.

I am at a loss to explain this. Could the problem be an overloaded proceessor, or insufficient RAM, the specifics of which I mentioned in my posting of Jun27 at 5:26pm?

[Paul LS]

Haven't had a chance to run a test on the time to export yet George. However regarding your point on pixelation. Have you imported a 720p HD WMV and exported it as 720p HD WMV before, or have your source files generally been HDV MPEG2/M2T??
WMV is highly compressed, importing it and then re-exporting to WMV will result in quality loss and pixelation due to the video having to be compressed again.

[George Tyndall]

However regarding your point on pixelation. Have you imported a 720p HD WMV and exported it as 720p HD WMV before.....

No.

...or have your source files generally been HDV MPEG2/M2T??.

Yes.

WMV is highly compressed, importing it and then re-exporting to WMV will result in quality loss and pixelation due to the video having to be compressed again.

But if that is the case, why is it that I don't have this problem when I import M2T clips from my Canon HV30 then export the completed movie as MPEG2?

Thanks!

[Paul LS]

The bit rate of HDV MPEG2/M2T is 25MB/s whereas the bit rate of hd WMV is generally a lot lower. This leads to poorer quality when re-exporting HD WMV. What bit rate are you using for your HD WMV?

[George Tyndall]

What bit rate are you using for your HD WMV?

Hi Paul,

Advanced Settings: Average Video Bitrate [Kbps]: 5,000

As you know, the reason for the export to HD WMV 720 instead MPEG2 is that Windows XP Media Center 2005 will not play MPEG2s.

I currently have over 200 SD and HD WMVs that I can play from a distance on my HD monitor with the remote control for Windows XP Media Center 2005. The HD WMV 720p 4-minute movies are composed of slideshows that I created in PSE4.0 from 2250x1500 pixel photos in PSD format plus an occasional M2T clip that I previously exported as 720p for the purpose of dropping into these slide shows. The indvidual 4-minute movies composed of photos and clips look great. It's only when I tried to assemble 11 of them together in Premiere 3.0 for a 48-minute movie that the export took an inordinate amount of time and the result is poor quality. BTW,the Advanced Settings were the same for the 4-minute and the 50-minute exports.

[Paul LS]

That is the issue George, the HD WMV has a 5MB/s bitrate and the HDV M2T 25MB/s. It is like standard definition DV-AVI and MPEG2, MPEG2 is more highly compressed than DV-AVI, you can import and export DV-AVI 5 or 6 times with little noticeable loss in quality, whereas with MPEG2 you will see it after the first import/export cycle.

Try importing and exporting just one of your 4 min clips a number of times and look at the quality after each import/export cycle.

If you had the 11 clips in M2T/MPEG2 format you could combine them and export them as HD WMV with no issue. In future it might be worth exporting your HD WMV files at a higher bit rate, this may allow you to combine them with less quality loss. Try a test, use a one minute slideshow and export it at various bit rates and then import/export each one to see the quality.

[George Tyndall]

...you can import and export DV-AVI 5 or 6 times with little noticeable loss in quality....

Yes, Paul, but the problem is, now that I have experienced HD, I just can't get used to the lesser quality of DV-AVI.

Fortunately, I can learn to live with playing my HD WMVs one-by-one.

Thanks still once again for sharing your knowledge.

[Paul LS]

And with HDV MPEG2 you can import and export for a couple of cycles OK... but not really with the more highly compressed HD WMV.