What I have learned here, and questions. HELP?

[chrisco]

What I might have learned??? Right???
HDV creates 1440x1080i with rectangular pixels. I have seen this still referred to as 4:3. Is that wrong? http://www.viddyou.com/help.php
HDV creates M2t files that have an upper field first
DV creates DV-AVI files that have lower field first
Obviously 1080i is interlaced and 720p is not, so once you convert to 720p you don’t need to worry about interlaced stuff.
M2t=mpeg2 with some additional info but can be interchangeable and you can even rename the extension.
To make a DVD or standard def file it is best to down convert in camcorder as you recapture. When captured this way it will now be a DV-AVI? Right? What resolution?
Saving a HDV capture by file export to mpeg means no conversion.
HDVsplit can be used to chop up video into separate scenes as M2T files that can be used in PE. Does this change the field dominance or interleave?
Youtube takes the 1080i m2t files and converts them to decent quality. I cannot find anything that looks good going to a site like http://www.viddyou.com/help.php and they have tried to help but don’t use PE.

Still confused on…
29.97 vs 30. Interchangeable? Do I need to change to 30 when sites request 30?
Dropped frame. Got that once from trying to convert from 29.97 to 30
Do I reverse and deinterlace all m2t files?
When do I reverse and deinterlace on the clips in the timeline or when I file, export or when I convert it.
Does the HDV 1080i 30 project preset in PE already know to do this etc?
Differences in file, export and selecting a different file format or different size etc. AND converting using share tab.
Premiere Elements has a DV-AVI workflow it expects the video to be lower field first. So if you use an MPEG file in a DV-AVI project preset you need to reverse its field dominance AND de-interlace too?
I have tried this and I get files that when played stagger and show intermittent seconds of full green screens.

Thanks ALL

[Paul LS]

Part #1
- HDV 1440x1080 is not square pixels, they have a PAR of 1.3
- HDV m2t files are upper field first
- DV-AVI is lower field first
- Converting to progressive and you dont need to worry about interlaced video.
- m2t is a transport stream and .mpg a program stream, so it is the overhead (the extra) that is different
- You can rename .m2t to .mpg but not all programs may like this. That said, most programs these days accept both.
- Downconvert in cam will give you the 720x480 resolution.. note I think you can select either widescreen or standard (both still 720x480, just a different PAR)
- When capturing to HDV mpeg the file is not converted in the cam.
- HDVSplit captures as .m2t with scene split on timecode, these files can be used in PE. Field dominance is not changed.
- Not sure about Youtube.

[Paul LS]

Part 2:
- 29.97 v 30fps. They are not the same. However when the site says 30 do they mean 29.97??? If you convert to 30fps, frames will be repeated to reach the bit rate.
- Not sure why you got dropped frame when converting from 29.97 to 30fps. Could understand it if you went the other way.
- What do you want to do with the .m2t files and are you using them in a HDV or DV-AVI project preset?? If you want to produce a standard DVD and use the clips in a standard DV-AVI project preset then yes, you probably need to reverse field dominance in the timeline. If you use them in a HDv project preset then I am not sure, maybe PE is smart enough to recognise that a HDV project would need to reverse field dominance... but probably not. I only burn HDV DVDs so have no experience of this.
- You need to reverse the field dominace of upper field first files on the timeline or before importing them.
- If you reverse field dominance you do not also deinterlace.
- Your green frames in HDV .m2t/.mpg files are probably corrupted (GOP structure corrupted)... I use VideoRedo to fix these files.

[RJ Johnston]

If you place a DV-AVI clip on the timeline that has either 29.97 or 30 FPS, Premiere Elements will not place a red line over them. That is you don't have to render a preview. There are two data fields in a DV-AVI header that are used to calculate the frame rate. You can use a utility to change those fields. The file contents will be the same otherwise, but the 30 fps one will play back slightly faster in Premiere Elements.

[chrisco]

Thanks guys, I see that was quite a bit of brain dump so sorry.
I will ponder and probably ask more.

- If you reverse field dominance you do not also deinterlace.
Really, I would have thought that it just flipped the interlacing around but it would still be interlaced. I will try it.

[chrisco]

If anyone is REALLY bored you can look at my test so far at http://www.viddyou.com/chrisco