Using PRE 9+ for iPhone4 Video?

[DSimson]

First, here is a brief system spec:
HPE-590t, Intel i7-970 at 3.2GHZ (6 cores, 12 virtual CPU's)
Windows 7 Professional (64bit)
18 G Ram
Primary C drive - 1.5T Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 (via SATA, where the projects and output go) (1.2T free space).
External Drive - 400G Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 (via USB 2.0, where video source is, currently)
Drives are 0-1% fragmented, and the system is generally free of extraneous crapware, background programs, etc.
Video Card - ATI Radeon HD 6770 (1G), with 2 monitors: Dell U2410 at 1920x1200, and a Dell 2001FP at 1600x1200
I have ordered PRE 10 to take advantage of native 64bit, as well as a 2T Seagate Barracuda XT to be an internal dedicated video drive

Next, the video sources:
1. (two) iPhone4's, which produce 1280x720, 29fps MOV's
2. Canon Vixia HF11, which produces 1920x1080 AVCHD ("MTS" files) at 29fps, 24MBPS
3. Canon Elph 310HS, which also produces 1920x1080 AVCHD of some sort, but haven't determined exact frame rate (it's my wife's)

What I'm trying to do is really pretty mundane - just make DVD's of the family video we shoot, so I can send it to the relatives. And the 2-year old seems to enjoy looking at family video as much as Elmo, so I want to keep her happy

So far, what I started with was just a collection of the iPhone videos from the past year. It involved 90 MOV files, amounting to about 65 minutes total, with 22 titles and 18 DVD scene menu markers.

For project settings, it was rather amazing that there isn't an "iPhone4" preset, so I used Flip HD (which is what some web source advised)., but then on the first import, PRE reset it to Sony XDCAM EX 720p.
=> Question 1 for the MuviPix gurus - what setting SHOULD I have used?

As I worked on the project, PRE hung once or twice, so I learned to save early and save often. Eventually I was ready to go for a DVD.
I didn't bother burning directly to DVD, rather burned to a folder. The first time I got a transcode error, so I rebooted and tried again, which succeeded. It was pretty impressive to watch the CPU meter gadget as it built - seeing the 12 processors occaisionally spike to 100% and the core temperatures go from +/- 35 degrees to 70! The DVD, burned using ImgBurn, works fine on my various DVD players. So far, so good.

Then, foolishly, I thought I'd pull in a few AVCHD clips from the Canon Vixia. I was able to import them, and add them to the timeline, but every time I tried to burn I code a transcode error SOMEWHERE.
(As an aside, I worked in software for 16 years, and right now I'd love to take the development manager for PRE by the scruff of the neck and give him/her a serious dressing down. Who writes software that just FAILS after running for an hour without ANY sort of diagnostics or logging? Sheesh! Someone tell me I just didn't see the "turn on diagnostic logging preference," please...)

So I thought, OK, I'll just yank out those AVCHD clips. Not so easy - every time I tried that, PRE would hang. The project had become basically uneditable.
In some desperation I went back to one of the AutoSaved PRE projects from before I added the AVCHD's - but every time I try to burn that, it also gets a transcode error (at a non-repeatable point).
I get errors even if I reboot and immediately try to burn, and even when I turn off everything nonessential in MSCONFIG.
[ The transcode errors are why I ordered PRE 10 ($62.99 at Amazon, cheaper than the PRE 9->10 upgrade from Adobe itself. Huh?), and why I ordered the Barracuda XT, which will be dedicated to video, based on reading some of the forum threads here. ]

So while I wait for those to get to me, I thought I'd just play around with some suggestions from these forums, ie, convert things to DV BEFORE importing/adding to PRE.

For the iPhone4 MOV's I have used Quicktime Pro. Seemed reasonable enough. But I encountered a slight problem in that many of the videos are portrait (ie, they were taken with the phone held vertically). When QT Pro converts them to DV, it changes them to landscape mode, and stretches the video to fit - which makes for rather a lot of distortion. I found three workarounds to this though:
1. Scale the width to 31.6% in the clip properties (under motion) in PRE
2. Use letterboxing when converting in QT Pro
3. After exporting to DV, open the new DV file in QT pro, go to Movie Properties, and adjust the Scaled size (Visual Settings) for the Video Track to 270x480.
(All three of the options above seemed to produce videos that looked right, with no discernable difference in quality when playing the DVD on a 60" flatscreen). Yes Virginia, I have too many toys.

But my REAL concern is that the ultimate video quality, when pre-converted through QT pro, iS NOTICEABLY worse than allowing PRE to do the rendering. And there isn't any real control over settings for exporting to a "DV-Stream" from QT Pro.
=> Question 2 for the MuviPix-er's is - What do you recommend for pre-converting iPhone4 video to with the highest quality?

Finally, I tried using SUPER converter (recommended here) to convert some of the AVCHD from the Canon HF11 to DV, and it failed every time. In fact, SUPER failed on everything, with no useful diagnostics either. So the question here is what have people had success with for converting AVCHD, and combining it with, say, iPhone video to make a DVD?

And once I get DVD's down, then, sucker that I am, I want to move up to Blu-Rays, since the video quality of even an iPhone on a nice sunny day seems much better than a regular DVD...

Thanks for any suggestions/assistance - and please don't tell me to get a mac and use iWhatever. I like my iPhone, but I'm not quite ready to succumb entirely to the Cupertino Koolaid quite yet
Dave

[John 'twosheds' McDonald]

Hi Dave. Firstly, welcome to Muvipix.

Now the probably not so helpful. I'm afraid that I use PPro not PrEl so can't help a lot there and also I am the proud owner of an iNothing - no iPhone, no iPad, no iTunes , zilch.

So having set out my stall the only help that I can suggest is that, for file conversion, you try some of the ideas contained in this thread:-

viewtopic.php?f=11&t=10489

.....and just because I can't help beyond that, well, be patient. Someone will be along soon that uses the same technology as you and they will pitch in with answers that should get you on your way.

[Steve Grisetti]

iPhone video can be challenging for Premiere Elements, Dave. In fact, rather than trying to force it to go, I'd recommend investing $29 in Quicktime Pro from Apple. Not only will it edit that video, but it can also convert the video to a format Premiere Elements can work with, if you need more advanced editing tools.

We also recommend regularly on this forum that you NOT mix different video formats in the same project -- especially such different formats as an iPhone, AVCHD and video from a still camera. It can only lead to problems. You're best to convert these videos to a common format and then mix them in a project set up for that format.

And, hey, welcome to Muvipix!

[Dave McElderry]

He's already using QT Pro Steve.

For the iPhone4 MOV's I have used Quicktime Pro. Seemed reasonable enough. But I encountered a slight problem in that many of the videos are portrait (ie, they were taken with the phone held vertically). When QT Pro converts them to DV, it changes them to landscape mode, and stretches the video to fit - which makes for rather a lot of distortion. I found three workarounds to this though:
1. Scale the width to 31.6% in the clip properties (under motion) in PRE
2. Use letterboxing when converting in QT Pro
3. After exporting to DV, open the new DV file in QT pro, go to Movie Properties, and adjust the Scaled size (Visual Settings) for the Video Track to 270x480.
(All three of the options above seemed to produce videos that looked right, with no discernable difference in quality when playing the DVD on a 60" flatscreen). Yes Virginia, I have too many toys.

But my REAL concern is that the ultimate video quality, when pre-converted through QT pro, iS NOTICEABLY worse than allowing PRE to do the rendering. And there isn't any real control over settings for exporting to a "DV-Stream" from QT Pro.

Maybe you can help him with some of the problems he's experiencing with it, especially the quality issues? I don't have it myself.

I've used iPhone video files with V9 with no problems, but as Steve suggests, the problems likely come more from mixing formats in the same project. Welcome to Muvipix! Good to have another Dave on board!

[VernonRobinson]

To do the conversions, have you tried putting each type into PrEl and exporting each type seperately to DV-AVI? I do not have an iPhone to try, but this would avoid adding more tools to the mix.

-Vernon

[Dave McElderry]

To do the conversions, have you tried putting each type into PrEl and exporting each type seperately to DV-AVI? I do not have an iPhone to try, but this would avoid adding more tools to the mix.

-Vernon

This should definitely work, as I've done the same with iPhone video files. Wish I'd mentioned it!

[Barb O]

Hi Dave and welcome to muvipix

2. Canon Vixia HF11, which produces 1920x1080 AVCHD ("MTS" files) at 29fps, 24MBPS

I noticed that some of your video is from a Canon Vixia camcorder. Since I have a Vixia HF M31, it seems that my camcorder has similarities to yours.

1 - Conversion to standard definition within the camera

My scenario is different than yours. However what I did recently might help toward your creating a standard definition DVD of your video. My HFM31 has the capability (within the camera) to convert AVCHD format to SD DVD (.mod) format for the objective of creating a standard DVD for TV playback. My original AVCHD video file was on the built in flash memory and the converted .mod file was written to an SDHC flash card (inserted in its slot on the camera).

Does your Canon Vixia HF11 have this conversion from AVCHD to standard def ?
If yes, you could try it on a sample of your video. Then in a Premiere Elements project for a .mod file, you could output the same format as you have created for your iPhone video (probably DV-AVI). Once you have all video in the same format, you could do your editing in a new Premiere Elements project and output to the DVD disc.

Yes this does 2 conversions and I can't comment on the quality impact. So I am posting this as a suggestion to consider rather than a recommendation.

2 - FYI -- An observation about camera recording settings

Your post says that you recorded at 24MBPS so I suspect that you had the setting of "MXP" (24 Mbps) in your camera. I mention this because I had been told by the people at the camera store in August 2011, that I should use the camera setting of "FXP" (which is 17 Mbps) if I planned to edit the video in Premiere Elements 9. Unfortunately, I don't know if this info helps to explain why you had trouble in Premiere Elements.

[DSimson]

Thanks everyone for your suggestions and comments!

I have a little more followup info, at least for the iPhone4 video, for use on a standard definition DVD.
I tried using PRE to export the file as an AVI, as well as trying the STOIK converter (mov to AVI is free), and looked into any options I could find in Quicktime Pro.

Results:
1. Exporting/Saving as an AVI from PRE gives, not surprisingly, the same quality as using the 720p .MOV form the iPhone directly in the project. But that would be quite cumbersome from a workflow perspective.
2. STOIK also produces a high-quality AVI, but something about the aspect ratio is not quite right - the portrait (vertical) videos come out a little too narrow. I'm tabling that for now, although STOIK's ability to batch up and run a large number of conversions is very attractive.
3. Quicktime Pro, it turns out, has an option for conversion to DV that makes all the difference. It supports both "DV" and "DVCPRO" format. DV results in poor quality video, but DVCPRO works great - and using the letterbox option lets me avoid the manual scaling step in PRE.

I'll wait until PRE 10 to retry the AVCHD - hopefully the 64 bit support and any bug fixes will help - and I'll probably look into one of the AVCHD-specific conversion tools.

It also occurred to me that with 64bit obj/exe code, PRE *should* (but I won't hold my breath) actually be able to use that 18 gig of RAM I have on the box. Because so far, memory usage has never gotten up above 4G - and using the other 14G PRE should be able to do all its conversions and encoding entirely in memory without even having to touch the disk - until it is ready to write out the DVD files.

I'll post anything else I discover.

Thanks!
Dave