Jumpy AVI files

[cincinedit]

When I film my sons pee wee football games using my sony HDD camcorder it creates MPG files. To save time and disk space I stop and start for each play which creates about 60-70 files per game. I can usually fit 4 games on one 4.3 DVD. When I used PE3 if would bring in the 60 files and then export it as one MPG DVD quality file of the entire game. I would then bring the one file back into PE3 so instead of working with 180 files for 3 games I only had 3. Now after upgrading to PE7 and reading this board I brought in the 60 files and exported it as an AVI file and then brought the file back into PE7 to create the DVD. When I watch the DVD created with the AVI file motion seems jumpy. When there is not a not of motion or it is slow the picture looks okay. But when the running back is running down the field his legs look a little blurry. Is there some setting I am missing when I export the avi file. When I go to burn the disk I am on the highest quality setting at bitrate of 8.0mbps

PLease let me know what I am missing.

Thanks
Mike

[Bobby]

I am betting you have brought HD files into a SD project. Bring the HD files into an HD project, and then export the AVI from there.

[cincinedit]

No I have a SD camcorder and preferance for PE7 are set to DV NTSC widescreen as I have a 16:9 camcorder

[Chuck Engels]

Sounds like a problem with the field order possibly.
Try this test on a few clips that you know have problems on the DVD.

Open a new Premiere Elements project but use the 'Hard Disk, Flash Memory Camcorders' project preset.
Then export the AVI, bring that into a new project and burn a DVD.

There is a good possibility this will fix your problem. I am thinking there is a difference between the way version 3 was handling your mpeg files and the way that version 7 does.

[cincinedit]

This one is a little strange but hey ever since I started using PE7 vs PE3 things have been strange. I went a head and did what you said. I took one file with a 50 yard run. I took the original file and exported the avi with the presets as HDD camcorder, DV camcorder, and I also used the file menu to export an uncompressed microsoft avi file. I put all three exported avi files on the same time line as the original file and burn a DVD. There was NO major change between the original, DV camcorder preset, or uncompressed microsoft avi files. But the AVI file with the HDD preset setting look jumpy. Not sure why the setting one would thing would be the best was the worst.

Sometimes I wonder why I upgraded to PE7 its has been more grief than benefit so far.

[Bob]

Mike, from your description, this sounds like a classic field order problem.

Interlaced footage divides each frame into two fields. One field contains the even numbered horizontal lines and the other contains the odd numbered lines. The field that contains the top scan line is called the "upper" or ''"top" field, the other is called the "lower" or "bottom" field because it contains the bottom scan line. Except for some camcorders that have a "progressive" mode that captures a frame and then creates the two fields from the same frame, the camcorder first captures one field and then captures the second field. So there is a time element involved. As long as the fields are viewed in the same order as they were captured, everything looks ok. However, if the fields are viewed in the reverse order. the image will look blurry or jumpy where there is motion. The faster the motion the worse the problem.

The field order of the clip is determined by the footage format. Dv-avi uses a lower field first format, whereas most hard disk and HD footage uses a upper field first format. To complicate matters, the project has a field order associated with it that determines the order that the fields are read from the footage that is placed on the time line. The project preset determines what that will be. High def projects have upper field first while standard definition projects may be upper field first for HDD presets or lower field first for mini-dv (dv-avi) presets. If you place a dv-avi clip (lower field first) on a HDD preset timeline (upper field first), the fields will be read in the wrong order. If all the clips are of the same type, use a project preset that matches that field order and you will be OK. If you are mixing clips with different field orders (for example mpeg and dv-avi in an HDD project), you will need to right click on the clips that don't match the project preset, select the field order option, and check the reverse field dominance checkbox.

[cincinedit]

Changing the filed order options does not seem to help it in fact make the video in the preview screen look worse. Where as before the preview screen looked great. Its only until after the video of the avi file is burned does it become jumpy. I think I am now more confused than every. There are two many setting for all this stuff. PE 3.0 was so much easier.

I guess I should add that I am not using PE to get the mpg files off the camcorder. I am using the sony supplied software picture browser 4.2.10 to put files on my external hard drive and then using PE7 to bring the files in for editing.

[Chuck Engels]

Ok, lets kind of slow down and get some more information.

What model of camcorder is the footage from?
What Sony Software are you using to capture the footage.
Are you converting the footage in the Sony Software before importing into Premier Elements?
Does this work without any problems in Premiere Elements 3?

[Bob]

I agree with Chuck, we've got to get more information to figure out what's going on.

I, for one, am confused as to which project presets you are using and when. What project preset did you use when you brought the mpg files into PE7 to combine into one file? Did you export the combined file as a dvd quality mpeg or as an avi? Avi, right? What project preset did you use when you brought the combined file into PE7 in order to create the dvd?

I'd like you to also use Gspot (http://www.headbands.com/gspot/) to check the field order of the clips. Open the clips in Gspot and over on the right middle side there will be a highlighted "I/L" to indicate interlaced footage and there will be a highlighted "UFF" for upper field first or a highlighted "BFF" for bottom field first. Gspot will also identify the file type and the codec being used. What are you seeing for the original clips and the combined clips?