hd and sd videos together

[skip]

My wife is considering buying a new camera that takes HD video. My camera just takes SD video. When I put together a PRE 10 project using videos from both cameras, do I use one of the HD presets or the SD preset? How would an HD video look in SD and vice versa? Thanks...

[Steve Grisetti]

I wouldn't recommend you combine the two in a version 10 project, Skip. Version 11 is a bit better at combining them -- but the two don't combine well in version 10.

In most cases, for instances, your standard definition video is interlaced lower field first -- while your high-def is interlaced upper field first. You can manually move along and reconfigure each clip to make them match up. But there's still a good chance that the clips from one camcorder or another are going to look all jiggly in your final output.

That said, if you want to risk it, you'd be best to do it as a standard definition project. It's easier to down-sample too many pixels than it is inflate or create more pixels in a video that doesn't have enough. Make sense?

There are workarounds, of course. You can take all of your high-def footage, put it into a high-def project and then output it as a standard definition AVI. Then you can use it in the same project as your other standard def AVI footage.

But, unfortunately, at least in version 10, there is no easy way to combine those two sources in the same project.

[skip]

Thanks Steve. Looks like you've given me good ammunition to upgrade my camera to an HD model too.

[skip]

Oh, one other question. When I'm working with SD videos I use Streamclip to convert them to the dv format that PRE prefers. Do I have to do a similar conversion with HD videos?

[Chuck Engels]

You shouldn't have to, what is the source of the video? Just need to make sure that you project matches the format of the video.

I recommend starting with an HD project in version 10 but you have to make sure the project matches the HD video in version 10, not the SD video. You might want to give it a try and see if it works for you, I have had pretty good success doing this in version 10

Otherwise, as Steve says, version 11 does a much better job of combining formats into a single project.

[Steve Grisetti]

Why are you converting your SD video? What is your source for it?

[skip]

The source for the SD videos is a Canon S5 IS camera which generates .mvi movie clips. I was under the impression that PRE doesn't like .mvi clips, so I've used Windows movie maker (in Windows xp) and Streamclip (in windows 7) to convert the .mvi clips to dv-avi clips. The dv-avi clips are then used in the PRE project. Been working fine. I guess I would need to know what the format is for the new camera (which we still haven't decided on) in order to know if the HD video files generated by the camera are compatible with PRE 10. Actually the frontrunner is the Sony RX 100 which lists video specs as follows:

Video Format : AVCHD Ver2.0, MP4
Video Mode : AVCHD: 28M PS (1920x1080, 60p) / 24M FX (1920x1080, 60i ) / 17M FH (1920x1080, 60i)MP4: 12M (1440x1080, 30 fps) / 3M VGA (640x480 30 fps)

Are any of those formats compatible with PRE 10, or will I have to convert them somehow to a file format that is compatible, or are those file formats completely incompatible? I don't have any experience working with HD videos.

[Bob]

The Canon Powershots put out video that uses motion jpeg in an avi file. Motion jpeg has been problematic in earlier versions of PrE, but the recent versons handle it better than before. Keep in mind that there are various flavors of motion jpeg and some work better than others. Try importing it directly into PrE without conversion and see if it accepts it and how well it works. It may work fine. If not, you can always continue converting if necessary.

As for the Sony, the only mode that you'll have issues using with PrE is the AVCHD: 28M PS (1920x1080, 60p). 60p is relatively new and there is not a lot of support for it yet. Shoot at 60i and you'll have no problems. If you shoot 60p with the hopes that you'll be able to reedit some time in the future natively at 60p, you'll need to find something that will convert it to 60i. The software that comes with the camera may be able to do that but I'm not familiar with it.

[skip]

Thanks, Bob. I have no reason to shoot at 60p so I'll just avoid it. One final question: if I shoot HD videos, do I have to burn those with an HD burner to a blue ray disk, or can I continue to burn to regular disks? I know the quality won't be as good on a non-blue ray disk.

[Peru]

do I have to burn those with an HD burner to a blue ray disk, or can I continue to burn to regular disks? I know the quality won't be as good on a non-blue ray disk.

Yes, you can burn to DVD with DVD quality.

[Bob]

Since a standard DVD player will not support high definition, you'll need a Blu-Ray player to play high definition content burned to a disk.

If you have a DVD burner but not a Blu-Ray burner, Premiere Elements 10 supports burning an AVCHD disk using a standard DVD. But, you'll still need a Blu-Ray player to play it. However, AVCHD disks are not part of the Blu-Ray specification and not all Blu-Ray players will play them. Furthermore, support for AVCHD disks is a little loose and some devices may not play them properly. AVCHD disks on standard DVDs have a limited capacity and can only hold about a half hour worth of video.

If you don't need menus, some HDTVs and devices can play video exported as an H.264 AVCHD file from a portable memory card.

And, yes, as Peru already pointed out, you can burn your high definition project to a standard definition DVD which will play in a standard DVD player.

[skip]

Thanks for all you help. I've got it.