Hi everyone

We have been asked to provide our visualisation job to client also on a DVD that can play on a standard dvd player.  The original video we created is a .wmv from Premiere at 1280 x 720.  Just wondering what is the best way to convert this to DVD format without losing any quality?

Do you still have the still frames in PNG or JPG format, or did you render direct to WMV?

we still have frames, but would prefer not to have to use them.

You should definitely use the frames though, bearing in mind you asked for the “best way to convert this”.  If you still have the Premiere project, you should just be able to load it up and adjust the output settings for the project.

If you convert the WMV to a different resolution, the output quality is always going to be poor, because too compression will have already been applied.

If you really can’t go down the original frames route, you could try this free tool from Microsoft to convert the WMV. The name of this product has changed since I last used it, but last time I looked it would input/output WMV at a range of resolutions.

http://www.microsoft.com/expression/video.aspx

Thanks for that, we cant use the original frames because we have changed around the framerates to satisfy the speed that the client wanted without us having to render the whole job again.

Will try using the microsoft tool

Cheers Bruce

Hey, Dave.  Bruce is right (ideally you always work from the best source) however in the past I’ve never had any concern (and I’m usually pretty picky) with outputting to PAL from the WMV because your WMV will be downsampled as part of the creation process so even if there’s a compression loss going from frames to WMV, you’re probably not going to notice it when it’s gone to PAL.

Hi Pete.  I managed to use [removed]from Bruce’s post) to reduce the wmv from 1280x720 to 720x404 (is this the best resolution for dvd to keep the 16:9 aspect?).

Problem is now it’s still just a .wmv, what do you use to either burn it or convert it to dvd format?
What do you use to make dvds?

I use Premiere Pro, mind you, I’ve not used it to do DVD’s for a while.  In fact, I think the process changed from what I was used to, to what it used in CS4 or newer.  You can use Encore (I think I used this last time?) or probably even After Effects?

There’s no need to compile it to a WMV with a PAL resolution because when you export to DVD from the high res WMV, that downsampling to PAL resolution automatically occurs (MPEG2-DVD).  It’s been ages since I’ve thought about this sort of stuff (so this could be misinformation) but I think that even though you have a widescreen output being dumped to PAL, the res is still 720 x 576 however it’s flagged in widescreen so the pixel aspect ration changes from being ~square to 1.45ish.

[the res is still 720 x 576 however it’s flagged in widescreen so the pixel aspect ration changes from being ~square to 1.45ish.]

Maybe that’s why it went so chunky when we made it dvd format, because the wmv i made at 720 x 404 was still good quality.  I’ll have to try using this file and then exporting it to dvd with either premiere, after effects or encore.

Cheers

Probably.  Something else that won’t help would be going from a higher bitrate for the WMV to a lower bitrate with the MPEG2.

As good a step DVD was from VHS, it’s rather deficient in todays age of HD (however some studios still achieve good transfers to DVD).  See if it allows you to improve the bitrate.  If you have the time, you might as well test it at 4:3 just to compare pixel size.

If you have Adobe Encore, you can create DVDs from Premiere or finished movie files. It doesn’t matter what the output was whether wmv, mv2, mpg etc.