Video Help

[CCChang]

Well, these are questions I'll need to know before I start a new project which will probably make me lose sanity, but it'll be worth it hopefully...

1. The format of the anime files I'm using are .mkv. Will that be a problem in anyway compared to using .avi?

2. What compressor should I set in Premiere at the start to use? I've got that Huffiyuv v21.1, but should I start off with that?

3. What other starting options should I use such as the settings of Huffiyuv, the audio sample rate, video pixel aspect, display format, fields, etc

4. When I export the AMV with Huffiyuv, what do I do with it then?

5. If I have to use a different codec, which is better and what settings should I use for the following; XVid or DivX?

6. How can I use After Effects together with Premiere? I heard that you can do the video arangement in Premiere and then somehow share the file in After Effects to do the effects. I tried doing something like this before, but it couldn't do it for some reason.


I barely made my other AMV's without knowing these things, but I'm not going to do that this time so please, help me with my questions.

[CCChang]

More questions...

7. Having read a guide ("Playing Those Damn Videos in Windows!") and installed support that would help me play .mkv, it's now screwing me big time. I can only play it, but not edit it. VDub, Premiere and even Windows Movie Maker won't accept it because it isn't supported for some reason. Can someone please tell me what I've done wrong?

[CCChang]

More questions...

7. Having read a guide ("Playing Those Damn Videos in Windows!") and installed support that would help me play .mkv, it's now screwing me big time. I can only play it, but not edit it. VDub, Premiere and even Windows Movie Maker won't accept it because it isn't supported for some reason. Can someone please tell me what I've done wrong?

More info (sorry, forgot to include something); I haven't changed anything in the settings durring installation except made it do an additional task which was register extensions in media player.

[CrackTheSky]

1. The format of the anime files I'm using are .mkv. Will that be a problem in anyway compared to using .avi?

Ho, yeah. Editing programs are only going to do well with an .avi container that is using video compressed in a lossless codec like HuffYUV or Lagarith.

2-5

Read.

[Qyot27]

3. What other starting options should I use such as the settings of Huffiyuv, the audio sample rate, video pixel aspect, display format, fields, etc

The audio sample rate should ideally match the sample rate of the audio file being used. Normally this means either 44100 Hz or 48000 Hz.

Fields should be set on 'No Fields' or 'Progressive' - your footage should be deinterlaced or inverse telecined beforehand, however. Considering the source in this case, it's probably already progressive, so just make sure it remains that way.

Pixel aspect heavily relies on what you're aiming this for. If you want a smooth transition for DVD encodes later, use 720x480 and the D1/DV NTSC (0.9) - this is assuming NTSC, of course; PAL settings will differ - NTSC is used North America & Japan, PAL is used pretty much everywhere else. If you simply figure for Internet distribution or non-DVD-based hardware, then use the Square Pixels setting and 640x480 or other mathematically 4:3 ratio. It gets more complicated if the footage is widescreen, but it's not too hard to figure out from there (unless you want to get into encoding things for anamorphic DVD, etc. - even still that sort of stuff is better left in the distro-prep stage; I'd suggest editing widescreen footage at the real resolution and with Square Pixels).

I don't know what 'display format' is referring to, but that's possibly because I use Premiere 6.5 and it doesn't use that terminology (or I just can't seem to find it).