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I'm an IT "professional" who sometimes has to deal with small video conversion / video cutting projects, and I'd like to learn "the right way" to do this. Every time I search Google, there's always a disaster for weird, low-maturity trialware, or random forums threads from 3-4 years ago indicating various antiquated method to do it.
The big question is the following: What are the "general" guidelines and tools to transcode video into some efficient (lossless?) intermediary, for editing purposes, for the purpose of eventually re-encoding it after?
It seems to me like even the simplest of formats and tasks are a disaster of endless trial & error, or expertise only known by hardened experts who have a swiss army kife of weird conversion tools that they use, almost as if mounting an attack against the project.
Here are a few cases in point:
- Simple VOB files extracted from DVD footage can't be imported into Adobe Premiere directly.
- Virtualdub is an old software people keep recommending but doesn't seem to support newer formats.
- I don't even know how to tell with certainty which codecs a video has, and weather the image is interlaced or not, and what resolution and codecs I'm dealing with.
Problems:
- Choosing a wrong interlace option which diminishes quality
- Choosing a wrong pixel aspect ratio (stretches the image)
- Choosing a wrong "project type" in Premiere causing footage to require scaling
- Being forced to use some weird program that will have any number of negative effects
What I'm looking for:
- Books or "Real knowledge" on format conversions, recognized tools, etc. that aren't some random forum guides on how to deal with video formats.
- Workflow guidelines on identifying a format going from one format to another without problems as mentioned above.
- Documentation on what programs like Adobe Premiere can and can't do with regards to formats, so that I don't use a wrench as a hammer.
TL;DR
How should you convert or "prepare" a video file to ensure it will be supported by Premiere for editing?
Is premiere a suitable program to handle cropping, encoding, or should other tools be used for this, when making a video montage from a variety of source formats?
What are some good books to read that specifically deal with converting videos that use any number of codecs?
As for tools—and I might come back later with an answer—you can safely use
– slhck – 2012-10-18T05:50:21.447ffmbc
. It converts to intermediary formats like DNxHD, one I personally like, and supports almost any format.I'd really want to close this as "not constructive", but your bounty blocks me from doing this... – bwDraco – 2012-10-23T15:38:48.940
@DragonLord Why? How can this question not be answered with specific expertise? – slhck – 2012-10-23T15:39:44.247
@slhck: This question is asking for wide-open answers that are subjective in nature, even if they are derived from experience or expertise. I might be mistaken, and this might be a "good subjective" question, but I felt this was a bit too subjective for Super User (a programming-related question of similar nature would be allowed on [programmers.se], though).
– bwDraco – 2012-10-23T15:43:13.270@DragonLord For what it's worth, I believe this question is inspiring long, but factual answers. There isn't a lot of subjectivity when it comes to analyzing footage and determining appropriate intermediate formats, especially with regards to specified software like Adobe Premiere. It supports something, or it doesn't. The OP has even specified what constitutes a "good" answer, so I'd leave this question open for now – but will definitely monitor it. – slhck – 2012-10-23T15:49:25.423
I believe what I'm going to do is break down this question into 3 shorter questions so that we can have more focused answers. This is perhaps too much to handle all in one go. One will be specific to general transcoding, another for premiere input formats, and another one which will be inspired by the results of the first 2. – cloneman – 2012-11-10T08:51:51.973