MSPro6/6.5 vs. Premiere: EditorTestFiles2.zip

[Dr Mordrid]

Have at 'em boys;

http://DigitalVideo.8m.net/EditorTestFiles2.zip

1. both Premiere6 and MSPro6/6.5 projects included.

2. Extract the zipped folder to the root of your video drive. Both sets of projects are in it.

3. When you load in the Premiere project you'll have to relink the title file. If it's in the same folder it'll be in the dialog when it pops up.

2. The same effects were used in both editors. I also I tried to keep the moving paths as close as possible, which means the tumbles & gyrations are gone from the MSPro version since Premiere's motion functions are very limited in comparison.

3. I changed the title to have no color border, again in deference to Premiere's lame titler.

4. The effects used are RT-2000/RT-2500 realtime Premiere effects list when using versons 3.0 and 3.1 of the Video Tools.

5. You have no idea how much more time it takes to do this sequence in Premiere vs. MSPro!! Did I ever miss MSPro's keyframable color clips when setting up the variable color timelines. This forced me to use the color balance filter instead, but that's the way it goes.

It's also interesting that Premiere's project + title file run about 68k while MSPro's project file, title included, only runs 14k.

Enjoy....

Dr. Mordrid

[Patrick]

Details, I need details...

I've tried doing this test several different ways on my system which has MSP6 loaded. However, it's not exactly clear to me what it is we're supposed to be trying to do. To compare apples with apples, I think there needs to be a few more guidelines. For example, are we to create files which are frame or field based (ie. interlaced or not). This alone makes a huge difference on my system when creating MPEG 2 files. Also, are these MPEG 2 files to be rendered within MSP6 directly from the project timeline, or are they to be converted from an already rendered AVI(DV) file using an entirely different program (such as TMPGEnc)? Forgive me if I've missed the obvious, but I can't be the only one!

One other (related) question- Whenever I try to render a MPEG 2 file from within MSP6 and choose a Variable Video Data Rate, I get the error message, "Failed to open the MPEG encoder". If I choose a Constant Video Data Rate there's no problem. Suggestions?

[Sciascia]

Me too. What are the project settings supposed to be? I open it and it is set for DV Type1, but I can't remember if that was form me dorking around or if that is waht we should be using. I have no Firewire so I am not familiar with DV settings. I use MJPEG for almost all of my editing.

Did you want it to be in DV, I imagine that would effect the encoding time as well, or not?

When I hit the preview I get something around 8-9 minutes estimated preview time.

I also have CCE mPEGG installed, so I would be curious as to how that compares to the Ligos built in one. What bitrate should I set it for?

[wkulecz]

Let's keep it simple. Double click the project file and let MSP or Premiere start. Make sure the preview range is the entire project and start rendering the previw. Time how long it takes.

If you have MSP6.5 or the DVDplugin, after the preview is rendered do File->Create and chose mpg with NTSC-DVD VBR 5500 template (we need to standardize on something, I'm finding if you go much below this nobody will mistake your mpeg2 for a real DVD, so I think this is a good starting point). For MSP6 and Premiere the bundled mpeg encoders are too poor in quality to bother with (Premiere's "Cleaner 5EZ" is much worse).

Here's preview rendering results on my Dell Inspiron 7500 notebook, PIII-700 128MB SDRAM, 20GB 4200RPM internal drive.

MSP6.0ve 13:50
Premiere6 35:29


Over the next few days I'll do preview tests for Premiere6 and MSP6.5 and mpeg2 encodings for MSP6.5 (Premiere is worthless for mpeg unless you are willing to buy some other encoder or use TMPGEnc) on Athelon 1.4GHz with 1.5GB SDRAM, PIII-800, and dual PIII-500 (both these have the BX's maximum of 1GB SDRAM.


Lets see some RT2000/2500 and DV500 results too!

--wally.

[Dr Mordrid]

I'd time the following;

1. initial preview generation time

now delete the preview file in the preview file manager and....

2. export a DV type 1 file to disk (it's set for this when it loads)

3. export a VBR MPEG-2 using the DVD preset.

Dr. Mordrid

[wkulecz]

Instead export a Type 2 in MSP and a Type 1 in Premiere, both are "poor" at their non-native DV types.

There is no end to the possibilities, but am I alone in thinking that exporting DV is the least important of the three? Resullts will be all over the map if the preview files aren't deleted. This will bring in a lot more disk subsystem influence -- on my notebook everything has to be on one drive unless I plug in the 1394 external.

--wally.

[Sciascia]

OK, here is what I got with MSP 6.0 and the mPEGG encoder plugin.

Render preview-- 9:06
Create DV file to disc-- 9:00
Create MPEG2 compliant DVD at 5500--8:09


Athlon 1.4G
512M SDRAMM PC 133
Epox 8KTA3 Pro
Marvel G400 TV
Diamond MX 300
Promise FT 100

[Pooh]

My results are as follows

Preview file 17m 54s
export to tape 17m 57s
export to mpeg2 17m 0s

Premier 6
RT2000 with MVT 3.1 Beta - Hardware rendering
Athlon 1400 o/c 1530
Abit KG7 FSB o/c to 139mhz
512Mb DDR RAM Cas2 set to Fast in Bios
Windows 2000 Pro SP2
IBM Deskstars 7200rpm 30 + 40 + 40 Gb on IDE1 and Promise Ultra 100

Regards

Pooh

[Patrick]

My turn...

Although loading a dvp project file in MSP configures the Project Settings, I still feel it's necessary for anyone trying this test to make sure we're all on the same page. After all, the Project Settings can always be changed after the project has been loaded. Therefore, I stand by the reservations I expressed earlier about interlaced vs non-interlaced, etc. Results from this test are hardly worthwhile if we're all doing the test slightly different from each other. Having said all that, I simply (well, not so simply) ran the test several different ways. Hopefully someone will find my results of interest.

These were the DV (AVI) files.

DV type 1 (field order A)..............................................11:43
DV type 1 (frame)........................................... ...................8:20

These were the DVD files created directly off the timeline.

DVD (constant) 5500 (field order A).......................... 14:17
DVD (constant) 5500 (frame)........................................ 10:35

I had to configure the DVD setting as "constant" because trying "variable" gives me an error message (as I stated in my first post) when doing this within MSP.

I then created the same DVD files as above, only this time I converted the already rendered DV (AVI) files.

DVD (constant) 5500 (from field order A based DV)... 7:29
DVD (constant) 5500 (from frame based DV)................. 7:29

My relevant system specs are as follows:

MSP 6.0
Win98se
Asus CUBX (440BX) with Bios 1008 beta 3
C900@1116
1024 Mbs PC133 RAM
No swapfile (to speak of). 10 Mbs min/max.

Draw your own conclusions.