Recently I was asked to make a video loop to play on the hotel television system during this week's convention. No problem, I had already begun receiving videos. The format requirements were simple: DV tape, DVCAM tape or authored DVD.
In reality, I received videos in the following formats: DV tape, Authored DVD, Windows Media, MPEG-1, MPEG-4, H.264, DIVX - all the usual suspects.
In most cases this is not a problem, Premiere Pro 2.0 will import just about every format. A few files had to be converted to another format due to the wrong audio frequency (32 vs 48k). Two videos came in without their audio, so i used Squueze to convert the original file to an MP3,import the MP3 and line it up on the timeline.
Next problem, the videos in a non-720x480 format, about half of them, cannot be stretched to full screen without losing image quality, which in effect would make the authors look bad. So I decided to make the project 16:9. I used a Jumpback from Digital Juice as the background, took the name of the medical society and put this on the left and right sides of the screen ESPN style, and then depending upon the size of the videos centered the image at whatever the maximum size possible for each file. Not too bad, makes it look like it is supposed to be shrunken. Compared to the 720x480 and even the 640x480- videos, the smaller ones don't look so small, because everything is part of a larger display.
After every two author videos is a brief promo clip from the sponsor. Their production group edited the promo in HD, so I asked them for an anamorphic 16:9 DVCAM tape, which imported into the Premiere 16:9 SD project. With the clip conformed to 16:9 it filled the frame perfectly.
On the hotel system, the DVD player feeding the cable system correctly letterboxes the DVD.
On the Plasma screens scattered around the hotel, the standalone DVD players correctly play the DVD anamorphic.
So the learning point here, is given a mixed grab bag of video formats, one can make it look appropriate, make each author look as good as possible and serve more than one display scenario with one project.
Now if I could just find my room key!
Thanks for reading.
Mike
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