Re: How to convert HD (.mts) to DV-AVI for use in Premiere 6.5?

Hi Ann,

Alright, I guess I'll have to get used to Premiere Elements 7 after all. But I'll have to convert the originals to a smaller screen size (with the same proportions) before I edit them in PE7. I'm worried my computer, while decent enough, might have trouble handling high-quality 1920x1080 videos.

On a somewhat different topic, I wonder how HD is handled when creating a DVD version. With SD DV-AVI, I encode the 720x480 AVI (3:2, which is a little stretched) to a 720x480 MPEG2 (also stretched), and the result when watched on computer or TV is a picture with normal 4:3 proportions (like 640x480). It's probably not the same with HD. The authoring software I use doesn't support HD, so I haven't had a chance to experiment with this. I can only assume that software that does support HD produces a picture of appropriate proportions.

I must admit that I don't quite understand the 720x480 format you get with DV-AVI. Why is it stretched? Why not capture 640x480 footage directly? I mean, why don't the original footage and the picture on a TV have the same proportions? Is it the same with HD? From the videos I've shot so far, the picture appears normal to me, unlike the stretched 720x480. If it's the case, do the proportions change when creating a DVD, or do they stay the same (resulting in a letterboxed picture, of course)?

Francois