Four major problems with Premiere Pro CS3 at DVinfo.net

Richard Vaughan · December 23rd, 2007, 06:43 PM

I have been using Premiere for years for DV but for only a few months for HDV. Recently I have run into four problems that need to be addressed to make Premiere work as expected.

First, Premiere sometimes crashes while encoding a project for Blu-ray, often midway through the second pass of a 2-pass VBR. This is decidedly not user friendly: there is no way to resume the encoding at the latest "good" spot, so an enormous amount of time may be wasted.

Second, I prefer to edit in HD, export to Encore in Blu-ray MPEG2, and only downconvert to DVD MPEG2 as the final step from Encore. In this way I preserve the option of making a Blu-ray version of the same project later. But sometimes -- not always -- the Blu-ray MPEG2 files exported from Premiere cannot be imported by Encore without causing it to crash, instantly and completely. This is disappointing because of the lost time as well as because it forces me to downconvert from Premiere, which appears to me to be of lower quality than going through Encore.

Third, and VERY IMPORTANT, Premiere sometimes loses synch between audio and video. I have observed this in two projects. In the first, an entire clip was out of synch (audio later than video) by several seconds. I thought this was a capture problem -- I had captured using Premiere -- so I recaptured that clip using HDVsplit and the problem went away.

In the second project, there was a video glitch about 19 1/2 minutes into an hour-long clip and the audio became later than the video for the remaining 40 minutes, by about 1.5 seconds. This time a recapture using HDVsplit did not correct the problem. But when I redid the project in Vegas, using the files originally captured by Premiere, the audio and video remained perfectly in synch; Vegas simply inserted a bit of black video at the point of the glitch. So I believe the problem was a dropout on the tape, and Vegas handled it MUCH more gracefully than Premiere.

Since the trouble with the second project was not a capture problem on the part of Premiere, I have begun to think that the trouble with the first project was also a dropout, at the beginning of the bad clip, not on the tape but just caused by a transmission error when starting the capture.

The point is that Premiere must do a better job of handling dropouts or it can never be trusted. Vegas seems to be much more reliable here.

Fourth, as I mentioned above, there seems to me to be a quality difference between exporting HDV from Premiere directly to DVD MPEG2 versus exporting as Blu-ray MPEG2 to Encore and later transcoding for DVD. In fact, the direct downconverting quality is disappointing. Vegas seems better in this regard.

Any thoughts from you experts would be appreciated!

Mike Teutsch · December 23rd, 2007, 07:40 PM

Capture using drop frame detection (Stop capture on dropped frame), get the latest updates from Adobe. Check this forum for similar problems of others by using the search function of the forum. Contact Adobe with the problems you are having.

I don't burn Blueray but have experienced no other problems.

Good luck!

M

December 23rd, 2007, 06:43 PM	#1
Richard Vaughan New Boot Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Highland Park, IL Posts: 12	Four major problems with Premiere Pro CS3 I have been using Premiere for years for DV but for only a few months for HDV. Recently I have run into four problems that need to be addressed to make Premiere work as expected. First, Premiere sometimes crashes while encoding a project for Blu-ray, often midway through the second pass of a 2-pass VBR. This is decidedly not user friendly: there is no way to resume the encoding at the latest "good" spot, so an enormous amount of time may be wasted. Second, I prefer to edit in HD, export to Encore in Blu-ray MPEG2, and only downconvert to DVD MPEG2 as the final step from Encore. In this way I preserve the option of making a Blu-ray version of the same project later. But sometimes -- not always -- the Blu-ray MPEG2 files exported from Premiere cannot be imported by Encore without causing it to crash, instantly and completely. This is disappointing because of the lost time as well as because it forces me to downconvert from Premiere, which appears to me to be of lower quality than going through Encore. Third, and VERY IMPORTANT, Premiere sometimes loses synch between audio and video. I have observed this in two projects. In the first, an entire clip was out of synch (audio later than video) by several seconds. I thought this was a capture problem -- I had captured using Premiere -- so I recaptured that clip using HDVsplit and the problem went away. In the second project, there was a video glitch about 19 1/2 minutes into an hour-long clip and the audio became later than the video for the remaining 40 minutes, by about 1.5 seconds. This time a recapture using HDVsplit did not correct the problem. But when I redid the project in Vegas, using the files originally captured by Premiere, the audio and video remained perfectly in synch; Vegas simply inserted a bit of black video at the point of the glitch. So I believe the problem was a dropout on the tape, and Vegas handled it MUCH more gracefully than Premiere. Since the trouble with the second project was not a capture problem on the part of Premiere, I have begun to think that the trouble with the first project was also a dropout, at the beginning of the bad clip, not on the tape but just caused by a transmission error when starting the capture. The point is that Premiere must do a better job of handling dropouts or it can never be trusted. Vegas seems to be much more reliable here. Fourth, as I mentioned above, there seems to me to be a quality difference between exporting HDV from Premiere directly to DVD MPEG2 versus exporting as Blu-ray MPEG2 to Encore and later transcoding for DVD. In fact, the direct downconverting quality is disappointing. Vegas seems better in this regard. Any thoughts from you experts would be appreciated!

December 23rd, 2007, 07:40 PM	#2
Mike Teutsch Inner Circle Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: Port St. Lucie, Florida Posts: 2,614	Capture using drop frame detection (Stop capture on dropped frame), get the latest updates from Adobe. Check this forum for similar problems of others by using the search function of the forum. Contact Adobe with the problems you are having. I don't burn Blueray but have experienced no other problems. Good luck! M __________________ Chapter one, line one. The BH.