Update 3:

I read in another forum that the motion menu thing is sometimes caused by the encoding e.g. Matrox real time to disc so I imported avi as asset & it worked, further testing to be done I think.
I could live without motion menus but would rather not.
Especially now I have got the tutorial to make them in After Effects.


Regards .

Peter

Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5 Studio Techniques
 

Just ordered the book Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5 Studio Techniques. Has anyone used this to learn their software and does anyone recommend it. On a scale rating of 1 to 5, how helpfull is it?

Jay

No, although my capture window is 4:3, the 16:9 image of the footage being captured is letterboxed within it properly. Is it automatically capturing to a 24fps timeline? Which pull-down method are you using, 2:3 or 2:3:3:2?

Guys,

I have been off all week, so have only just read your replies.

I want to thank you all for you're very helpfull advice - It may well save me a fortune in the long run. I came across this website by accident, and have picked up more info here, than I have pouring through magazines for the last 6 months)

I will contact Matrox today, and am now seriously considering the RTX 100, after your advice.

I see there are two versions :
Matrox RTX 100 Xtreme Pro Suite (£784.99 on dabs.com)
Matrox RTX 100 Xtreme Pro Collection (£971.99 on dabs.com)
Any comments on the difference between these two, or where i may find it cheaper (Im in the Uk.....and Ed - Small world !!).

I think I need to buy me a new system. At the mo, I have a 1.4 AMD, 512 memory, and Win98. I know i need XP to get premiere pro. I havent even got a DVD writer yet, so will need to find me one of those (but i'll save that for another post :-)

Once again, thanks for all your comments,
Richard.

ps - got me an XM2 a few weeks back, and managed to bag my way into the press end of the Bafta Awards Red carpet, in leicester square last weekend, and have got some stunning footage - It has absolutely nothing to do with this post, but I cant help mentioning it whenever I can - Compulsive show-off im afraid !!!

Hi Richard I beleive that the 'collection' edition has After effects where as the 'suite' does not have after effects.

At the video forum they were doing a special deal on the RTX 100 I think it was about £600 or less, whertehr or not the deal is still on I don't know...

You could try plaent PC:

http://www.planetdv.net/

They could also put a whole system together for you....

<<<-- Originally posted by Richard Hardiman : ps - got me an XM2 a few weeks back, and managed to bag my way into the press end of the Bafta Awards Red carpet, in leicester square last weekend -->>>

nice work! how you manage that, good contact or good persuasive skills ? :D

James, I think the fact that I had,comparitevely, a large 'propper looking' camera, and the fact that the copper who was supposed to be stopping people going through was getting a roasting from his suppierior for letting a few go through, and we just slipped past.
So, got the likes of Leonardo Dicaprio, Martin Scorsese and Pierce Brosnan less than two feet away from the camera......

Thanks Ed - Will have a look at PlanetDV. Whats the 'video forum' ???

I haven't heard of it yet. So hopefully you can let us know how it is!

The video forum is an exhibition to do with Video, for Video makers, producers etc. The likes of Avid, Matrox, Pinnacle and a whole load of other industry players exhibit to show off their latest 'creations'. This year it was held at Earls Court at the end of January. Next ones not until Next year...

Cheers,

Pete, my footage was 16:9 / 24P / 2:3 . My capture screen is in 16:9 when I open the capture window - but my footage preview is squeezed so that the left and right sides of the capture screen are seen with black vertical lines.

WHen I finish capturing, the footage looks OK on the main project screen, but I am concerned that I am loosing resolution during the capture phase if it is squeezed first.

Since I don't have experiance wih 16:9 capture, I just wanted to know if this was the way the capture screen should look or if footage preview should appear in proper 16:9 .

Hi
I can recommend Planet DV, I took my RT2500 into there for upgrade to RT.X100, swapped it there & then.
Already had the software, so just got card & drivers.
Went to them for 2 of their demo evenings.


Regards.


Peter.


BTW got over My motion menu problems by disabling WYSIWYG output to TV from matrox settings

I just shot a short test widescreen 24pA (2:3:3:2) test clip with my XL2 and captured it. My PPro 1.5 capture window has a fixed 4:3 black foreground. Prior to rolling tape and during the initial seek, the capture window stretches the widescreen image overlay to fill the 4:3 capture window, but as soon as it starts actually capturing, the widescreen image slims down properly within the window, leaving black bars above and below as you'd expect. The video plays properly within the program and exported to a 720p24 WMV file just fine.

I think all that is going on here is that the widescreen flags aren't being read off the tape until the capture begins.

Incidentally, I had a new little problem appear that is mentioned in Adobe's PPro forums: my DV Device Capture Options dialog box had drop-down boxes with missing drop-downs! As stated in the forum, the lists exist but just aren't visible...just type in the setting you want and it'll auto-complete. I just updated my ATi9800 video drivers, so that is most likely where that new little annoyance roosts.

It really isn't designed to help you learn the software. It is to enhance the knowledge of the basics you already possess. It isn't really for raw beginners.

But it is a cool book. Check for my name in the index! I didn't know about it until the book arrived.

PIP in premeir?
 

i dont know if it exists or not, but i was wondering if premier has a picture-in-picture effect in it. i dont have it if it does. i dont know if its a plug-in or what, but i figured yall could help me out with some answers....any responses would be appreciated.

Assuming you are using Premiere Pro....load two clips, one on top of each other, in the timeline.

Then in the monitor window, use your mouse to drag and resize the top clip to the size to you want it to be for your PiP sequence.

Adjust audio tracks accordingly, then render. No plugin required.

Did that help?

Brilliant!!! Pure genius!!....thanks for the help Mr. Graham.

boy is my face red
 

ok, so i learned that in order to do a pip effect i need to overlay and resize my clips. ok i thought i knew how to resize my clips but evidently, i dont. any thoughts?

Some tutorials
 

Video Tidbits

Wrigley Video's Premiere 6.0 tutorial

In your monitor window left-click once directly on the image. You should see a boundary box with handles appear. Drag the handles like you would in photoshop or any similar app (i.e left-click again and hold down)

In Premiere Pro at least, you can also open the Effects Control Window and under the "Fixed Effects" section you will see "Motion". This lets you change scale, position and rotation.

disabling import after capture?
 

After capturing with PP1.5 it goes through a song and dance routine while the audio is conformed as the footage is automatically imported. I find this unacceptable and wondered if it can be turned off and how?

If I remember correctly (I'm not using PPro myself) it conforms all
the audio to a higher quality level. This is not something you can
turn off. I was under the impression, however, that it caches the
upsampled audio so it only needs to do this once.

I too can recommend Planet, both for sales and for their training courses.

I have just traded in my old DV500 card for the Matrox RT.X100 with them. I got a free LogicKeyboard for Premiere Pro as part of the deal!

I only had to give them the DV500 card, so I have been able to sell my old Pinnacle and Adobe software, plus the BOB privately.

I got full versions of Premere Pro 1.5, Encore 1.5 and Audition 1.5, complete with printed manuals as part of the package. The Premiere Pro disk is labelled upgrade, but it did not ask for any details of my old Premiere software to install.

ahh yes, thank you barry....oh and thanks david for those links...i think those will help me in the future. thanks again guys

Import DIVX to PPro
 

How can I import a DIVX format file into Premiere Pro 1.5?
It says unsupported format, I can not find any info on this subject.
Thank you

The error message states that you do not have the DivX codec installed.

Can you play the file? If so you have the codec installed. If not,
install it first. If you still can't open the file in PPro it just doesn't
support it.

If so, get www.virtualdub.org and run it. Open your
movie and select under both the video and audio menu full
processing. Then go to file save as and make a new AVI.

If your movie is long the file will be huge, since it saves out as
uncompressed AVI. Just so you know.

It sounds like you are working with a ripped movie. If so, the audio
is probably in VBR MP3 which Virtualdub cannot work with. Get
VirtualdubMod from http://virtualdubmod.sourceforge.net/.

When loading the file it will ask you if you want to compensate,
choose no. Then follow the instructions above. This should give
you a file with video and audio in sync.

If you don't care about the audio then it doesn't matter.

letterbox 16:9 premiere pro?
 

i have footage shot in 16:9. when i letterboxed it in premiere pro by importing the edited clip in a 4:3 project and scaling down by 75% to letterbox it, the footage looked horrible. edges are jagged? is there a better way to letterbox?

thanks.

You should import the footage and right-click and select "maintain
aspect ratio", this should automatically letterbox.

Where and how does this footage look horrible? How and on what
are you judging this?

Even with the codecs working properly Premiere always seems to have trouble with DivX files. I eventually gotten everything working except for perfect audio - though sometimes it doesn't mess it up too much.

Best thing to do is what Rob said and use vdub to process it.

looks pixelized. almost like vcd quality. mostly affects diagonal curved outlines. odd enough, i tried it again using scale and all is fine. i will post screen caps when i get the dub-out back.

maybe it had something to do with scale: i accidentally unchecked uniform scale, changed scale to 75%, then, upon realizing the mistake, checked it back. the clip aspect was now correct, but one dimension remained 75%. but this is just speculation.

thanks. i'll try using maintain aspect

mini 35 and premiere pro 7
 

after i have flipped the image horizontally and vertically in premiere pro 7 and try and export it either to tape or as an avi, the footage ends up having a strobe like effect. Its looks a little like the image is moving up and down extremly quickly. so has anyone had any problems like this and found a way to fix it? maybe by using another program to flip the image. i vaguely remember people talking about programs or plugins which did this.

Window problem in premiere
 

In the effects window, where you select audio and video transitions to add to your clips, suddenly my scroll bar on the right side (the only one in that window too) has turned into a scroll left or right bar instead of up and down. I can't get it to change back and I'm pretty certain I did nothing to make it this way. I cannot reach all of the effects in that project. Does anyone know how to change it back to scroll up and down (the one like the one to the right in your browser window). Thanks,

Jay

i just rotate the image 180 degrees in premiere pro 1.5 and it seems fine when i render it out... i think what you are having is a fields problem.

Definitely a fields problem. Firewire in is generally lower field first. You need to de-interlace the footage, process it and export lower field first or reverse field order. I never had a lot of satisfaction from erecting the image in post.

Unless you can select a high quality once you have it all in your computer, apply effects then export to movie again as MicrosoftDV there may be a quality loss. I think there may be a qulaity loss assocated with de-interlacing as well unless Premiere Pro has been upgraded in this regard. Others more knowledgeable can advise better on this topic.

On this site there is are two articles relating to film look. One is for creating the 24 FPS motion blur effect. In addition to the motion blur effect you can invert your footage once the import of two copies of the same file are done as per the article. The method works for getting rid of the jitter.

Hi Jay,

What version of Premiere are you using?

On the effects control window there is a little arrow which points to the right. If you click this it will give you further options, whether or not there is an option to chage the scroll position, I don't know with out Premiere in front of me...

Cheers,

this is odd...
 

...but this functionality has occurred to me also. My version is PPro1.5 and the only Window that I have this happen in is indeed the effects library. Try this: Restart the machine. Resize the master window area across both monitors. Save that workspace as something new. Restart Premiere and load the new workspace. Be sure the library window isn't touching any other window.

If that still doesn't restore the right margin scroll bar, the temporary workaround is to max your screen resolution so the smaller size of all the windows will let you see the contents once you resize the offending window.

The above assumes dual head monitors. If you are working on one, perhaps check out the latest agp dual head cards. They have become quite affordable as of late.

Matrox rt2500 and premiere pro 1.5
 

Basically i have a system with an rt2500 and premiere 6.

I am going to upgrade the motherboard and cpu and purchase premiere pro 1.5.

wat i want to know is will my rt2500 work with premiere pro 1.5?

If so - will it give much improvements over using a standard firewire card?

Is there a thread on here that lists optimal hardware setup options?

I am thinking of;
a 939 amd proccessor(fastest i can afford)
1.5 gigs of ram.
2x40gig seagate barracudas raided as a system drive
1x250gig and 1x80 seagate video drives.
twin 19" monitors

Need advice on a suitable motherboard and display card ( i have a raedon7500 64meg but am thinking of upgrading?).

Any advice is greatly appreciated :)

Thanx

Nathan,

It took me over 2 years of tweaking my RT2500 and Premiere 6 to get it stable. I think you might run into a problem continuing to use the RT2500 and Pro 1.5. Instead if you are dead set on upgrading, then I would recommend abandoning the RT2500, replace it with a firewire card, and the fastest processor you can afford.

On the other hand the RT2500 and P6 will do about everything except for the high end cutting edge stuff. I plan to keep mine untill it self destructs then will upgrade to a new platform.

Regards,

Mark

I have tried all options about flipping the image in Premiere.
Rotate 180, flip vertical, de-interlace, etc. None was clean.
Did not export anything to tape since is just a test and I can see the jitter after rendering. Someone tried Pro while on the phone and said does a clean job but I did not test it myself.(I'll try it this week, I hope)
I have flipped the image clean in Avid express.