That system would be great for DV editing and very workable for non-RT HDV.

You don't mention firewire ports, but I assume that's on the motherboard?

Premiere supports ASIO drivers which allow you to route audio tracks to the separate channels of a multichannel soundcard. If you are interested in authoring 5.1 sound for DVD, it would pay to check the specs on the Intel sound chip versus a prosumer audio card from somewhere like M-Audio.

Also, I'd be inclined to add a 2nd cheap 7200rpm drive, so that you can have your OS and apps on one drive and leave the second free for your video and audio files.

If you just want dual CRT or LCD monitors, an el cheapo NVida dual-head card may be all you need. If you also want fullscreen output to an interlaced monitor a Matrox Parhelia would indeed be nice.

Enjoy!

Pro 1.5 real-time issues
 

Hello all,

Just a quick question; I am wondering why, in 6.5, you could choose between Ntsc and Ntsc *real-time*. It allowed me to just press Enter and the video would play no problems..even with multiple effects.
But in Pro 1.5, I don't have a "real-time" option when creating a new project.
Why in 6.5 you get a "real-time" option, but in 1.5, you do not? And 1.5 is substancially choppier.

Do you have to have a specific card installed for a real-time option to appear in pro 1.5?

If anyone could shed some light on this for me, that would be very, very, very helpful!

1- At Ncix.com, you can get a very similar for about the same price. With that online store it's out in BC so you only have to pay 7% GST instead of ???15.025%??? tax. For $1,150 plus shipping plus 7% GST, you can get them to put together something like the following:
Antec 2700AMB case
Pentium 4 3.0ghz processor
Abit AS8 motherboard with firewire (socket = LGA775)
1GB RAM (choose the cheapest, because they'll test it anyways)
seagate 200gb hard drive
eVGA Geforce FX5200 VGA DVI out (may need VGA-DVI adapter; Nvidia drivers; may be cheaper dual head Nvidia card)
benQ 16X DVD+-RW burner (other burners like the Nec 3500a or Pioneer 16X one are better)
microsoft keyboard, optical mouse. no speakers.
winXP home.
Full assembly and testing.

Differences from the gateway:
You get firewire and the dual monitor video card installed.
Support: NCIX = none, Gateway provides some support. *You can get free online support from places like protonic.com
No proprietary parts (one or more of case, motherboard, power supply).
The Windows installation with the custom build won't have bloatware on it that the manufacturer installs.
Different chipset (older, cheaper 865PE chipset). Should be same performance. Uses AGP video cards instead of PCI-E, and uses DDR RAM (not DDR2).

If you can build your own computer, you can save like $100 by buying the parts at sale prices from NCIX and by assembling the system yourself. Some of the NCIX prices are a little high- a friend of mine has a special account with them and gets special pricing on all their items, so he can see a sizeable difference between normal and special pricing. You can price match other vendors apparently, although I haven't tried it. Ordering from NCIX might take some time if they don't have stuff in stock... you may run into this.

You can check out the reputation of various computer sellers through resellerratings.com. Major vendors like Dell, HP, Gateway, etc. have very low ratings (around or under 5 out of 10), although the sample size may be skewed and for Gateway there aren't that many reviews (although many Gateway computers being sold). The main thing you should be concerned about is the support you get from these companies.
A- They generally don't cover spyware, the most common problem people have with their PCs.
B- All the companies farm out tech support to India, where they may not understand your thick North American accent. Gateway/Emachines might be half NA half India (not sure if home users get NA or India).
C- Some of the tech support reps just read off scripts and have little or no computer knowledge. If you have a problem you may be told (multiple times) to re-install Windows via the manufacturer's recovery CD.
D- If you have to get hardware replaced, you may have to go through C.

NCIX has a fairly high rating, but they mainly sell computer parts so the rating may not reflect their computers.

2- If you plan on using hardware acceleration cards for Premiere Pro then get an Intel (not Abit) motherboard or whatever's compatible.

Excellent comments from Glenn. I support his suggestions about avoiding bloatware, DDR2, and PCI-E video.

And when I said "Nvidia card" I was actually meaning an Nvidia chipset on a cheap card (such a eVGA).

Hi Jake,

Can you please provide some more info.

- What are your computer specs
- What version of premiere are you using
- What settings did you choose
- What sort of Mpeg file is it
- Is there a reason why you are using an MPEG file

I've had problems with Premiere 6.5 when trying to export an Mpeg file into an AVI, where it would jitter and not look right. I resolved it by using an external program to convert to an AVI file. This then played back OK.

I think that your best option might be to:

export the MPEG file into an AVI file, then export the AVI file to tape.

Thanks,

<<<-- Originally posted by Ed Smith : Hi Jake,

Can you please provide some more info.

- What are your computer specs
- What version of premiere are you using
- What settings did you choose
- What sort of Mpeg file is it
- Is there a reason why you are using an MPEG file

I've had problems with Premiere 6.5 when trying to export an Mpeg file into an AVI, where it would jitter and not look right. I resolved it by using an external program to convert to an AVI file. This then played back OK.

I think that your best option might be to:

export the MPEG file into an AVI file, then export the AVI file to tape.

Thanks, -->>>

Hi, Ed -

Thanks for the feedback. I actually solved the problem by first opening up a new premiere project and just adding the color bars and tone to it and then recording that on the miniDV tape.

Then I closed that and opened back up my original premiere film with my documentary and then recorded that onto the same tape. Problem solved. It's always the simple things isn't it!

But, I have another movie I have to do the same thing to, but I only have it as a VOB file, so should I convert that to a mpeg2 file or AVI? Will I lose any image quality recording on a miniDV from avi instead of a mpeg2 file? Thanks again!

Experienced User's
 

Thinking about TRADE UP TO MATROX RT.100 XTREME PRO BUNDLE from
PINNACLE PRO ONE. ADOBE PREMIERE 6.5. REASON BEING?

Shooting full feature with DVX 100 and can't decide wather or not to do it in 24pA or 24p as I know the programs I have now very well, ( Problems / glichs) and can deal with them.
I do not want to spend the money for somthing I'm going to have more problems with. seeing how that is that last thing I need while making a movie.( more Problems)
So my question is ?
is anyone having problems with the matrox/ premiere 1.5 shot in 24PA?
or should I just keep what I have and shoot it straight to DVD and not worry about blowing it up to film?

Their you go ED...

As stated, a second video only hard drive is a wise move. Also, a deicated video card replacing whats built into the motherboard will also help performance a bit.

Eddie

I would stick to DV AVI when exporting to DV tape. My experiencing using MPEG2 IBP in the timeline and exporting has not really turned out too good. MPEG2 IBP was not really made to be exported back to MiniDV nor to be used as an editing format, The main reason being that an MPEG file is made up of a GOP (Group of pictures), Which makes it hard to get frame accurate editing.

If it were me, I would stick to DV AVI when editing and exporting to MiniDV. Only use MPEG2 when exporting to DVD.

Cheers,

<<<-- Originally posted by Ed Smith : I would stick to DV AVI when exporting to DV tape. My experiencing using MPEG2 IBP in the timeline and exporting has not really turned out too good. MPEG2 IBP was not really made to be exported back to MiniDV nor to be used as an editing format, The main reason being that an MPEG file is made up of a GOP (Group of pictures), Which makes it hard to get frame accurate editing.

If it were me, I would stick to DV AVI when editing and exporting to MiniDV. Only use MPEG2 when exporting to DVD.

Cheers, -->>>

Ed -

Do you have any recommendations on any programes that I could use to export my VOB file into an AVI file? Thanks!

First premiere 1.5 is supposed to be completely based around the realtime concept.

I too have wondered how the 'ram preview' in 6.5 was so much faster than the realtime now in 1.5.

I believe it was because the original ram preview in 6.5 was not full quality/ resolution and because the new 1.5 is much more processor intensive.


There is no option to select realtime in premiere 1.5, because technichally everything already is. However if your computer isn't up to premium specs it cuts down on the quality to almost an unwatchable level.

Currently on my system (1.7ghz 768rdram) I just have to go ahead and render every change I make (enter) to preview it at an acceptable level. My whole editing process is probably now much slower using 1.5, but the other features definately make up for it. Plus, when I acquire a new computer this shouldn't be an issue anymore.

Hi Desi,

I don't really have experience with 24pa or 24p, but Premiere Pro 1.5 does supports them. Only people who have experience with this can tell you how well it is handled :)

As for using the RTX 100, I can certainly recommened it, But you need to make sure that your system meets the recommended system requirements by Matrox (http://www.matrox.com/video/support/...o/rec/home.cfm), including buying the right branded motherboards etc. It'll certainly be an improvement over your Pro One.

In the end only you will be able to decide if this will be right for you. Where posible try and get a demo with an adobe/ matrox approved dealer.

Please refrain from using capital letters. It makes it look like you are shouting your words. As this is a friendly, relaxed discussion board, nobody really needs to raise their voices.

Thanks,

Audio Capture Problems
 

I recently recorded a live event using my XL2. I had two sources of audio. One of them was the on-camera microphone and the other was a set of microphones run through a mixer and into the XLR input on the back of the camera. I set the camera mic to record on the right stereo channel and the mics from the mixer through the left. I was then planning on taking each of these tracks, separating them, and copying them over to make two simulated stereo tracks.

However, when I try to capture the video in premiere, the audio is only capturing from the right channel. When I listen to the playback from the camera through my headphones, I hear both, so I don't believe it's a camera issue. Is there some setting I need to have in Premiere to capture all the audio channels? I've even tried only playing back the left channel through the camera while capturing and that doesn't work. What am I missing? This is really very frustrating.

Any input is greatly appreciated.

Also see this thread:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...threadid=37509

GS400 and Premier pro 7.0
 

i have to start by saying that i am extremely new to this game...

alright. going a little insane. has anyone run into trouble using Adobe Premier Pro 7.0 and capturing from a GS400?

I noticed in the settings product list does not include the GS400, which i didn't think would be a big deal. but for the past 3 day's i've been trying to get my video captured with little success.

the camera feeds into the program fine, i can, seemingly, set my in and out points fine, and logging offline clips into the project window works perfectly.

but then the manual tells me i have to 'batch capture' and when this begins, it:

a) doesn't work and produces a log that says it was aborted.
or
b) tells me that i can't capture and have to increase my preroll (which i do and still no deal)

i also noticed, that the offline files in my project window state there is no in/out points set. the only info that is present is media start and media end. even though i carefully set the in/out points in the capture window.

i follow the manual's instructions, it seems, to a t. but still no deal. so i'm wondering if this has been a problem for anyone/if that problem has a solution. i realize i'm probably overlooking something, but the manual offers no insight as to what i could be doing wrong because, according to that, im doing it right.

any help/advice would be appreciated. i really don't want to have to pick up another program if it isn't necessary. thank you for reading this long winded post.

Jono, I moved your post to the Premiere forum in hopes that it will gain more answers for you. I have a left a re-direct in the Panasonic DV/MX forum.

Thanks,
Tommy

changing the question
 

...so...as far as i can tell, the reason that i cant capture is because i have a discontinuous timecode on my tape. it is set to zero at least 3 times on the tape (thanks to my beginner's 'luck') so. i guess what i should ask now is: can i reset/override the timecode on the tape?

Several problems at the same time
 

I have Premiere v6.5 but I am still somewhere low down on the learning curve.

I need to make a short clip, possibly Quicktime or whatever suits, for viewing on the web.

The raw material, as it were, is available in one of two forms:

1. approximately 4,096 .TIF files of about 3MB each;

2. an .AVI file of about 190MB (Indeo 5.5, from memory)

Just to be different, the format is square, 1024 x 1024. I'm going to need to crop the image top and bottom, not necessarily by equal amounts, to arrive at 4:3. As the camera was locked off during the shot and the subject doesn't move up and down too much, the cropping can be the same on all frames throughout the clip.

Because of a combination of slight underexposure and the presence of a spectral highlight at the edge of frame, the images are dark overall but can be brightened up to an acceptable standard using normal image manipulation software.

I have tried importing the .AVI into Premiere, taking a small slice of it, just a few seconds long, and applying treatment to it. I forget what the technical term is, but what it amounts to is brightening and clipping top and bottom. I have tried these processes singly, and the results are the same.

This is where it all goes pear-shaped. I can see the original in the preview screen but although the program sits there working away producing an .AVI file, which appears to be the right size in MB, the frame is black throughout.

I don't know if it's just me, but I find Adobe's Help files to be spectacularly unhelpful.

Can anyone set me off along the right path, so perhaps I can provide the right information leading to a solution.

Al

PS: the original material is high-speed video from one of Vision Research Inc's Phantom cameras.

vx2000 WONT CAPTURE
 

I am using Adobe Premiere Pro and am not able to capture with my VX2000. Other cameras i use, once pluged in, automatically start up Premiere. On the other hand my Vx does not activate and will not activate in Premiere either. Is this a camera problem or is there some setting that needs to be changed. I have a project to be completed soon so any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks alot.

probably an easy 6.5 question
 

i just got 6.5 and i was tinkering around with it. i captured some short clips (no problem there) and placed them in order in the timeline. easy enough. but when i go to the monitor and play it, it just plays as a series of short stills w/ no sound. what gives? like i said, probably an easy/stupid question.

thanks

It could be outputting back to your camera, you woiuld get a sort of Jerky effect on your monitors in Premiere if you are? To check:

1) Is your camcorder switched one while you are playing around in the timeline?

2) Have you got DV Playback set in settings?

3) If you have got your DV camera connected, check the viewfinder to see if its playing through. If so simply hook up a TV/ External monitor to the anaolgue outputs on your camera and you should hear sound and full motion video on the TV screen.


Hope this helps,

I would first process the picture files to the desired resolution
(which is 640 x 480 for NTSC video) etc. I ASSUME that Premiere
can load an image sequence (find out which format).

Get a program like Irfanview which can batch process frames to
do the cropping and output to your desired format (if Premiere
can't read TIFF for example).

Then load this image sequence into Premiere (make sure it knows
that 1 frame is 1 frame etc.) and do your brightness corrections
etc. there. Then render (output) to your final format.

Welcome aboard DVInfo.net Ted! I've moved your thread to our
dedicated Premiere forum.

First two questions:

1. I assume you are indeed on Windows XP since you are running PPro?

2. Which version of PPro are you using?

Usually either of the following is wrong:

1. NLE is corrupt, reinstall Premiere in this case

2. drivers are corrupt, reinstall Windows

3. firewire port on either your camera or computer might be broken / blown (blown can happen quite easily if you plug equipment in or out that is ON), usually testing with different equipment can help you sort that out

4. firewire cable is broken or not good enough

The best way to get all of this figured out is to dance around with
equipment. Try your camera on another (friends?) computer and
see what it does there. Try a different cable. Try a different camera
on your computer (it may have worked in the past, but that is no
garantuee that nothing is corrupt now).

This should help you to identify where the problem lies. Also
previous versions of Premiere required you to set which camera
you had attached (in the preferences somewhere).

What have you done in Premiere to identify you have a capture issue?

Hi, Rob.

So you'd recommend cropping and resizing the TIFFs first as a batch, then presumably correcting the brightness/contrast/colour balance, all before importing the sequence into Premiere.

So I'd be handling a smaller number of smaller files -- ideally just enough for the scene.

I can see that if Premiere is for some reason choking on the .AVI because it can't understand the codec, working with the raw still frames will overcome this.

I'll try playing with a very short clip, and see if I can import the frames and render the clip from there.

Regarding the image size, can you see any advantage in resizing to the eventual output size, which is likely to be smaller than 640px as it will only ever be appearing as a QT online?

I'll report back.

Al

No, you should do the correcting of brightness/contrast/colour
balance IN Premiere, not BEFORE. Do the cropping BEFORE
indeed.

Yes, you could crop to your final output size. However, if you
would like a DVD or something then I would go with 640 x 480
resolution.

OK. Is there a reason for that which I need to know about?

OK. This is purely an online trailer. The DVD will be coming later and we'll be producing it using FCP. The small task I'm doing is a DIY (doe het zelf) exercise.

Al

Speaking Dutch are we? <g>

Reason for which of the two?

The reason to do the cropping BEFORE Premiere is two-fold:

- it significantly reduces the size (in both resolution and filesize) of the frames which will greatly increase processing speed in both editing, correction/effects work and final rendering

- you don't need the resolution to begin with (unless you want to pan across an image which you indicated you didn't want to do)

It all makes it much faster and responsive.

The reason to do the correction in Premiere is that it is designed
to work as a video system instead of a still system like Photoshop.
You already indicated you had problems with Photoshop and
Premiere can easily do the task as well. It has brightness, contrast
and all sort of other filters to process the footage. The advantage
is that it does this natively on your complete file (even if it is
composed of stills), Photoshop might support this as well, but as
you indicated you had problems with that. Why not simply use
a native system that was designed for the task?

OK on the cropping before importing the files.

As for the image brightening etc, I confess I was still thinking along the lines of batch processing it using IrfanView or something similar, but IrfanView is possibly a bit too heavy-handed for that purpose.

I'll play with this later, when I've caught up with the morning's work.

Tot ziens!

Al

Ugh...I suspected as much :( Thank you Brandon for verifying..
I really found 6.5 much zippier than 1.5. Sluggish beast :)
I guess I'll up my ram and cpu (3gig cpu and 1gig ram) and we'll see how that goes...

Thanks again for the reply :)

Draft quality?
 

Have you tried adjusting the playback quality to either Automatic or Draft? There's much more pixelation but you'll have a better idea of how your transitions and effects work because playback is smoother. You can switch back to Highest quality when you are doing static work such as adjusting filters.

Following up my earlier post.

Curses! IrfanView doesn't do cropping, so can't use it to batch process.

Got to think again.

Maybe if I don't try to use the .AVI file but import a few .TIFFs I can crop those top and bottom in Premiere before brightening up the image.

Al

Yep, I definitely tried that...it helped a bit..but as soon as there were effects and transistions...ouch. Even on just draft with the monitor window tiny tiny.
So strange why they would allow 1.5 to be more sluggish than 6.5...

thanks a lot...i didn't realize having the camera connected would cause such a problem. thanks again.

Thanks
 

Thank you very much for replying so quickly. I will try these out and see if i can narrow it down. When i reinstal Premiere will all the previous videos I have made within it be deleted or what will happen to them. Thanks alot.

Vance,

What sort of setup do you have? Processor, RAM? Do you have a second physical hard drive set up as your scratch disk, or is everything operating off of one HDD?

No question that PPro is demanding. But performance depends both on the your hardware and how your system is set up. If you have an "older" system with a 1GHz processor with 512MB of RAM, your performance isn't going to be the best and that's all there is to it. But even a "fast" system can do poorly if not optimized. For instance, the difference between using a single, mostly filled, highly fragmented "C Drive" and using a second defragged, nearly empty drive as a scratch disk can be night and day.

Also, 24p 2:3:3:2 processing is highly demanding of the CPU.

PPro 1.5.1 UPDATE soon?
 

I found this page referencing a PPro 1.5 update to 1.5.1 on the Adobe PPro downloads page, but as of this writing there is no link to the actual update file:

http://www.adobe.com/support/downloa...jsp?ftpID=2654

One would like to assume from this that an update is actually imminent. It is a new page...I check for updates for the Adobe Video Collection applications pretty regularly.

All they advertise is HDV support; no mention of bug fixes...of course, some of us will be checking out 24p behavior and other known issues as soon as this update is available.

NOTICE though, they've upped the min system requirement to a P4-3GHz and 1GB RAM...I don't know at all yet whether that represents a real change to the code or just an attempt to reduce complaints about performance, or is aimed specifically at the demands of HDV support.

Just wanted to get the word out quickly so DVinfo users can be the first on the block with the update...whenever it actually is posted!

Well THAT'S a real tease .... (Adobe, that is, not you Pete)!

Would have to conclude that the release is indeed imminent for them to have that webpage up.

Adobe 1.5.1 update came and went
 

Looks like an Adobe goof. It was an HDV update and was up last night for a few hours but disappeared by midnight or so.

Thats OK,

Sometimes the easiest is not always the obvious...

Cheers,

Well, I am currently using a P3g with 1 gig of Ram...fairly fast machine..
I have 3 physical harddrives...but perhaps I should see how I can optimize my hardrives a bit better, like you are mentioning..

Anyone have any suggestions on the best optimal setup? Like, where Pro should be installed and where the scratch disk should be, the actual source videos etc?

Thanks!