When you are using the zoom feature in the motion control window, you can also use the program monitor to resize the image.

So, on your picture select the motion control option. Then on the program monitor (right hand side), some handles should appear around the frame of the monitor. Simply click and drag on one so that the image is resized to fit the screen.

Cheers,

Hi Will,

In order to export a 5.1 surround mix I beleive it needs to be AC3 audio. PP lets you have 2 goes at doing this, after which you have to purcahse the plugin to continue using it.

Encore should be able to accept AC3 audio, also Premiere should be able to burn directly from the timeline to DVD.

PCM audio is a high quality stereo audio file (It does not contain 5.1)

Thanks,

Cool man. I'll check those out.

You know what.. I have sorensen squeeze 4. Can I export from Premiere using squeeze? Or, maybe I could render out an uncompressed avi and then use squeeze to convert to wmv maybe?

Just to confirm Ed's points.

5.1 audio on a DVD is usually AC3 (or occasionally DTS). But PCM is only stereo.

Premiere Pro cannot encode to AC3 itself - it can only do so only through the Surcode Plugin which costs (!) extra.

There is no technical problem in using a separate program to encode your audio. For example, you can easily export 6 separate wav files from premiere, encode those with a separate encoder, and then pull the resulting AC3 file back into Encore which will mux it back together with your video stream. All of the commercial encoders are costly because of licencing, but there is this: http://dspguru.notrace.dk/

Be aware that there are various flavors of AC3. Some low-end DVD authoring packages advertise that they "encode to AC3" but its stereo (2.0) not surround (5.1) AC3 that they produce.

Another way to do this:

Shoot many takes, with the people walking down one side of the screen, then another part of the scene, then another. In post production, you can combine all the takes.

I think the problem with that is there's going to be a gap between the actors in the different takes. If you don't want the gap then you can get the actors/extras to be closer together and you may have to rotoscope (very time consuming). You will also need an effects supervisor while shooting to make sure you avoid problems that would take a lot of effort to fix in post. You may also be able to capture into a laptop and quickly throw together the effect to see if it's working.

I'm not too sure on the exact details of this as I have never done it. However I do know it's done on some high-end commercials.

Thanks for letting us know! Glad your problem was solved, and at the same time I'm pleased to learn of the plug-in.

Check the Adobe site
 

SWEET!!

Thanks a lot man.

I’m very new to all of this and I’m not really following it, can I do all of those things with the Adobe Video Collection software? And is there a website that explains all of these things?

Thank you, gentlemen. I've tried BeSweet, but it will not open a file exported from PPro unless I break up the 5.1 into 6 separate files. However, I've read widely that after BeSweet converts those 6 files into AC3 the result is 5.1 audio at a very low volume level, so I have not gone that route.

I will try the link you suggested: http://dspguru.notrace.dk/

Thank you.

Hi folks,

It has been a while since I played with exporting multi-channel audio, but I do THINK you should be able to get your 5.1 onto DVD.

Since the Surcode trial only give you three tries, I'd export from PPro (and possibly Audition for the audio) in an uncompressed AVI that has multichannel PCM audio, or as separate (multichannel PCM) audio and video files. Then import into Encore, transcode, and transcode/burn. You should be able to use either AC3 (and thus burning up a trial run of Surcode), or to multichannel PCM.

I'm not 100% sure, but from what I can recall, PCM isn't inherently stereo audio -- it is required as a format that DVD players worldwide can read -- BUT output through most PC audio systems gets downmixed to stereo.

Limited time right now so not able to check into this, but perhaps in this evening I can dig into it a little again and refresh my memory.

Hey Guys I just found a box in the video capture prefrences window I think and it asks if you want ppro to fit the images. I tried it and it worked great. I had also resized like you Guys said and that went well also. The reason I got the chance to try the box was when rendering ppro just shut down. Well I've been used to that so it turned into a learning experience. Now that thats done im off to try to export to a dvd. Thanks again TAG

Yes, Surcode works fine. I've produced one DVD containing 5.1 audio. It sounded fabulous, but not fabulous enough for me to plunk down $300 for Surcode. I understand that this is cheap as far as AC3 encoders go, but not cheap as far as my budget goes.

>>>BeSweet it will not open a file exported from PPro unless I break up the 5.1 into 6 separate files.

Correct. That's the way all the standalone surround encoders that I'm familiar with work.... it doesnt really slow the process down much - just a few extra mouseclicks.

There's an ongoing debate about 'correct' AC3 volume - not sure where the latest version of BSweet is with that.

>>>PCM isn't inherently stereo audio

Correct again - what I was meaning to say is that the PCM audio stream on a DVD player cannot provide true 5.1 audio; the spec calls for AC3 or DTS.

still no adobe response...
 

Hi John, Perhaps you have had a chance to duplicate the functionality that I referred to earlier?
It's minor, but I think a sensible direction toward effortless keyframe placement.

Check out Wrigley Video
 

You may want to view the free video tutorials at Wrigley Video. It will help you with keyframing.

How many audio tracks can you have at once?
 

I previously used Windows Movie Maker 2 to edit video and I was annoyed that I could only have two audio tracks, which I used for the orginal audio and music but if I wanted sound f/x I'd have to get rid of the music. How many audio tracks can you use in Premiere Pro?

I believe its unlimited, or perhaps 99. In avid, you are "limited" to 24, but you can always nest and mix down. I think most people would be happy to have at least 8... dual tracks for dialogue, effects, music and ambience at the minimum.

Exporting to Mpeg-2 in Pro 1.5
 

Question about this topic. When I go into the media encoder and selest mpeg-2 or mpeg-2 DVD there are lots of pre-sets. This is something new to me from the older 6.5 version. How do I read this? How do I know what settings to use? What are you using?

Something I noticed under Mpeg-2 is there is no 720 60i, it says 60p. Not sure if this is a typo or what. When I click on it it does say 60fps not 30. Under the dvd option there isn't a high quality 16:9 option. Why is this? Are two passes better than one?

Some insight on this would be great. thanks.

Mpeg-2 codec
 

Is there a better mpeg-2 encoder than the one that comes with Premiere? Not saying I don't like it but I'm sure there are some others out there that might give better image quality or compression. Thanks.

Changing the color of a tower
 

I was wondering if I film a large gray stone tower, is it possible for me to change the color of the tower realisitically to black?

Jim -- I have not needed to do any keyframing in Premiere Pro since my last post. The next ad that will require motion keyframes will be done in 6.5, simply because it's a reedit of an old spot that I originally did in 6.5. But so far I've not had any problems with either 6.5 or Pro.

That last part should certainly be possible. Give it a try!

Drew: with all due respect I don't think you understand what you
are asking. Yes, it can be done with the AVC because it contains
After Effects & Premiere, both who support greenscreen removal
etc. Any program with such a feature can help in that regard
(which I already explained in my first replay and gave you a direct
answer that PPro can do this, After Effects can do it ever better).

However, this is very complicated stuff and takes a lot of practice.

There are no specific tutorial for your questions (crowd replication,
arrows etc.)

But if you did a google search (like I have done) like:

greenscreen OR bluescreen tutorial

You'll find links (including an after effects 4.0 tutorial) like:

http://www.jushhome.com/Bluescreen/Bluescreen.html
http://www.jushhome.com/HiddenPhanto...p/MSPComp.html
http://www.beepworld.de/members33/da.../tutorials.htm
http://www.darkskies.info/key.html
http://www.swfanfilms.com/makingmovies.htm

This should give you an idea what it takes. You can also see the
difference in quality between certain keys (ie, the way the footage
is extracted from the green/bluescreen and then composited into
other footage).

Yes, do a search on the boards with the following:

Procoder CCE Tmpgenc

You'll find lots of posts (specifically by me) with more information
on better encoders. ProCoder seems to be the best at the moment
with CCE & TMPGEnc a close second.

p.s. Premiere uses the MainConcept encoder (Sony Vegas uses
it as well), which is good, but not great.

60i is probably called 30 fps interlaced (I don't have Premiere).
Usually multiple pass encoding (VBR) is better than single pass
(CBR) encoding indeed, the more passes the more efficient it can
encode the video (and the longer the encode will take). I've seen
encodes of 7 or 9 passes (with CCE or TMPGEnc, see your other
thread) that looked very very good.

It might, depends on things (like the background etc.). What you
need to look at is color correction and more specifically a secondary
color corrector. This allows you to isolate a certain color (just the
gray, and if that was in other parts of the picture you could first
mask out just that section (on a duplicate track) and then put the
secondary CC on there) and then shift it in color or intensity etc.

I found out the hard way that Premiere does not have built-in capability to properly edit MPEG files...

Once I got to use a plug-in, everything worked out fine.

How does the sorenson pro mpeg2 codec measure up??

Ok cool so it's like cleaner, it's sole purpose is just encoding. Thanks alot Rob. As usual, you're the man.

My guess is that you are using the preset for HDV which includes 5.1 sound. Use that preset. I do. But you must change the audio to stereo instead of 5.1.

No need to use Squeeze. I am getting great results from the Adobe Media Encoder using Stereo.

You can also export to Cineform AVI and use the Microsoft encoder. But there really is no need to do so.

I am playing the WM9 files on my AVeL Linkplayer2 HD DVD player. They look great.

John: I have no idea personally, I've never heard of it being a good
encoder. That doesn't mean it isn't, just that I know about the
3 I listed above. They seem to be generally accepted as the
best encoders around (for pro-sumer work).

Clint: yeah, it's solely for encoding to all kind of formats (including
MPEG-2). Thanks for the compliment <g>

i believe that sorenson squeeze 4 uses the mainconcept encoder(?).

How to duplicate audio channels in Premiere Pro?
 

In Premiere 6.5 it was very easy: right-click on the audio track and choose "duplicate left" or "duplicate right."

In P Pro I can't find any easy way of doing this. You can separate stereo tracks into 2 mono tracks, but only from the project window -- not from within the timeline once you've started editing.

The only workaround I've come up with is to export the audio from the edited clips, then separate the stereo tracks from this version to 2 mono tracks, keep the track I want, then re-export that as its own audio track (because P Pro will only seem to let me place the split mono channels on track 4)

Any advice on making this less complicated? I don't understand why Adobe dropped something so simple, yet functional -- or was I the only person using it? This is very frustrating, as I often record audio to only one channel (or, as with the video I'm having problems with now, record a lav on one channel and a shotgun on the other).

Fill Left or Fill Right
 

Audio Effects -> Stereo -> Fill Left, Fill Right

Check the Help to make sure you're using it correctly.

Hmmm... one of the first things I tried, but it didn't seem to help... but as you said, perhaps I did not use it correctly. Thanks, I'll try it and let you know...

I use it regularly
 

I regularly use the Fill Left/Right for the same reason. I also shoot with two microphones, or I set the volume levels differently with one microphone so in case one channel gets overloaded, the other channel is still safely under.

16:9 24PA footage becomes 4:3 after effects are applied
 

Hello,

I imported my 16:9 XL2 footage into PP and it works perfectly until I apply video effects. When I render, the video plays as 4:3 footage (meaning my picture is squeed). Anyone else have any experience with this? Any help is very appreciated.

Seems to work -- I think I was doing something wrong before. Thanks for your help, David!

Fill from left
 

Glad to hear it worked and I hope you've wondered along with me why "Fill Left" means "Fill from Left" instead of "Fill the Left channel".