CS4's Favorite Format ??

[Tom Blizzard]

I've got a two part play that I want to put on one DVD. First act is 50 minutes and second act is 45 minutes. To make it easier on CS4 , and me, I plan to edit the three camera first act and then export it.
Next, I'll edit the three camera second act and take the exported first act and just drop it in place in front of the second act. This should help keep it from being too "robust" for CS4 and make things work better.

My question is simply this: what's the best format that I should use to export the first act in order to bring it back later into the second act timeline for a DVD??

[Justin Molush]

To the best of my knowledge, can't you just edit a sequence, and then edit a second sequence, and put them together? I know my copy of CS5 does this fine, and this is on a laptop so you definitely should be in the clear on any moderate editing platform...

[Tom Blizzard]

Thanks Justin........ This is my first experience in doing this type of thing with Premiere Pro. Excellent suggestion.
Back when I used Premiere Elements 3.02, I had to export and then drop in the timeline. It had no "sequence" ability.
Thanks, I'll sure follow your suggestion.

[Adam Gold]

Oh, sure it did. You've pretty much always been able to nest sequences. Certainly you could in CS3.

Adobe Premiere Pro CS3

But that's definitely the way to go. Exporting and re-importing is a really bad idea.

You can actually create either a new project for your whole show or just a new sequence. Sometimes CS4 chokes when you have a lot of assets.

If you do this all in one project, your raw media for Act I would probably be sequence 1, and your multicam edit would be sequence 2. Your raw footage for Act II would be sequence 3 and your multicam edit for Act II would be Sequence 4. Then you just create sequence 5 and drag sequences 2 and 4 into it.

If you create a new project, then you would just import your Act I and Act II projects into a new project and drag the sequences into the timeline.

Or, you could just import the sequences, however they are set up, directly into Encore.

Lots of ways to do this without multiple re-encode passes destroying your quality.

Do you know for sure from experience that CS4 won't let you do the whole show in one timeline? I used to do whole shows in CS3 with no problem, CS4 seems to be a little wonkier, especially if you don't have pretty good gear.

[Tom Blizzard]

Thanks Adam........ It was Premiere ELEMENTS 3.02 and a slower computer that could not handle the 1 to 2 hour projects very well. I'm now running a new(er) i7 with CS4.

Adam, from your experience, do you think CS4 will handle a 1-2 hour project without any problem?? If so, I'll just do the whole thing at once on the same timeline.
Thanks again

[Justin Molush]

If you are running an i7 the hardware should definitely be fine in handling it - I don't know how streamlined they made CS4 since I made the jump from CS -> CS5 in one shot, but I think it shouldn't be an issue. I don't know how they ended up outfitting premiere elements, but 3 sequences shouldn't be a big deal in my opinion.

[Adam Gold]

Sorry, Tom, I totally missed the "Elements" part... my mistake.

I bought but never actually installed CS4 after hearing how buggy it was. I skipped right from CS3 to CS5. But if you have an i7 I agree with Justin; you should be fine. With three cams shooting two acts of a show, you should basically have six long files, yes? This shouldn't pose a problem. CS4 and earlier used to freak out if you had like hundreds of short clips but a few long ones in your project panel shouldn't be an issue.

You are using the multicam edit feature, yes?

But you should definitely think about making the jump to CS5 as soon as you can. Best upgrade ever.

[Tom Blizzard]

Yep, I'm using the multicam edit feature. It is great. So I do have a massive number of short clips on my timeline in both sequences.
Yep, guess It's going to be CS5 soon........ or maybe CS5.5... or maybe even CS6 ???
Tks again.

[Adam Gold]

So just as a piece of advice, when doing multicam shows, you shouldn't have a lot of clips because syncing is a nightmare. You should press "go" at the start of the show and not press "stop" until intermission. Same with act II. This way you only need to sync one set of clips for each act.

[Tom Blizzard]

I've just finished Act 1 and the soundtrack from my clip(s) got out of sync three times over the 45 minutes with my digital recorder soundtrack. That recorder was the sound off the board.

I'm still not sure about going into and making different selections of the clips once I thought I was done.
Seems to be a bit tricky, but for the most part I've got it.

Not sure what you mean about pushing "GO" and not "Stopping' till the end of Act 1.....

[Adam Gold]

Each act should be one long clip from each cam when you shoot the show. Don't stop and start. Three cams = three clips. "Go" means start recording. "Stop" means stop recording.

To be honest with you, I'm a little confused by all three statements in your post above. How did your clips "get" out of sync? They won't move unless you move them. Can you post a screen grab of your timeline? Love to see how you've set it up.

And I'm not clear on what you mean by "going into and making different selections of the clips." What is it you are trying to do? Fine-tune your edits?

I really did think the whole stop and go thing was pretty clear. But I've been wrong before.

The multicam edit feature is an incredible tool, but you gotta know its quirks.

[Tom Blizzard]

Yes, it was clear and you are correct. I did exactly what you said. I shot all three cams without stoping for the entire 45 minute Act 1 presentation. I did just what you said above. The clips themselves did not get out of sync.
It was when I dropped the sound from my digital recorder into the sequence as a second soundtrack.
No problem with that however. I've got that corrected now.


Now then, would Adam or someone else who know about "sequences" help me out here........... please help me understand and confirm one thing...... since I'm new to this "sequence thing".

1. Sequence 1 is made up of all three 45 minute clips of Act 1 syncronized together.

2. Sequence 2 is the result of all three clipsof Act 1 made into one Video and one Audio track (using multicam edit).

3. Sequence 3 is made up of all three 40 minute clips of Act 2 syncronized together.

4. Sequence 4 is the result of all three clips (from sequence 3),using multicam edit, now edited together into one video and one audio track.....................

Finally, I go over to the Project Panel, on the left side of the workspace, and drag and drop sequence 2 (Act 1) into sequence 4 (Act 2). I drop it in front of the Act 2 video and audio track(s) . That should do it???

[Adam Gold]

I think you've got it basically right. You could drop 4 at the end of 2, or create a 5 and drop 2 and 4 into it in order, then drop in your audio track on audio Track 2 and mute Audio Track 1. Remember, your multicam edits are taking camera audio, which I assume you don't want.

Unless you do. Here's what I do:

We use a Zoom for our primary audio, but also use bits of audio from the cams, not only for sync but to sometimes lend fullness and presence and applause. So we stack our video clips on tracks 1-4 and the Zoom Audio goes into Audio track 5. Sync using the waveforms. We do both acts on the same timeline and it works out fine, even if the show exceeds three hours, but we're using CS5 on a pretty beefy workstation.

Anyway, I do an audio mixdown even before I begin cutting picture. It's not the final mix but I like doing it first. This way I can hear the preliminary mix as I cut and I can go back and fix it as I go. I usually kick down the cam audio by 6 or 12 dB just so it's there but faint. Then just go to Export > Media (on CS4 it might be Export > Audio), choose uncompressed wav and export as mixdown.wav or something like that. The resulting file will be exactly the same length as both your original and your multicam timelines.

Create your Sequence 2 and drag Sequence 1 into it. Mute audio track 1; it's irrelevant. Drag mixdown.wav onto audio 2 and cut away. If at any point you don't like how it sounds, you can either note it and go back later, or stop and switch back to Sequence 1 and fix it right there by adjusting levels.

Anyway, still wondering what you meant by "massive number of short clips on my timeline". Did you mean on the target timeline after cutting? That makes sense. I thought you meant original clips in sequence 1.

[Tom Blizzard]

"Did you mean on the target timeline after cutting? That makes sense"
Yep, that's what I ment........ Working on Act 2 now. thanks