Adobe Premiere & Premiere Pro discussions from 2006

Calvin Wallace · November 14th, 2006, 03:10 AM

Alright so I am exporting my DV-AVI files, and there's the option to "recompress" it, which I always leave unchecked, assuming that recompressing will lose quality.

Can anyone confirm what the recompress option actually does and what is the best setting for it?

Dave Ferdinand · November 14th, 2006, 07:35 AM

Try the echo function for the trails but not sure how to get them to have that psychedelic color.

Graham Hickling · November 14th, 2006, 08:25 AM

My understanding is that leaving it unchecked allows PPro to "smart render" - that is, if you are exporting to the same format & codec as the original footage it will only recompress those parts of the timeline that have had effects, etc, applied.

Which is a good thing - it will render faster and retain original quality in all the unedited sections of the timeline.

Calvin Wallace · November 14th, 2006, 08:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Graham Hickling

My understanding is that leaving it unchecked allows PPro to "smart render" - that is, if you are exporting to the same format & codec as the original footage it will only recompress those parts of the timeline that have had effects, etc, applied.

Which is a good thing - it will render faster and retain original quality in all the unedited sections of the timeline.

That would make sense. Thank you very much. Can anyone else confirm?

Adam Bray · November 14th, 2006, 05:03 PM

I was not sure which section to post this in. I use PPro, so I thought I would ask here.

What's the correct way to edit clips? For example, suppose I have a minute long clip, and there to parts in there that are say, 10 seonds each that I want to use.

Up till now I drop long clips into the timeline and compress the ends so I just end up with the little clip that I want. Or should I be "scissoring" off the parts that I don't want?

I find that when I "compress" the ends, I can later make fine adjustments if needed, which I like. But was not sure if this is how it's supposed to be done.

Mat Thompson · November 14th, 2006, 05:29 PM

Hi guys

I hope you guys can help me get my head around setting up my projects in PPro2.0.

When you start a new project it has a whole bunch of formats to choose and it seems once you've chosen a format, changing it is not possible, so I guess this is my first question?

If I want to work with 16:9 footage captured from my XL2 in 25P which of the project settings would I use? DV pal widescreen would seem the right choice but while it says 16:9 it also still says 720x576 which is 4:3.

I have just done this edited my piece (in the project windows it looks 16:9) but when I come to export.....its stretched back to the 4:3 !!

What am I overlooking or not understanding to set this project up correctly????

Many thanks
Mat

Ben Winter · November 14th, 2006, 07:28 PM

Pixel aspect ratio. (is what you're overlooking).

If I have a 720x480 project with square pixels, I have a 4:3 project (actually they're not quite square, but close enough). If that same 720x480 project has 1.2 ratio rectangular pixels, I have a 16:9 project. There are the same about of pixels in both, but in the latter, the pixels are 1.2 times as wide as they are tall. (This is NTSC not PAL btw)

The 16:9 preset you want to choose is correct, because it is telling you that while there are 720x576 pixels, the aspect ratio is 16:9. (in PAL this means the pixels are 1.422 times as wide as they are tall)

So, when you export, you need to specify the pixel aspect ratio. This is under the settings screen on export, under Video. Choose "D1/DV PAL Widescreen (1.422)"

Ben Winter · November 14th, 2006, 07:40 PM

Double click the clip in the Project bin. It should appear in the Preview (left) window. Play or shuttle to the start point of the part you want to use. Hit the key 'i' (for "in" point) and a marker will appear in the preview window timeline. Play or shuttle to the end of that point (this doesn't have to be exact) and hit 'o' (for "out" point). Now, click and drag from the preview window video to the timeline. That section you just marked in and out will appear in your timeline. You can make adjustments to the length all you want afterwards in the timeline by "compressing" them.

This doesn't just apply for "long" clips, but for editing in general.

Your way works, but is bulky and generally doesn't work for most projects where there just isn't enough room on the timeline to use it as your "cutting board." The generally accepted workflow is cut up a clip in the preview window, adjust on the timeline.

Adam Bray · November 15th, 2006, 12:54 AM

Cool, thanks. I was close. But you're way works better, cause like you said I don't have to use the timeline as an "cutting board" which I noticed was kinda annoying.

Adam Bray · November 15th, 2006, 01:55 AM

Is there a way to produce a "dreamy effect" in Ppro?. I have situation where a girl is thinking or dreaming about the good old days with her boyfriend who's passed away. With clips of them having a picnic, sitting on a dock watching sailboats, feeding ducks at a pond, him picking a flower for her.....that type of stuff.

I'm thinking it should maybe be in B&W and be "hazy" or "foggy". Anyone have any thoughts on how I could produce this visualization in Pro?

Maybe highly oversaturate it when I shoot it, or do it in post?

Ben Winter · November 15th, 2006, 02:13 AM

1. Copy the clip in the timeline you want to make "dreamy"
2. Paste a duplicate exactly over the existing clip, so you have two tracks of exactly the same clip right overtop each other.
3. Add a Gaussian Blur to the top layer. usually values between 20-50 work, it's your preference.
4. Change the top clip's opacity to anywhere between 40-80%. Again, this is preference.
5. Tweak.

This is known as "diffusion" and this is an easy way to achieve it. There are other methods, but I find this one to be the easiest to work with. An older method before computer graphics was to rub Vaseline on the lens (what a mess!)

Mat Thompson · November 15th, 2006, 05:56 AM

Yeah, this makes sense I guess. I played with export settings and got things the way I wanted....thanks for the help:)

In terms of frame rate I guess you should always match up to your shooting rate. Ie 25p or 50i. There are a number of presets for 24p !?? Where does this come into things?

Greg Boston · November 15th, 2006, 06:42 AM

Adam,

Another option to consider rather than full b/w would be to de-saturate the colors quite a bit. Helps provide the difference of reality (bright, saturated), and dreaming (low sat, muted colors).

That would be in addition to Ben's suggestion to diffuse the images.

Also, you'll want to use some type of transition that cue's the viewer from reality to dream footage and vice versa.

-gb-

Brendan Marnell · November 15th, 2006, 01:00 PM

I can't get the play/toggle button to respond in the monitor window or project window in Premiere Pro 1.5. Jog button moves the frames along fine and step fwd & step back work as well; arrow keys on keyboard also move frames. This first happened abruptly today when I had nearly finished a long project ... the project is all there and can be "jogged" through, minus the sound. When I import other projects or clips and try to play them the same thing happens ... no response from play/toggle button. Playback Settings appear to be as normal. I can only guess that I did the equivalent of putting on the handbrake by accident!

Where is the handbrake, please? What have I done stupid?

WMP plays all clips perfectly with sound.

Deke Ryland · November 15th, 2006, 01:26 PM

If you had a seperate hard drive specifically to be your video editing 'scratch disk'... how big should this drive be? I generally work on projects that are 5-10 mins max (not long at all). Would a 74GB hard drive be enough space for a scratch disk? Also, has anyone seen any perfomance gains by using a 10k RPM drive as their scratch disk as opposed to 7,200rpm?

November 14th, 2006, 03:10 AM	#541
Calvin Wallace New Boot Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Edmonton, AB, CAN Posts: 20	Exporting (recompression) Alright so I am exporting my DV-AVI files, and there's the option to "recompress" it, which I always leave unchecked, assuming that recompressing will lose quality. Can anyone confirm what the recompress option actually does and what is the best setting for it? __________________ http://www.darkbyke.deviantdesign.ca Canon Elura 65 Adobe Premiere 1.5 Pro Song VAIO PC / 3GHz / 1.5GB ram / 710GB capacity

November 14th, 2006, 07:35 AM	#542
Dave Ferdinand Major Player Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Vancouver, BC Posts: 359	Try the echo function for the trails but not sure how to get them to have that psychedelic color. __________________ Do or do not, there is no try.

November 14th, 2006, 05:03 PM	#545
Adam Bray Major Player Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Houston/Austin Posts: 394	Correct way to edit long clips? I was not sure which section to post this in. I use PPro, so I thought I would ask here. What's the correct way to edit clips? For example, suppose I have a minute long clip, and there to parts in there that are say, 10 seonds each that I want to use. Up till now I drop long clips into the timeline and compress the ends so I just end up with the little clip that I want. Or should I be "scissoring" off the parts that I don't want? I find that when I "compress" the ends, I can later make fine adjustments if needed, which I like. But was not sure if this is how it's supposed to be done.

November 14th, 2006, 05:29 PM	#546
Mat Thompson Trustee Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Kent UK Posts: 1,397	Setting up a project in PPro2.0 Hi guys I hope you guys can help me get my head around setting up my projects in PPro2.0. When you start a new project it has a whole bunch of formats to choose and it seems once you've chosen a format, changing it is not possible, so I guess this is my first question? If I want to work with 16:9 footage captured from my XL2 in 25P which of the project settings would I use? DV pal widescreen would seem the right choice but while it says 16:9 it also still says 720x576 which is 4:3. I have just done this edited my piece (in the project windows it looks 16:9) but when I come to export.....its stretched back to the 4:3 !! What am I overlooking or not understanding to set this project up correctly???? Many thanks Mat

November 14th, 2006, 07:28 PM	#547
Ben Winter Trustee Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Hollywood, CA Posts: 1,675 Images: 1	Pixel aspect ratio. (is what you're overlooking). If I have a 720x480 project with square pixels, I have a 4:3 project (actually they're not quite square, but close enough). If that same 720x480 project has 1.2 ratio rectangular pixels, I have a 16:9 project. There are the same about of pixels in both, but in the latter, the pixels are 1.2 times as wide as they are tall. (This is NTSC not PAL btw) The 16:9 preset you want to choose is correct, because it is telling you that while there are 720x576 pixels, the aspect ratio is 16:9. (in PAL this means the pixels are 1.422 times as wide as they are tall) So, when you export, you need to specify the pixel aspect ratio. This is under the settings screen on export, under Video. Choose "D1/DV PAL Widescreen (1.422)" __________________ BenWinter.com Last edited by Ben Winter; November 15th, 2006 at 02:19 AM.

November 14th, 2006, 08:25 AM	#543
Graham Hickling Trustee Join Date: May 2004 Location: Knoxville, Tennessee Posts: 1,669	My understanding is that leaving it unchecked allows PPro to "smart render" - that is, if you are exporting to the same format & codec as the original footage it will only recompress those parts of the timeline that have had effects, etc, applied. Which is a good thing - it will render faster and retain original quality in all the unedited sections of the timeline.

November 14th, 2006, 07:40 PM	#548
Ben Winter Trustee Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Hollywood, CA Posts: 1,675 Images: 1	Double click the clip in the Project bin. It should appear in the Preview (left) window. Play or shuttle to the start point of the part you want to use. Hit the key 'i' (for "in" point) and a marker will appear in the preview window timeline. Play or shuttle to the end of that point (this doesn't have to be exact) and hit 'o' (for "out" point). Now, click and drag from the preview window video to the timeline. That section you just marked in and out will appear in your timeline. You can make adjustments to the length all you want afterwards in the timeline by "compressing" them. This doesn't just apply for "long" clips, but for editing in general. Your way works, but is bulky and generally doesn't work for most projects where there just isn't enough room on the timeline to use it as your "cutting board." The generally accepted workflow is cut up a clip in the preview window, adjust on the timeline. Attached Thumbnails __________________ BenWinter.com

November 15th, 2006, 12:54 AM	#549
Adam Bray Major Player Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Houston/Austin Posts: 394	Cool, thanks. I was close. But you're way works better, cause like you said I don't have to use the timeline as an "cutting board" which I noticed was kinda annoying.

November 15th, 2006, 01:55 AM	#550
Adam Bray Major Player Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Houston/Austin Posts: 394	"Dreamy effect?" Is there a way to produce a "dreamy effect" in Ppro?. I have situation where a girl is thinking or dreaming about the good old days with her boyfriend who's passed away. With clips of them having a picnic, sitting on a dock watching sailboats, feeding ducks at a pond, him picking a flower for her.....that type of stuff. I'm thinking it should maybe be in B&W and be "hazy" or "foggy". Anyone have any thoughts on how I could produce this visualization in Pro? Maybe highly oversaturate it when I shoot it, or do it in post?

November 15th, 2006, 02:13 AM	#551
Ben Winter Trustee Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Hollywood, CA Posts: 1,675 Images: 1	1. Copy the clip in the timeline you want to make "dreamy" 2. Paste a duplicate exactly over the existing clip, so you have two tracks of exactly the same clip right overtop each other. 3. Add a Gaussian Blur to the top layer. usually values between 20-50 work, it's your preference. 4. Change the top clip's opacity to anywhere between 40-80%. Again, this is preference. 5. Tweak. This is known as "diffusion" and this is an easy way to achieve it. There are other methods, but I find this one to be the easiest to work with. An older method before computer graphics was to rub Vaseline on the lens (what a mess!) __________________ BenWinter.com

November 15th, 2006, 05:56 AM	#552
Mat Thompson Trustee Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Kent UK Posts: 1,397	Yeah, this makes sense I guess. I played with export settings and got things the way I wanted....thanks for the help:) In terms of frame rate I guess you should always match up to your shooting rate. Ie 25p or 50i. There are a number of presets for 24p !?? Where does this come into things?

November 15th, 2006, 06:42 AM	#553
Greg Boston Wrangler Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: DFW area, TX Posts: 6,117 Images: 1	Adam, Another option to consider rather than full b/w would be to de-saturate the colors quite a bit. Helps provide the difference of reality (bright, saturated), and dreaming (low sat, muted colors). That would be in addition to Ben's suggestion to diffuse the images. Also, you'll want to use some type of transition that cue's the viewer from reality to dream footage and vice versa. -gb-

November 15th, 2006, 01:00 PM	#554
Brendan Marnell Major Player Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Dublin, Ireland Posts: 938	PPro 1.5 Where's the handbrake? I can't get the play/toggle button to respond in the monitor window or project window in Premiere Pro 1.5. Jog button moves the frames along fine and step fwd & step back work as well; arrow keys on keyboard also move frames. This first happened abruptly today when I had nearly finished a long project ... the project is all there and can be "jogged" through, minus the sound. When I import other projects or clips and try to play them the same thing happens ... no response from play/toggle button. Playback Settings appear to be as normal. I can only guess that I did the equivalent of putting on the handbrake by accident! Where is the handbrake, please? What have I done stupid? WMP plays all clips perfectly with sound.

November 15th, 2006, 01:26 PM	#555
Deke Ryland Major Player Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Washington, USA Posts: 213	Size of Scratch Disks If you had a seperate hard drive specifically to be your video editing 'scratch disk'... how big should this drive be? I generally work on projects that are 5-10 mins max (not long at all). Would a 74GB hard drive be enough space for a scratch disk? Also, has anyone seen any perfomance gains by using a 10k RPM drive as their scratch disk as opposed to 7,200rpm?