Lost Audio in Premiere
 

We're having an issue that apparently Adobe hasn'r seen before. When importing a project into 2.0 from 1.5 running Matrox with the upgraded drivers installed, naturally we're losing transitions. But, replacing the transitions, re-rendering and playing out the projest works fine...until we sabve it and try and reopen it. When we do, the audio files are still attached but blank; I mean no sound at all. Has anyone experienced this problem and if so, is there a solution?
Thanks.

Almost sounds like the audio isn't conforming properly. Have you tried to hold the Shift key down while loading the project? You have to hold it when you click the Premiere icon to load the app, then hold it all the way through the loading of your project as I recall. I think that this re-inits all the chache files. That may help.

I was about to say the same thing, when I've had this happen it was because I started to work on the project before the conform process was done. While you're importing footage and it's conforming, don't do ANYTHING to the system, let Premier finish, then check back with us and let us know.

The Premiere systems we're using is last year's SD Matrox system with 1.5 on it that we installed 2.0 on with the new Matrox drivers. It has one last hour-long show on which was done in 1.5 which now is in 2.0 and that's were the problems started. That being said, we have had NLE working on the problem all day and both of you are correct; it's not re-conforming the files. Thye're in the middle of changing the linking aspects of the files right now on 198 files and when that's finished I'll ask them about the Shift key.

Pixelated in 1.5 but fine in 6.5
 

Some AVI files, not all are terribly pixelated in 1.5 but read fine in 6.5. Same computer, with default settings on both versions, any ideas on what might be happening?
Any help/suggestions greatly appreciated.
Thanks!

Two Premiere problems
 

First the viewing screen is extremely gittery...i know its not the footage. Some times it seems worse than others....

Second, when exporting as an avi it works but when trying to do it as a quicktime file it sends sudden error as soon as its done and then just stops...

Premiere Pro Scratch Disks
 

Hi,

I was planning on configuring my drives as :

1 * 300MB - OS/Progs/ PPRo Projects
1 * 600GB Raid 0 (4*160GB 7200 drives) - Video Stock Footage/PPro Previews&scratch

I am editing DVCProHD, and also uncompressed 10 bit SD, and planning to add another 4 HD's my RAID so I can do uncompressed HD.

I want my previews & renders to be realtime, so is this the most optimal setup???

I will defrag the RAID 0 drive on a regular basis.

Thoughts?

Robert

When you say "terribly pixelated", does it look something like the Attached Image in this post?

/Roger

Memory Usage - Ppro and general
 

Hi,

New day, new thread :-)

I just put 2gb extra mem in my box - making a total of 4gb mem.

In Win XP Pro Sp2 it shows up as 3gb and PAE(Physical Adress Extension).

Reading up on memory and XP my conclusion is this:

1. No program can allocate more than 2gb
2. If not /3G switch is set in boot.ini, then 3gb will be allocatable for programs and 1gb for the kernel. But only programs designed for this mode will use more than 2gb.

So obviously my questions are: Are any NLE optimised for 2gb+? Do we need more than 2gb? I say "no" - for me it's fine to have 2gb to PPro, 1gb for Photoshop and 1gb (more or less) for After Effects....

Here is a ref link to all startup options for Win XP

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/833721

// Lazze - who still is rather *issed at PPro for not supporting any scripting.

Not like that, actually looks like when the heads are dirty. Audio is fine and the problem is not with all captured clips, either way they all run fine on 6.5

Auto Levels/Color/Contrast - Workflows and thoughts
 

Hi,

Background: I have 2 children which we try to film as much as possibly. This generates hours of footage. Main goal isn't to cut away that much since I consider this our "memory reserve". So I more or less take 1 hr Tape and transform it to 1hr DVD with menus and some extras. Then I can do "short short" 10 min films from the 1hr DVD to show "non family" :-)

With the above in mind I developed a plugin for Sony Vegas that takes a directory captured with Scenalyzer, adds the media in datetimeorder to the timeline excluding clips shorter than X seconds. I apply standard X-over. My plug also generates chaptermarkers at clipstart or at intervall X. I also get subtitle files for importing in DVD Architecht or Encore.

So as you see I've mostly been using Vegas. Now I have a new machine setup at home so I thought I'd give PPro 2 a go. So I though "a nice Auto levels/color/contrast". I fixed the project in Vegas as I use to, rendered to a 13gb AVI which I imported to PPro. Applied effects and checked the result on my TV set. Looked good - some yellow cast went away etc. So I let it process the whole file. When I check the result it is BAD :-) Everytime I have moved the camera so that the light changes or focus is running, the Auto XXX stuff has gone haywire. The scene "flickers" and I got other strange artefacts (the original footage .avi looks fine). So, is the conclusion here: There are no shortcuts? I have to check clip by clip to decide where and how much "level" or/and "color correction" I need? Or are there some parameters/options than I can use?

// Lars Siden - who now will take the 20D still camera for a spin :-)

I had a similar problem with my Panasonic NV-DX100 and if you mail to support@mainconcept.de and describe your problem and ask them for a new file, MCDVD_32.DLL, they will send it to you. Do not forget to write what version of Premiere Pro you are using. Just replace the mcdvd_32.dll with the new one.

MCDVD_32.DLL is located in C:\Program Files\Adobe\Premiere Pro 1.5

Premiere Pro uses MainConcept's DV-codec, thats the reason to why you should contact MainConcept :)

If you want the file right away, send me a mail and i will send it to you. My adress is in my profile in this forum. (MCDVD_32.DLL Version 2.4.13 file size is 401 kB)

/Roger

Going to 4GB and using the /3GB switch looks useful
 

As a retired IT guy I find Microsofts doc on the /3GB switch a bit vague. I also have 2GB and am considering adding 2GB and using the switch.

The doc says that RAM above the limit is reserved for the OS kernel. The question is whether it allows each app to request up to the limit for and lets them fight it out sending (paging) the "least recently used" (LRU) pages to disc.

I already discovered that PPro2/AspectHD4.1 and lots of 7 megapixel stills scaled on the timeline can use every scrap of RAM on my 2GB system. I worked around it by making still "proxys" of exactly 1080x1920 beforehand - but thats a bit inconvenient. So even if PPro ONLY uses up to 2GB, having 4 and the /3GB switch allows Photoshop, Bridge and misc stuff to be resident in the 2-3 GB band without infringing on PPro/HDVs demands.

With 2GB more being under $190, even for 533mhz strips why not do it?

Compression for the Web using Premiere
 

Hello everyone. I was wondering if I could ask you guys what setting do you use in Premiere for showing videos for the web. A lot of movies show trailers on their website with great quality but less than 20MB.

I have been struggling in regards to compressing for the web. I have seen other videographer's 4 min demo with only 14 MB and the quality is awesome.
In the meantime, my video is also 4 mins. long..22MB..and the quality is not that great.

I use premiere pro 1.5 but Im not sure how to make quality looking video with a smaller size.

Do you guys have any suggestions?

It depends on the subject matter, but I can generally get by with 512K using a 320X240 frame size. You might be able to reduce the frame rate as well. As I said. It all depends on the material.

I have 4gb now.

When I had Premiere Pro 2 running and started After Effects 6.5 it said "0% of 2gb allocated". That implies that every program can if it wishes allocate a maximum of 2gb. The /3gb switch should give lets say After Effects the possibility to allocate 3gb(if the program supports it).

So for now, I'll have 4gb without the switch.

//Lazze

Making it look like image is moving?
 

Hello all,
I've been working on a little project and it requires that I make an image look like its moving away from screen. I figured all that out and everything. I rendered all of it. The problem I'm getting is when I do a full screen preview the rotational movement I have the image doing is really choppy. Any help would be appriciated. Also, what should I make my project into so that I can put it on something like googlevideo or youtube? BTW I'm using Pro1.5

DVD Templates
 

Is there any other DVD templates available for PP2?

I have not seen any. If anyone would like to contribute, I will be happy to host them on my site.

Editing in Fields
 

Hi,

I have been wondering if it is possible to edit in fields. What i mean is, being able to make a cut in the center of a frame. Therefore making you capable of having one image staying only 1/50 of a second on the screen, instead of the 1/25... That frames allow. My camera records in fields, and is in no way capable of progressive mode. I just need to be able to control the edit in more detail. Hope you can help me! Thank you.

Keyframe Text
 

One thing I've always liked about Sony Vegas over Premiere in past iterations is the ability to keyframe and animate every setting for any component. Due to compatibility and some of the nice advancements of Premiere 2.0 I'm heavily considering moving back to it as my primary NLE. There's some pretty good keyframing/animation features in Premiere 2.0 concerning effects, but I don't see that text itself can be keyframed, not even to accomplish something as simple as a slow expansion of tracking for a text element (I can zoom the scale of the whole text objects, but can keyframe any detailed text settings). Am I missing something? Or am I going to have to create it in After Effects or Borix Red? I'd really like to be able to do something as simple as this right within Premiere itself. Any insight would be appreciated.

That may well be the real-time preview. Depending on the amount and type of effects, Premiere dynamically adjusts the quality of the real-time preview to keep up a workable frames per second.

If you did a search on the error message you might find a solution. You could also try uninstalling and reinstalling QuickTime.

How to sync footage with dual-system audio for editing
 

Hi,

I'm getting ready to shoot a short film with a professional Sound Mixer recording audio on an external recorder.

What is the best way to sync audio in Premiere Pro 1.5 to be able to edit?

Or should I save myself the headache and upgrade to Premiere Pro 2 to be able to sync audio with the multicam feature?

Any input would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Geoff Murillo

Lars,

The Auto adjustments look at each frame and make adjustments to that frame. When the conditions are changing like you describe each frame gets a different adjustment. As you watch the adjusted movie, you can see the flicker because each frame has a different adjustment applied to it. To avoid this, the Auto adjustments have a 'temporal smoothing' adjustment. If you set a number in this adjustment then Premiere will look not just at a single frame, but several frames each side of the frame it is adjusting and make a correction based on several frames. This will make the adjustments smoother over time and avoid the flicker you are describing. There is also a check box called 'scene detect' if you check this box Premiere will not take into account when a scene changes and not apply correction from the adjacent scene to the current one.

The Color, Contrast and Levels adjustment have some overlapping effects. Usually chosing only one will do what you need to do. I would only apply more than one if you see that it helps. This will keep the adjustments from working against each other and make your render times quicker.

Good luck.

Lloyd ,

Thank you! Great input! Will check these settings ASAP

Regards,

Lazze Z

Premiere Pro 2.0 versus Vegas 6.0
 

Given the price comparisons versus functionality strictly for the standalone NLE’s themselves, there's no contest; Vegas wins out. But let's expound upon that further. I’m just going to weigh all the options streaming through my head in writing, so bare with me. Keep in mind this is all from the perspective and experience of a single individual (me), so if anyone has further commentary or corrections, have at it. First, let's take a look at some numbers:

Premiere Pro 2.0: $849.00
After Effects Pro 7.0: $999.00
Production Studio Premium: $1699.00
Vegas 6.0: $449.95
Vegas + DVD Production Suite: $674.96
Boris Red 3.0: $1495.00

When doing a direct NLE to NLE comparison, removing effects products from the equation, with the ability of Vegas for rudimentary compositing and the capability of animating/keyframing every single aspect, it’s simply much more powerful than Premiere for much less cost, even when considering the greater wealth of plug-ins that are developed for Premiere over Vegas.

But once you throw an effects package into the mix that all changes, and price versus value shoots up the other direction with Premiere pulling ahead. For example, a Vegas + DVD Production Suite/Boris Red 3.0 combination would cost a total of $2169.96, which is significantly more than $1699.00 for Production Studio Premium, which would include a comparable toolset (including DVD authoring and sound editing).

Focusing on effects packages for a moment, it cannot be ignored that Boris Red doesn’t work as well with Vegas as it does with Premiere since Vegas architecture only allows a selected frame to be carried over (meaning that for Vegas, Boris cannot be used for any effect needing to change over time, such as tracking, stabilizing, etc. – the effect can only be applied equally across the entire clip). This gives Premiere even more leverage from an advanced effects perspective, despite its less comprehensive options for self-contained animation/keyframing.

On the other hand, Boris is arguably more powerful in a number of ways than After Effects, with certain native effects such as rain, snow, fire, etc. Those could be considered minor omissions from After Effects, especially given Red’s higher cost, but I've found that the tracker/stabilizer in Boris is much more effective than the one in After Effects, producing much better results. Furthermore (this one’s going to hurt where it counts), dynamic link is a step in the right direction, but Boris Red actually integrates better with Premiere than After Effects, being merely an effect that can be applied to a clip like any other effect.

So purely from a functionality standpoint, since Boris Red actually integrates better with Premiere than After Effects and includes more complex and advanced special effects natively, all with better results, the argument could be made that the best combination of an NLE with an effects package would actually be Premiere with Boris Red. But then again, there’s the price; Boris is much more expensive. Although, for a professional cost won't be as much of an issue. They're going to go with what works best for them.

The primary intent of this post, however, is not to consider an effects package at all, but rather the native abilities of the NLE’s themselves (Premiere versus Vegas, standalone). From that perspective, Vegas wins by an unequivocal margin, and not a particularly small one, being not only less expensive but much more fully functional when considering its extensive animation capabilities and native, built-in effects. At least from my view and to the best of my experience and knowledge, after the improvements that have been made to Premiere 2.0, any other differences one might mention are merely a matter of semantics, personal preferences, and learning curves. In the end Premiere is so close to being great that I can taste it, but then the disappointment of these few small yet important missing details sets in, which for me really boils down to one thing: the ability to fully animate text and a handful of other configuration settings.

To combat this in the marketplace, or in other words to pull in more converts from Vegas, I would suggest that Adobe tweak Premiere’s design a bit in a near-future iteration to include the ability to keyframe every element under the sun like Vegas does. Why leave any stone unturned? Doing so would not take away from the value of After Effects at all, which would still have a lot of complex compositing functionality not available within the NLE itself, for those professionals who need that capability (then again Boris Red has an edge over After Effects in functionality, so might actually be a better choice for the time being, although you pay more for it, so I suppose it evens out).

For those on a budget and in the market for an standalone NLE (without an effects product in conjunction with it), which I have a feeling comprises a very large percentage if not the majority of consumers out there, Premiere would become a much more empowering, viable and appealing option, even at its slightly higher price than Vegas, if it was at least as fully functional.

As someone who abandoned Premiere three years ago (after many years of use, since version 1.0 back in the 90's, in fact) for Vegas (for the reasons mentioned above, and at the time for native 24p 2:3:3:2 pulldown functionality, which Premiere has since improved on), I would be at least one consumer Adobe would be winning back over (meaning rather than jumping between the two products I’d drop Vegas and stick with Premiere).

Thanks for the unsolicited software bashing. Would you like to continue with a Mac vs PC rant?

Well, perhaps you didn't find his post useful, but as a video editor in the same position, I thought his post was thoughtful and interesting, and not just a 'bash'...

I, too, used Premiere until a year or two ago, and am always considering moving back if the workflow supports it.

Best,

Benjamin


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http://www.neo-fight.tv [The "Techno-Debate" Video Podcast]

Converting .MOV video shot on digital camera
 

Hi-

I'm a XL-2 user normnally, however once in a while when I'm using my Kodak "EasyShare" Z730 digital (still) camera I take a few minutes of video with the video function. The video format is Quick Time (.mov) and 320X240 with a frame rate of 11.61 frames per second. Needless to say the video is very jerky. It looks O.K. when viewed on a PC monitor at 320X240.

Q. What would be the best (cleanest) way to import into P-Pro-2 so that I can get 720X480 at say 24 or 30 FPS? I tried the "interprit footage" function. Assumed a frame rate of 24 in 24P mode - then slowed the footage down approximatly 50% in the time line.

That's the best that I could come up with.

Any thoughts....

Tim

Can't Open Project In Premiere
 

I'm trying to open a project I haven't worked on since October and every time I try to open it the computer freezes. Premiere asks for four missing files, and I've tried "Skip," Skip All," and not to open preview files, but nothing works. It runs through asking for the files and then once it got up to updating the files or whatever that's called, but the computer still crashed. I assume there's a corrupted file, but not sure.

I've trashed the preferences, run Norton Utilities, tried duplicating the file, I haven't saved it under a different name however, and other than reinstalling the software, I'm not sure what to do next.

When I left this project it was intact, or so I thought-- and saved. Unfortunately, I don't seem to have a backup disc. I do have one that needs to be finalized on my dvd recorder, but I doubt the whole movie is on there.

Has anyone else had this occur? I've never had this happen before.

Thanks for any help you can provide!

lucinda luvaas

In the folder where your Premiere project file is saved check if there is a folder named "Adobe Premiere Pro Auto-Save." If there is, there should be backup copies of your project that Premiere created.

Maybe theres nothing wrong with those files that are gone but with any of those which still there. Very often it happens when you were playing meantime with codecs. Now some footage are interpreted with wrong/bad codec.
So if i remember correctly then app2.0 uses xml formed .pproj file. You can easily find all related files looking inside .pproj file. Locate them from Your HDD and move step by step to new place.

Hi Christopher and Frank,

I'm using Adobe Premiere 6.5 and I'm not sure that I can do what you're saying, but I'll check and get back to you. I now use FCP, FC Studio that is, but I wanted to open this project and take parts of it for use elsewhere. I'll let you know soon. Thanks!

Lucinda

Capturing with P6.5 on a laptop
 

Hello all...

I'm thinking of getting a laptop computer so I can set up a mobile editing system in my van. I use Premiere 6.5 in the office running on desktops with 7200rpm drives and it works just fine.

However, most of the laptops I'm looking at, like the Sony Viao, all seem to use 4200rpm drives for the lower noise, power consumption, heat, etc. I don't think this will create any issues during capture via firewire but has anyone had any experience with using these slower drives for capture??

Thanks!

Matrox Triplehead2go with PPro?
 

Just wondering...has anyone tried Triplehead2go with PPro2?

http://www.matrox.com/mga/offhome/th2go/home.cfm

If so, what are your impressions? One specific question I had was whether video overlay can display on all three screens.

Action Safe Scaling
 

When I import my captured footage into Premiere I have to scale down the clip(s) to about 92% to fit within the action safe borders.

Do you scale down your footage so you dont 'crop' out the outer areas?

Does scaling down the footage reduce the quality to a degree?

Thanks

I don't scale down
 

I have always used footage 100%, both when I did standard DV on Premiere6.5 and now on PPro2 on hidef HDV. When projects are viewed on old CRT TVs with all their overscan you lose a bit off the edges, but thats to be expected. The newer the flat panel screen you have the less you will find it crops. When your project is viewed directly on a computer, there is no cropping at all. So overtime, the "action safe" area is becomming an anachronism. Really the croping should be done in the viewfinder while shooting (or when making still photo "proxy" copies for your project).

Don't scale down your footage. The reason for the action safe grid is simply to let you know what elements are likely to be seen on (mainly) CRT based televisions, due to overscan. It's especially useful when adding extra elements such as graphics. It is not meant to be used as a guide for scaling down your source video footage.

I just shoot with the issue in mind. It is a hassle scaling it down because you have to render more often.

24p pulldown interlace problem - help?
 

I have an XL2 and an HD100 which I used in a 2-camera setup. Both were configured identically to record 24p advanced in SD widescreen. 2 hours, 4 tapes total. I pulled in all the footage and edited it in a 24p project in PPro 2.0. All is well except...

On the second hour of the XL2 footage, when I go frame by frame, I get these wierd interlaced frames every 4th frame. I checked and the footage was interpreted correctly, with the remove DV pulldown box checked. Has anyone seen this problem? HELP!?