Hello.

We've been using an XL2 to shoot footage and are trying to edit the video into Premiere CS3 Pro however we are having some issues. Here's the environment:

Windows XP SP3
3.0 GHz Core 2 Duo
4 Gigs of RAM
2 SATA hd: 160 and 250 respectively

Even though I instructed him not to, my colleague accidentally changed the fps before shooting from 29.97 to 24.97 as he was navigating through the menus and did not realize that. He was away when he did this so he ended up importing the clips (DV-AVI format) into a different computer using Premiere Pro 1 and then burned them onto a dvd to send to me. Now the clips play fine using Windows Media Player. Also if imported into Sony Vegas 8, they also play fine. However, when importing them to CS3 (without going through Vegas) there are these frames that have a "greenish" character to them, that appear every few seconds or so. Also, the strange thing is if you import the clip in Vegas and then Make Movie as avi again...short clips about 8 minutes or so will then import fine in Premiere.

Longs clips, like one that is 32 minutes long, after sending them through Vegas, do not import completely in Premiere. Why in the hell does it do that? I have tried restarting the computer, saving as a new project etc and it always only imports about 7 minutes out of the 32 minute clip. The file size and length show up fine in Windows Explorer. File size shows up fine in Premiere but the length does not. If I try to adjust the clip duration it drops the playback speed accordingly. Even If unlink speed and length, the majority of the clip becomes black starting from the 7 minute cut off point.

My questions:

1. The default settings for the project in Premiere are 29.97 fps. Is there a way to import the clip with 24.97 fps setting? Basically, import the clips straight into premiere without having to go through Vegas?

2. Why is Premiere only importing part of the clip? I did some research on the web but there is very little that I could find about this issue. I have had it happen before too. Is it a bug? What is it? It is extremely frustrating of course.

What is the best way to go about this?

We are new to the editing scene so if you need more details, I will be more than happy to provide you with them.

Thanks.
Arber

Hello.

We've been using an XL2 to shoot footage and are trying to edit the video into Premiere CS3 Pro however we are having some issues. Here's the environment:

Windows XP SP3
3.0 GHz Core 2 Duo
4 Gigs of RAM
2 SATA hd: 160 and 250 respectively

Even though I instructed him not to, my colleague accidentally changed the fps before shooting from 29.97 to 24.97 as he was navigating through the menus and did not realize that. He was away when he did this so he ended up importing the clips (DV-AVI format) into a different computer using Premiere Pro 1 and then burned them onto a dvd to send to me. Now the clips play fine using Windows Media Player. Also if imported into Sony Vegas 8, they also play fine. However, when importing them to CS3 (without going through Vegas) there are these frames that have a "greenish" character to them, that appear every few seconds or so. Also, the strange thing is if you import the clip in Vegas and then Make Movie as avi again...short clips about 8 minutes or so will then import fine in Premiere.

Longs clips, like one that is 32 minutes long, after sending them through Vegas, do not import completely in Premiere. Why in the hell does it do that? I have tried restarting the computer, saving as a new project etc and it always only imports about 7 minutes out of the 32 minute clip. The file size and length show up fine in Windows Explorer. File size shows up fine in Premiere but the length does not. If I try to adjust the clip duration it drops the playback speed accordingly. Even If unlink speed and length, the majority of the clip becomes black starting from the 7 minute cut off point.

My questions:

1. The default settings for the project in Premiere are 29.97 fps. Is there a way to import the clip with 24.97 fps setting? Basically, import the clips straight into premiere without having to go through Vegas?

2. Why is Premiere only importing part of the clip? I did some research on the web but there is very little that I could find about this issue. I have had it happen before too. Is it a bug? What is it? It is extremely frustrating of course.

What is the best way to go about this?

We are new to the editing scene so if you need more details, I will be more than happy to provide you with them.

Thanks.
Arber

You should try interpreting the footage first. You should be able to change the frame rate from there. Right click on the footage that you have imported into Premiere in the Project Bin. Then click on interpret footage. That way you should be able import the whole file just fine without issues after that. :)

Hi.

Thank you for responding to my post.

I followed your instructions and tried doing that. The current setting is to use frame rate from file and it is set for 23.9670. I tried the default, then changed the frame rate manually to 24.97 but with no success. There are these green colored "negative" frames that seem to happen very often, the image switches between them and normal. Rather hard to describe so I created a screenshot. You can find it here:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3005/2973130901_a963bf5035.jpg?v=0

Any idea what that could be? Anything else I can try?

Thank you!

Hi.

Thank you for responding to my post.

I followed your instructions and tried doing that. The current setting is to use frame rate from file and it is set for 23.9670. I tried the default, then changed the frame rate manually to 24.97 but with no success. There are these green colored "negative" frames that seem to happen very often, the image switches between them and normal. Rather hard to describe so I created a screenshot. You can find it here:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3005/2973130901_a963bf5035.jpg?v=0

Any idea what that could be? Anything else I can try?

Thank you!

I think one of your fields might be going a little crazy on you. Here's a link:

Adobe Premiere Pro CS3 (http://livedocs.adobe.com/en_US/PremierePro/3.0/help.html?content=WS1c9bc5c2e465a58a91cf0b1038518aef7-7cd8.html)

The process is slightly confusing, but basically what I think you need to do is separate the fields and then interpret it into progressive scan footage with no fields. That way it should eliminate the strange reaction your getting from that field, possibly. Let me know if this works. :)


FYI- If it separates to the wrong field when and sets on only the weird green part. Try and start a new project and in the project settings before you even save the file, change the fields to upper first instead of lower.

I think one of your fields might be going a little crazy on you. Here's a link:

Adobe Premiere Pro CS3 (http://livedocs.adobe.com/en_US/PremierePro/3.0/help.html?content=WS1c9bc5c2e465a58a91cf0b1038518aef7-7cd8.html)

The process is slightly confusing, but basically what I think you need to do is separate the fields and then interpret it into progressive scan footage with no fields. That way it should eliminate the strange reaction your getting from that field, possibly. Let me know if this works. :)


FYI- If it separates to the wrong field when and sets on only the weird green part. Try and start a new project and in the project settings before you even save the file, change the fields to upper first instead of lower.

Thank you for the link. I am not sure however how to go about separating fields. I did try creating a new project though, with upper instead of lower field being the first and then imported the clip. That didn't solve it. Tried doing it with Progressive Scan. That didn't do it either. I also tried following the instructions from adobe...checked Reverse Field Dominance box then Interprete Footage. No luck. Tried Reversing the Dominance and Interlacing consecutive Fields. No go. Compared the clip properties with that in Vegas and they are the same. I am supposed to Interprete the footage every time I change the clip properties, right? If I use the MainConcept DV Pro codec for editing, the green stuff disappears but playback is jerky...pause to slow motion to normal etc...Rather strange. How do you separate the fields?

Thank you for the link. I am not sure however how to go about separating fields. I did try creating a new project though, with upper instead of lower field being the first and then imported the clip. That didn't solve it. Tried doing it with Progressive Scan. That didn't do it either. I also tried following the instructions from adobe...checked Reverse Field Dominance box then Interprete Footage. No luck. Tried Reversing the Dominance and Interlacing consecutive Fields. No go. Compared the clip properties with that in Vegas and they are the same. I am supposed to Interprete the footage every time I change the clip properties, right? If I use the MainConcept DV Pro codec for editing, the green stuff disappears but playback is jerky...pause to slow motion to normal etc...Rather strange. How do you separate the fields?

It's possible that it may just be the preview from PPro is caching those bad frames. Does it have the green frames when u just play outside of PPro? Try rendering a sequence with just that clip and see if the render comes out bad too.

I usually separate my fields in AE actually. Gives you a little bit more control over which field to use. Its basically the same process as interpreting footage in PPro. Do you have AE by chance?

Yes. I do have AE CS3. The clips play fine outside Premiere using Windows Media Player for instance. But, if i render the clip the green still shows.

Update: Imported one of the clips in AE and changed separate fields to Upper Field First and it seems to play fine. I will try rendering the clip, exporting it and then importing it in CS3 and will see if that does it.

Yes. I do have AE CS3. The clips play fine outside Premiere using Windows Media Player for instance. But, if i render the clip the green still shows.

OK, first try pulling the footage into AE and see if interpreting in the footage in there works any better than PPro.

I just thought of something too. Do you know what codec the footage was rendered in? It's possible that its a codec issue as well.

OK, first try pulling the footage into AE and see if interpreting in the footage in there works any better than PPro.

I just thought of something too. Do you know what codec the footage was rendered in? It's possible that its a codec issue as well.

OK. So switching to upper field first in AE seems to work. How do you recommend I export it from AE? Also, what's the shortcut for previewing footage with sound in AE? As far as I am aware of, the codec used to capture the footage was Premiere's built in DV-Pro (microsoft's one if I am not mistaken). Why would Premiere have an issue with this though? It is odd.

Thank you Emrys for your patience and quick response. I am grateful to you for that!

OK. So switching to upper field first in AE seems to work. How do you recommend I export it from AE? Also, what's the shortcut for previewing footage with sound in AE? As far as I am aware of, the codec used to capture the footage was Premiere's built in DV-Pro (microsoft's one if I am not mistaken). Why would Premiere have an issue with this though? It is odd.

Thank you Emrys for your patience and quick response. I am grateful to you for that!

Oh hey its not a problem at all. I've had plenty of occasions in the past where I've needed help with a project as well, so I'm happy to return the favor. :)

As far as the export from AE, I would just use the standard video for windows setting with no compression. The file will be pretty large, but then you can import into PPro and reexport from to NTSC or PAL (which ever you need). That should reduce the file size again (only go this route however if the file becomes too large to work with.

The shortcut for previewing with audio in AE is "0" - for video and audio preview, and "." for just audio (Also this is on the keypad on the right of the keyboard)

As far as codecs and premiere go, I've had issues in the past where premiere sometimes has issues recognizing a few codecs. Cineform, for example, won't play in PPro if the codec is not installed on the computer. PPro CS3 however has been pretty good about having most of the codecs, but a few can pop-up from time to time. :)

Oh hey its not a problem at all. I've had plenty of occasions in the past where I've needed help with a project as well, so I'm happy to return the favor. :)

As far as the export from AE, I would just use the standard video for windows setting with no compression. The file will be pretty large, but then you can import into PPro and reexport from to NTSC or PAL (which ever you need). That should reduce the file size again (only go this route however if the file becomes too large to work with.

The shortcut for previewing with audio in AE is "0" - for video and audio preview, and "." for just audio (Also this is on the keypad on the right of the keyboard)

As far as codecs and premiere go, I've had issues in the past where premiere sometimes has issues recognizing a few codecs. Cineform, for example, won't play in PPro if the codec is not installed on the computer. PPro CS3 however has been pretty good about having most of the codecs, but a few can pop-up from time to time. :)

Thank you! That is helpful. I tried exporting the clip using the Cinepak settings (is that different from Cineform?) and when I import the clip into Premiere it plays it at twice the speed and the clip is half in length (which makes sense). I tried using the DV/DVC Pro NTSC settings but same thing happens. Any idea why this might be happening? I am also trying exporting to avi from within AE, the process is taking way longer than before and the file is much smaller. When you say standard settings, are you referring to the Cinepak ones? Also, what's the difference between Export and Make Movie in AE?

Thank you! That is helpful. I tried exporting the clip using the Cinepak settings (is that different from Cineform?) and when I import the clip into Premiere it plays it at twice the speed and the clip is half in length (which makes sense). I tried using the DV/DVC Pro NTSC settings but same thing happens. Any idea why this might be happening? I am also trying exporting to avi from within AE, the process is taking way longer than before and the file is much smaller. When you say standard settings, are you referring to the Cinepak ones? Also, what's the difference between Export and Make Movie in AE?

Export and Make movie in AE are the same thing. I'm just used to always saying export. :) CInepak is actually another codec that I think is horrible. Sorry if confused you with the cineform reference. I just wanted you to render an avi with no compression from AE. Let me know if that render you started to avi is complete and if it worked. :)

Yes. I thought you were referring to Make Movie. That's when I noticed more options and realized what you meant by BIG files. I can't believe how a 7.5 GB file becomes 32 GB afterwards. Now they seem to work fine in Premiere. What I am doing though is merging a couple of avi files from AE at a time, importing them into premiere and then exporting them as avi again. (I am trying to not run out of space :-)) It's the latter AVIs that I plan on editing. The odd thing is that one of the files worked fine with no tweaking and by just being exported in AE. No idea what happened there. Is it typical for editing to involve multiple conversions like this?

I will make sure one more time that files are ok now as soon as all these conversions are done and will let you know how it goes. Thanks again for your help !

Now the playback seems fine on Premiere. For an instance there it seemed like the Premiere exported AVI became widescreen but then I tried playing it again and it didn't. Also there seems to be a bit more motion blur after sending the clips through it. I used Microsoft Avi for a file type. Should I maybe stick with Uncompressed Microsoft AVI? Any idea why the motion blur has increased? Does frame dropping make the footage any sharper? Is that something I should be paying attention to when exporting? This is starting to get rather frustrating. I haven't even started editing at this point. Should I just do this in Vegas since it can read the original clips fine?

Now the playback seems fine on Premiere. For an instance there it seemed like the Premiere exported AVI became widescreen but then I tried playing it again and it didn't. Also there seems to be a bit more motion blur after sending the clips through it. I used Microsoft Avi for a file type. Should I maybe stick with Uncompressed Microsoft AVI? Any idea why the motion blur has increased? Does frame dropping make the footage any sharper? Is that something I should be paying attention to when exporting? This is starting to get rather frustrating. I haven't even started editing at this point. Should I just do this in Vegas since it can read the original clips fine?

The motion blur should be coming from the having to re-export the clips and adjusting for the corrupt frames. Unfortunately there isn't too much you can do about that at this point because the only way to get rid of the blur would be to keep the footage as is. Basically AE has to fake those missing frames in order to make the footage match. That is the blending your seeing. Frame dropping doesn't make the footage any sharper no. Basically your losing information so the detail goes away too. Think of how HD footage for a basket ball game is shot usually at 60i. The level of detail is quite different from a short film shot in 24fps. As far as going to vegas, I'd hate for you to have to go outside of PPro, but for quality of your final piece, it might be best to stick with that since it keeps your footage intact. Another possiblity might be to bring the footage into vegas and export it out from there again, so that you can get in into PPro with no issue. Hope this helps. :)

The motion blur should be coming from the having to re-export the clips and adjusting for the corrupt frames. Unfortunately there isn't too much you can do about that at this point because the only way to get rid of the blur would be to keep the footage as is. Basically AE has to fake those missing frames in order to make the footage match. That is the blending your seeing. Frame dropping doesn't make the footage any sharper no. Basically your losing information so the detail goes away too. Think of how HD footage for a basket ball game is shot usually at 60i. The level of detail is quite different from a short film shot in 24fps. As far as going to vegas, I'd hate for you to have to go outside of PPro, but for quality of your final piece, it might be best to stick with that since it keeps your footage intact. Another possiblity might be to bring the footage into vegas and export it out from there again, so that you can get in into PPro with no issue. Hope this helps. :)

Sorry for not responding earlier. Things got crazy these past of couple of days. I haven't worked much on the footage since we last spoke but I got a bigger hard drive and am going to try exporting everything again with lossless from within Vegas one last time. If it doesn't help then I will just do the titles in Premiere & AE and the editing in Vegas. By the way, I happened to notice today that some videos on Youtube won't play on my browser. I was wondering if there could be something wrong with the AVI codec. As far as the blur goes, I thought so too about frame dropping making it worse. Speaking of that, the XL2 seems pretty prone to motion blur during shooting to begin with. When my colleague uses it in Auto mode, it is really really sensitive, in light or dark conditions. It is a puzzle. He is mostly doing 30p. Is basically the best way to avoid motion blur to shoot in 60i? What are some recommended settings to minimize the blur in XL2? What do you use the most? We are pretty new at this. I am doing the editing and he is the one shooting the footage.

Thanks again for your replies.

Sorry for not responding earlier. Things got crazy these past of couple of days. I haven't worked much on the footage since we last spoke but I got a bigger hard drive and am going to try exporting everything again with lossless from within Vegas one last time. If it doesn't help then I will just do the titles in Premiere & AE and the editing in Vegas. By the way, I happened to notice today that some videos on Youtube won't play on my browser. I was wondering if there could be something wrong with the AVI codec. As far as the blur goes, I thought so too about frame dropping making it worse. Speaking of that, the XL2 seems pretty prone to motion blur during shooting to begin with. When my colleague uses it in Auto mode, it is really really sensitive, in light or dark conditions. It is a puzzle. He is mostly doing 30p. Is basically the best way to avoid motion blur to shoot in 60i? What are some recommended settings to minimize the blur in XL2? What do you use the most? We are pretty new at this. I am doing the editing and he is the one shooting the footage.

Thanks again for your replies.

The codec in youtube is actually flash, so I don't think the avi codec would really mess with it. As far as shooting 60i to get rid of motion blur, in theory should help out with that (more frames means more detail) but one downside is you will loose some of that filmesk quality from shooting at a lower frame rate. Making sure your seen is well lit and keeping your shutter speed high should also help. I was shooting in 60i for awhile but was recommended by another vimeo user (steven dempsey) to just stick with 30. 60i is great for higher detail, but unless you need some slow-motion footage, your fine with just 30.

If your not already a user on vimeo you should join too. Some really great resources on there. I have a few groups going now that might interest you as well. Here's a link to my profile:

Emrys Roberts on Vimeo (http://vimeo.com/roughedit)

Add me as a contact and join the groups. I'd love to see some of your footage once you guys get further as well. :)

The codec in youtube is actually flash, so I don't think the avi codec would really mess with it. As far as shooting 60i to get rid of motion blur, in theory should help out with that (more frames means more detail) but one downside is you will loose some of that filmesk quality from shooting at a lower frame rate. Making sure your seen is well lit and keeping your shutter speed high should also help. I was shooting in 60i for awhile but was recommended by another vimeo user (steven dempsey) to just stick with 30. 60i is great for higher detail, but unless you need some slow-motion footage, your fine with just 30.

If your not already a user on vimeo you should join too. Some really great resources on there. I have a few groups going now that might interest you as well. Here's a link to my profile:

Emrys Roberts on Vimeo (http://vimeo.com/roughedit)

Add me as a contact and join the groups. I'd love to see some of your footage once you guys get further as well. :)

Sorry Emrys. It's been a while since I last posted to this thread. I have been rather busy with my regular work so haven't spent much time on the forum. I am also not done working on the last video yet. Don't know what the deal is but Vegas keeps crashing every time it does not find a file that was missing. Don't know why all this trouble is following us with this project. It is humorous in its own way. For the whole week that I've been using Vegas, I find it rather awkward to use. I don't like for instance how you cannot rearrange the layout elements or that you cannot center the preview monitor. Perhaps it is that I am not as familiar with it as I am with Premiere. I wish I had been able to edit the clips in PPro, otherwise this project would be long done by now. Except for the fact that premiere does the weird "green thing" and that it will not import clips in their entire length. At this point, I am also giving Pinnacle Studio 12 a shot and so far seems like it is a decent software. The one thing I have noticed though is that audio appears to be out of sync with video in certain segments. Not sure why that is. I really did not think I was going to jump around this much but at the same time, it's good to get a feel for other alternatives to PPro.

I am not sure if I should start a new thread about this but I thought I'd ask:
We have been trying to figure out why the XL2 is very sensitive to motion. When we have it all in autofocus, 30p mode, the slightest of movements causes blur. A person moving across the screen also causes blur. We thought maybe at first this was something related to low light environments, but it also does it in well-lit ones too. We have tried setting the camera on Av and Tv mode, and specifically going for 1/30 shutter speed and that still does it. We have tried turning the lens to M mode too, yet the camera still seems to be distracted by objects, the slightest movement will make one thing or another blur. Isn't the motor supposed to not turn in M mode? Steady shots produce excellent quality but having a clear picture with moving objects has been a pain so far. Could it be a technical issue with the camera? What parameters do you suggest we use to avoid this? Also, would you mind explaining the presets a little? Is that a solution to this case?

I am going to join vimeo in a little bit and post some footage so you can see what it is I am talking about.

Thanks for the handholding! Most appreciated!

Sorry Emrys. It's been a while since I last posted to this thread. I have been rather busy with my regular work so haven't spent much time on the forum. I am also not done working on the last video yet. Don't know what the deal is but Vegas keeps crashing every time it does not find a file that was missing. Don't know why all this trouble is following us with this project. It is humorous in its own way. For the whole week that I've been using Vegas, I find it rather awkward to use. I don't like for instance how you cannot rearrange the layout elements or that you cannot center the preview monitor. Perhaps it is that I am not as familiar with it as I am with Premiere. I wish I had been able to edit the clips in PPro, otherwise this project would be long done by now. Except for the fact that premiere does the weird "green thing" and that it will not import clips in their entire length. At this point, I am also giving Pinnacle Studio 12 a shot and so far seems like it is a decent software. The one thing I have noticed though is that audio appears to be out of sync with video in certain segments. Not sure why that is. I really did not think I was going to jump around this much but at the same time, it's good to get a feel for other alternatives to PPro.

I am not sure if I should start a new thread about this but I thought I'd ask:
We have been trying to figure out why the XL2 is very sensitive to motion. When we have it all in autofocus, 30p mode, the slightest of movements causes blur. A person moving across the screen also causes blur. We thought maybe at first this was something related to low light environments, but it also does it in well-lit ones too. We have tried setting the camera on Av and Tv mode, and specifically going for 1/30 shutter speed and that still does it. We have tried turning the lens to M mode too, yet the camera still seems to be distracted by objects, the slightest movement will make one thing or another blur. Isn't the motor supposed to not turn in M mode? Steady shots produce excellent quality but having a clear picture with moving objects has been a pain so far. Could it be a technical issue with the camera? What parameters do you suggest we use to avoid this? Also, would you mind explaining the presets a little? Is that a solution to this case?

I am going to join vimeo in a little bit and post some footage so you can see what it is I am talking about.

Thanks for the handholding! Most appreciated!

I just thought of something else that could be a cause of the green flashes in Premiere. I remember a few years I did actually have this problem. Honestly I don't remember completely how I fixed it, but I believe I remember vaguely what I did. At the time I had the a matrox card installed on the PC I was using. I started getting the green frame issues whenever I imported footage that wasn't created by the matrox codec. I don't think you mentioned having the matrox codec, but I think the concept is the same. I believe its a codec conflict issue. The individual files codec has to be conflicting with what premiere's preferences are set to interpret. Premiere sometimes can create preview files for the timeline that go corrupt when it doesn't interpret the footage correctly. At least thats what I have dealt with in the past.

(I remember trying to import some footage from a DVD's VOB files and the clips also had the same reaction you mentioned before of not fully importing the whole clip. (I don't ever recommend importing VOB files under any circumstance by the way. Incredibly unstable. We can get into how to best pull from DVDs later if you need.) This was basically because premiere didn't have the ability to interpret the footage correctly. I think thats an issue you may be having as well.)

Anyway, through all my rambling, I have another couple ideas to try and see if they help. These are keeping in mind the concept of Acoms razor: The simplest solution tends to be the correct one.)

1. It's quite possible that the preview files are going corrupt when they try to generate in the project your working on. Try, just for curiosity sake, turning off the render preview button in the timeline of premiere. This button is underneath the timecode in the timeline panel. Its the one on the far right and when you roll over it it flashes a red and green bar. If you hold the cursor over it, it should say enable and disable previews. Click on it so that it is not checked anymore. You should see the preview bar in the actual timeline go gray. Let's see if that helps anything.

2. Is it possible for you to get a copy of the original tapes that have the footage? Starting from square one by recapturing the footage to Premiere Pro may be the best solution. That way you can have all the control on how the file is created to begin with. If this works, which I believe it would, then you wouldn't have to worry about leaving premiere for any part of your workflow.

3. As far as the XL-2 is concerned; normally motion blur from moving objects when your shooting has to do with have your shutter speed being too slow, and your aperture being opened to wide. Is it doing it to you even when you have everything on full auto? What types of shots are you noticing it happen on the most?

As far as the presets are concerned, these have a number of variables that helps you basically do some initial CC incamera before even getting to post. Here's a good section on the presets for the XL-2:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/canon-xl2-watchdog/48293-blue-barn-pictures-presets-manager-custom-preset-files.html

They have some downloadable presets on there as well. I believe with the XL-2, you install them by transferring them to the SD card on the camera, and then loading them from the card when its reinserted into the SD slot. Take a look at that thread. They'll explain it in much better detail then I can. :)

On a final note; If none of these solutions work, then let me know when you have a vimeo account. You can load the files, provided they are under 1GB, and I can maybe download them and take a crack at it. Possibly see if I can't replicate the issue and come up with a solution.

Hope all of this helps. Good luck. :)

Update:
*Issue with green frames appears to have been resolved. I reinstalled PPro and removed additional codecs that existed on the computer, ac3 filter was one them, and all of a sudden Premiere has no issues with the clips. So that's great! Disabling preview rendering didn't do anything.

Focus issue: The XL2 does it even when all the parameters are set to AUTO. It has no problem with static scenes, i.e. camera does not move, objects don't move. But if one or the other or both move, it does this thing where it flips back and forth as if it is struggling to decide where the focus of the footage should be.

The various settings tried were:

Av mode = all stops
Tv mode = shutter speeds up to 1/500
60i = shutter speed up to 1/60

Oh, and it happens even you are completely zoomed out. I did some research on it yesterday and came across this guide for setting the back focus on XL2s making me wonder if that may be the issue. On a side note, we have a hard shell case for the camera, so we have to take the lens off every time we put it away since that's also what the manual recommends. Does that affect back focus? If it is a back focus issue, I don't see any screws in the back that I need to loosen. Here's the guide:

How to set back focus on XL2 (http://www.austincc.edu/rtf/SettingBackFocusXL2.php)

Now that I got Premiere back though, I can get a few clips uploaded on vimeo for you to see. It could be that we've only used the camera twice so far though and may be overanalyzing these issues. I hope that is the case rather than something being physically wrong with it.

Presets: Those are great. I had heard about them before but did not realize they were so widely used. I will try those out, time permitting. I think the colors on the XL2 are by default not too vivid so presets should help with that. Perhaps I missed it, but I didn't see any info at that link about how to revert the parameters back to their defaults by saving them as a separate file.

Thanks for your time again!