Jayreilly,


When you shoot 4:3 with 16:9 guidelines then you wan't to mask of the upper and lower part of your footage.

I believe that crop (in premiere terms is wrong). Instead (if I remember this right), use the "clip" filter available in the effects window (or what it's called). There you simply chose how much to mask of (12,5 upper and 12,5 bottom for standard 16:9).

When you crop in Premiere, you basicly make your footage anamorphic -vertical or horisontal. Use this when you will output your movie to a 16:9 television set. It's like the in camera 16:9 electronic anamorphic mode. But if you want to shot anamorphic, you're better of with the in camera anamorphic, due to the convert-before-compression. In post the video is already compressed. A post production anamorphic is degrading the quality more.

When we speak about 16:9 in Adobe after effects, then, 16:9 anamorphic to 16:9 letterbox is the case. Not clip. Of course you can do the clip effect here to. But it's easier in Premiere.

I recommend you to go with clip in Premiere if you shoot 4:3 with 16:9 guide. But if you wan't to leave a "better" posibillity for 16:9 television I'd shoot in-camera anamorphic and use After effects after edit, to compress to letterbox, and also leaving a version anamorphic too.

Rob Lohman wrote that the abillity of moving fotage up and down is a good thing. Keep this in mind if you go 4:3 with 16:9 guide, as if you sometime cut someones head on the frame with a guide line, you can always re-compose this clip by moving it upp or down a little bit in After effects, as you have 12,5 % image over and 12,5 % under the 16:9 guidelines.


Hope this helps,

Good luck to you,


Regards,


Erik

Does anybody know were i can get this from? I ruined mine and cannot read it, so i was wondering if you can download it from any sites. Really need help, in the middle of post!!

Thanks

inferno:

I think Amazon.com has most Adobe manuals on sale (probably around $25-$30). The only download information I could find is off the adobe website; however, it is a press material info thing.

http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/pressroom/pressmaterials/pdfs/Premiere6/review.pdf

Still, feel free to ask questions about how to do things with premiere. Some people have been using it for quite some time, and that is what this forum is for!

Regards,

Kyle "Doc" Mitchell

thanks man, i'm still looking for the free download.

I am having the same exact problem. I have a XL1, I use Premiere, my system consists of a dual PIII 1 gig-tyan board-2 40 gig maxtor 7200 rpm-western digital firewre card. I have tried everything and I mean everything, different OS's (98 SE, Win 2k), Different Firewire cards (Western Digital, Pinnacle), Different Software (Premiere, Avid ExpressDV2). I have spent a lot of money and time trying to fix this issue. I'm not sure what to do at this point. If anyone has a clue let me know please!

Hello:

You're saying the problem occurs when you "Print to Video" using composite outputs on your card? What are your file settings when you plan to export?

Regards,

Kyle "Doc" Mitchell

When I print to tape using firewire every so often I get a blue screen on my XL1. This causes a jump in the video and audio. I have literally tried everything. I can't imagine that it is linked to hard drive speed because it does it when I am just sitting still on the time line. I called Canon and they hadn't heard of this issue. They suggested that my firewire card wasn't fast enough, because that's what an XL1 will do when it looses connection. Iv'e tried other 1394 cards with no luck.

Are there any gaps between the video with no video in? i.e. you wanted a black screen with no video and so left a gap?

If so put in Black video

>File>New>Black video click OK

Put this in the gap.

Hope this helps,

Ed Smith

Ed:

I may be mistaken, but what I think StormFront is referring to is he does not desire ANY gaps in video. I think what they're talking about is when they're trying to uplink the data from the computer back to the camera, there is a "stutter" - a little "glitch" - and the camera records this as a blue screen. This is referred to as a "gap" by StormFront.

StormFront, I'll see if I can figure anything out at home. Talk to you then. But from gut instinct, I think it has something to do with the computer. Is your video card set by itself on IRQ 11? This might be your problem. Check if your video card is set on the same IRQ as your firewire, or with anything else for that matter. Maybe there is a confict. I know your computer is built like a brute - but it just might be a conflict of settings not really the physical hardware. But I'll talk to you later.

Regards,

Kyle "Doc" Mitchell

my video card and audio card are on the same irq (16), my firewire card is on it's own (17). I origianlly thought this was the issue because my old board had some serious irq sharing going on. Everything multimedia was on irq 9. Do you know if I should use the NEC 1394 drivers or the TI? I'm gonna give the TI drivers a try. Also I have to rule out the cam being messed up because i used it to dub from one cam to another through firewire and it worked great.

I just want to let you guys know that I really appreciate all your helpfull insight. This palce is great and seems to be full of very profesional people.

Thanks again

StormFront:

Hey man. I went home and scoped out my editing system and horsed-around with the settings and such with premiere. I can't seem to figure out a fix to the problem, but I didn't get to look for too long. Reviewing over some of the other posts, it appears that there are a few other people with your trouble too. But my question is: why is it trouble for some people and not others? I can't say . . . . I still have that feeling that it is a computer situation with everyone that is having this problem; did you construct your computer yourself or did you buy it (with your specs) from a company like Dell? I'm wondering if there is something in common with all the people that it doesn't work for (other than all of you having the same problem!).

At one point last year, after editing videos to .avi's with premiere i had a problem with my computer. I noticed that after time when I played the .avi in lets say Media Player, there would be glitches. This was really frustrating because a few days/weeks before, the video ran fine. I thought it might have been my harddrive, but after defragging (I probably should have re-formatted too) the problem still lingered. I talked to some computer science/engineering type people at my university and they said that it was probably a control conflict with my settings. The editing comp. was constructed for me by Dell. But you said that you've already played with your configs. So, this might not be your problem. Hmmmmmmmmm.

I'll keep seeing what I can find. When you go to export your movie, I'm wondering if you could post your settings with the software. Maybe at work today, I can hop on a system that has premiere and see what I can figure out. But if you can post the software settings you use lately for premiere, it would be great.

Regards,

Kyle "Doc" Mitchell

WhenI export from premiere I usually (although I've tried most other configs and methods) just playbackl directly from the time line with the setting "playback to dv camcorder/vcr" turned on. While I edit I can see the edited output on my big TV monitor and when I scrub it reacts swiftly. It's like the camera looses the signal. I am going to give canon another call today. I'll let you know what they have to say this time.

Thanks again for all your input.

I just got off the phone with canon and they want me to send it in to be looked at. Do you all suggest I do it. I don't really want to considering so many others are having this issue (makes me think it's not my particular camera that's broken). Plus I have heard they aren't exactly lighting fast about turnarounds.

I'll be honest with ya folks I think this is a Canon problem. I hooked up a couple of different cams and my XL1 is the only one that has this issue. I'm gonna hound Canon and see if I can get some answers.

If you still have not found a copy e-mail me

aleigh@iafrica.com


Andrew

Dear Robert Hedges,

Thank you for your inquiry. We regret any difficulties the connection to
the computer may have caused.

The digital camcorder is equipped with a DV IN/OUT terminal on its body
that conforms to IEEE 1394, also referred to as Firewire. This terminal
provides digital connectivity for high speed transfer of video, stills
and audio from the digital camcorder to a DV ready computer. The
firewire cable is a separate accessory that you could use. Regrettably
we do not have any drivers for the connection or configuration of the
software or the connecting device. You will have to contact the software
vendor and the firewire provider on driver configuration issues. Our
camcorders captures images at 29.97 fps which is the NTSC standard. Some
softwares captures at 30fps which can result in synchronization issues.
Unfortunately this feature cannot be changed on the camcorder and it is
not a flaw. There are no firmware updates available.

Thank you for your interest in Canon. We look forward to assisting you
in the future.

Sincerely,

Ivy
Product Support Representative






Original Message Follows:
-------------------------


INQUIRY=I get a blue flash on the camera when trying to record
video from my computer. I understand that the blue screen
means the camera has lost the signal from the computer. I
have tried 3 other cameras a JVC, a Canon, a Sony. My XL1
is the only one that does this.
Is this a problem that Canon is aware of? I have contacted
tech support by phone and they said that this is an unknown
issue. I have visited several internet message boards and
there are many people having this same issue. The XL1 is a
great camera (not cheap either) and I would love to get
full use from it. If you could please help me I would
appreciate it.

StormFront:

I seem to remember a problem with Premiere and framerates that was brought up last year. There was something about Premiere sending rendered stuff at 29.9X and it was causing problems. Do a search under "29.97" and look at the topics in that list. This issue was raised (from what I recall) last october, november area. Maybe this is what you're talking about . . .

Regards,

Kyle "Doc" Mitchell

I have an idea that involves recording a scene with my vx2000 in progressive mode. Then grabbing key frames out of the clip. I then want to take these key frames and stich them together as if they were one big line, and have them scroll across the screen as the audio from the original scene plays.

I'm not sure of an efficient way to do this, obviously i could just make one humoungous image and just have premiere scroll it, but that would get somewhat cumbersome, as well as tempt premiere to crash on a whim.

Any ideas?
thanks,
jake

I think the easiest would be to load it up in After Effects. That
package has much tools for moving things around. I do think
you need to export frames first, stitch these before you can
move around on them. I'm thinking premiere can move around
pictures (never tested it myself though).

I used Premier to do just that. I had a nice full moon, and wanted some clouds blowing by. I made a really wide image, and in the motion setup made it start at one end, and let it slide by through the duration.
And Premier didn't crash!!!!
Keith

Hi:

If I understand you correctly, here's one way you could do it. First off, of course, capture all of the individual frames you want by "Export Frame" with premiere -- or whatever method you use. Lets say that you have 7 frames from your VX2000 footage that you want to scroll across the screen. Make 2 groups of 4 frames each. The two groups will consist of Group 1: frames 1, 2, 3, 4 Group 2: frames 4, 5, 6, and 7. For the two groups join the frames into one long image of the 4 frames, making a line. Start the group image 1 at the beginning of the first frame and have it end when image (frame 4) is in the middle of the screen. Then, begin Group 2 with its first frame (image, frame 4) in the middle of the screen moving at the same rate as Group 1. This method breaks up the long strand of a gigantic image into parts. The trick is, is making everything look. Not sure if this is more efficient or not.

Another way to do it, is to alternate between V1A and V2 (the superimpose track). Have the first frame scroll across in the V1A track, then time the V2 frame to cross at the same rate as the V1A but seamlessly right behind it. Then, alternate back. This might work. It should look good if the captured frames you have are fullscreen. Also, make sure your the opacity of the superimpose track is consistant and at 100%. Hope this suggestions help . . .

Regards,

Kyle "Doc" Mitchell

Almost!

It is well up for it apart from the firewire ports and graphics card (possibly). Avid is very fussy about these two components. Check there website for ones that work. I use a Matrox G400 Dual Head and a pyro DV card and it works.

I'e forget premier and go for Avid if you are serious about editing.

Ben

Also..


Try making a targa sequence with you footage.
then bring them into photoshop and make a 480x???? document
and place your singled out frames one by one next to each other.

Then in either Premeire or After Effects you can scroll this image.
and then you can make another in which you can seem up consecutively
with each Photoshop image one after the other.

When I capture a frame of DV using Premier 6.0 the resulting BMP picture is slightly horizonally "squashed". I've been unable to compensate for this in my photo editor software.

Has anyone any tips on how to "un-squash" those BMPs?

Thanks

I second the endorsement - go for the Avid XDV v3. Solid and completely transportable with any Avid system. We've been using ours for about 5 months with no problems at all. Be sure to install W2K Pro 2.

Which camera are you shooting with? Do you shoot in widescreen
(16:9) mode or not? Are you in PAL or NTSC, what resolution are
you exporting those bitmaps in? Premiere tends to default to
640x480 for a bitmap which is *not* the correct size! It either
needs to be 720x480 (NTSC) or 720x576 (PAL).

Thanks for the respones guys (or gals.) I'll look into using AE once i actually get some footage ;) However I should've mentioned that what I'm thinking of doing would be taking images from a 5-10 minute scene, not just a couple of frames. So I guess that limits some of my options.

thanks again,
Jake

well, every package has its limits to file sizes before it starts to crash (at least on windows)...so if you've got a ton of frames it may be best to, as Kyle stated, break those up in to smaller subgroups and just time them to take off, one after the other.

If you haven't already found a solution:

The problem may be in your computer's energy saver features. (On Desktop: Right Click, Properties, ENERGY...) Turn these settings, Monitor/Harddisk/Screensaver off. Because they use resources when switching from ACTIVE mode to ENERGY saver mode, I have noticed a speed-bump while transferring back to my XL1S.

Would be nice if you could borrow another DV camera...maybe non Canon type to see if you have the same problem> oops. re-read the post and see that you had already done this. Mabey rent a Cannon camera for a day before you send yours off ?

Another quick thing you can do to see if possibly a setting in Premiere is causing it ( can sometimes become corrupt, causing all kinds of wierd issues) is go into where your EXE for Premiere is located ...you will find a file called Pre60.prm ???? Delete it (with Premiere closed. Then restart, this will clear and reset Premiere settings to their default.

One thing to check I am sure you are using the second drive for the video storage. Make sure you don't have any CD-ROM drives on this IDE chain. CD-ROM drives run at 33 Mghz not 66 not 100 or 133. So if you buy a high speed drive and place a CD-ROM on the same chain you just busted the speed down to 33 Mghz.

IDE goes at the speed of the slowest device.

As a side note I don't have this problem Canon XL1s. However this was the first time I have ever outputed anything to my XL1s. I purchased a cheap JVC CyberCam $299 for uploading my video.

Best,
Big James

We're running Premiere 6.0 on the following system:
PIII 750 (desktop cpu in a laptop), 128 RAM, 9.0 G IDE HD, Adaptec FireConnect OHCI 1394 CardBus

We've had no trouble controlling the camera with device control and capturing clips, with minimal to no dropped frames.

However, when we try to playback clips (either from the timeline, or the bins) it's as jerky as web streaming with a slow modem. We checked the actual clips and played them back using QuickTime (outside of Premiere) and they seem to play fine.

We read one post that had to do with "de-interlacing" (changing render settings from 'lower field' to 'no field') but we weren't exactly sure where and how to do this. Also, we haven't rendered any clips so we're not sure if this advice applies.

Any thoughts on what the problem might be?

Thanks.

Ok... here's the deal. I use a ADSTech Pyro Basic DV OCHI Firewire card and Windows 2000 Pro. While my computer was in the shop I needed to edit so I took the firewire card and my camera (XL1) to my friend's house who also has Windows 2000 Pro and Premiere 6. I popped in the card, booted the system and viola I was editing without having to d/l anything. Now I get my computer back, pop in the card, computer recognizes the card, but not my camera. It knows the card is there but when I plug in the camera it tries to install it as a new DV devices, now I tried installing it the way windows wants and it doesn't work. Also tried not installing it as a new dv device and it still won't work. I can't capture or dump!! It's like the camera needs a driver... but why would it be so different on two computers that are practically identical??? I've tried all these different patches and updates with no success.... please help cuz I'm going on vacation tomorrow (WED 6/19) and want to dump some stuff to show to some people but I can't unless I get this to work!!!

P.S.
My video card is an ATI All-In-Wonder and the message Premiere tells me is, "The DV device is unavailable for Device Control"

I'm sure this is something really simple, but I am apprently triggering it and have no idea what I am doing to cause this.

Let's say I have a timeline with 6 shots. Let's say that in between each shot rather than cutting, I am doing a simple dissolve.

Why is it that sometimes I can change/modify the dissolve effect, tell it to "render work area" and it does a real quick render of just that effect, while on other days it would render all 5 effects, even though I maybe only changed the last one?

Thanks in advance. It's got to be something simple. :)

I guess I need more details about how you have things set up. Or more coffee... morning bites.

How long are the shots, how are they arranged in the A and B track, or are you using single track? For example: In track A, I have five short clips, in track B I have one long clip. I can move any individual clip in A track, and only have to re-render that clip. If I move the long clip, all of the clips above it would now be affected, and have to be re-rendered.

You can also preview transitions and effects by holding the alt key while scrubbing, without having to render the preview.
I hope any of this helps.
Keith

Hello:

Are you adjusting your "work area bar" (the yellow bar above the timeline) at all whenever you go to modify your work? Moving this will specify the area you want to render (such as one transition).

Regards,

Kyle "Doc" Mitchell

MotoDV: Is there anything like Premier for dummies? I am totally confused with it, or should I abandon it and try something else. Any suggestions? I find the Panasonic PostBox at work to be super simple to use.

Actually, Premiere is the easiest, most intuitive editor that I have found. I never used the lite version, but if you describe what you are trying to do, maybe we can help.
Keith

Big James:

Interesting. How do you check if your CD-ROM is on your IDE chain? Is there a simple way to change it if it is?

Thanks!

Regards,

Kyle "Doc" Mitchell

I "borrowed" the full version from work. They also have training tapes I can look at maybe this will help.

Hi,

have you guys managed to suss out your "blue screen / jump cut" issue with the XL-1. If not you may wish to consider the my experience with the DVRaptor. It took me over 200 man hours to solve the problem.........WHICH WAS NOT THE XL-1. (OK, OK is was my spelling mistake in the ini file that took me 180 hours to find.)

a) I do not think this applies to NTSC cams but certainly the PAL XL-1 had a problem when using the Canopus DV Raptor. The problem is that the Canon audio codec is not the same as the Sony standard which seems to be the standard followed by most. I had exactly the same problem and was able to fix this (canopus fix) with a line in the canopus.ini file. The extra line of programming, as I understand it, merely altered the "sync characteristics". Problem gone. Remove the line....problem back. It may well be that your problems are of the same nature, Canon audio codec vs, Sony standard on your capture board.

b) One further thing to look at is forcing your Video and Audio codec's to the top of the list (priority). This is done by (Win98SE) Start>Setting>Control Panel>Multimedia>Devices there you will find both video and audio compression codec's. Double click the one you are using and alter the priority to 1 and make sure you have the box "Use this Audio / Video codec" checked.

c) Yet another thing to check is that your video capture card is assigned to an IRQ of 9 or greater and that it does not share with any other device. In order of priority the PC assigns more resource and priority starting at 15 and ending at 1. I disabled PnP and "forced" my DVRaptor card to IRQ11 and my Soundblaster to IRQ10. This is achieved in the BIOS setup. Sometimes motherboards share slots, for example my AGP slot shares with my 1st PCI slot. When I initially setup the PC I had my Voodoo in the AGP slot and the DVRaptor on PCI slot 1. No can do. Check your MOBO book and ensure that your capture card does not interfere (slotwise) with you display and soundcards.

d) Many motherboards use chipsets that are less than friendly to capture cards, certainly to DVRaptor. When specifying a NLE machine one must take great care to ensure full compatibility with intended capture card. www.tomshardware.com is a great place to check some of this info.

e) To maximise use of your resources it is best to have your Video Files on a HD other than the one hosting your Operating System and that it also does not reside on the same IDE channel. For example I have set my system as follows:

IDE 0 c:> OS drive
IDE 0 d:> CD Rom
IDE 1 e:> Video Data (Project Files, footage etc)
IDE 1 f:> Video Data (Scratch disks)

f) Make sure you are using the latest "80 pin" IDE cable for faster access.

g) Make sure that you have disabled any virus checking software, Microsoft Fast Find, HD powerdown settings etc before editing.

h) In Premiere set your scratch disks to a seperate drive if possible. Also ensure the correct settings of the video codec you use.

IMHO, more problems are created in the incorrect use / setting up of hardware when setting up NLE systems. If I have stated the obvious then forgive me.

Good Luck
Andrew

Holy crap dude, I hear ya.

Well here is what I just found if anyone cares. I re-installed the W2K SP2, problem gone.

There's a post in the Premier user group about this issue. It has to do with adding a line in the Prem60.ini file which forces Premier to playback all frames. I can't remember the string, but just do a search under "Prem60.ini"

I just finished my first short project on Premiere and all the files take up about 40 gigs. Of the 60 caputures I did, I only use part of maybe 40 of them. So, what do I do now? Even if I got a DVD burner, that would take more than 10 discs. Is there a way to print out a list of what avi's are used so I can delete the rest? I don't want to have to back up everything on 50 CDR's just in case I want to edit something later. Plus, this is a 8 minute short. What do people do on a feature!

Thanks for the feedback!

Traditionally, large files are backup on tape. Preferably DLT. These
are quite expensive though, but can house large files. Another
posibility might be to leave the original source as MiniDV tapes
and delete the AVI files. Only store the output file instead of all
the input files.

This is a problem indeed, we just have too limited backup media
available for the filesizes we use. I'm looking into a DVD burner
myself for my files. This will require a lot of DVD-R discs, but will
be cheaper than something like DLT. I wish those next generation
900 GB discs were here or something.

Premiere's project files are plain text files, you could load these
up into notepad or something and see which files premiere is
using.

Good luck.

Create yourself an Generic EDL in Premiere. Load it in notepad, and it should tell you where the file came from and how long you used it, as well as all the transition codes, audio and such like. Print this out and make yourself a check list.

Hope this helps,

Ed Smith

Newbie here and I was helping my brother, a flegling film student, with putting together a nice little setup. He is getting a Canon Xl1s with some nice goodies.

My question is on the config for the NLE system.

He has a new Compaq laptop 2800 series with Pentium 4M 1.4Ghz, 256MB RAM, 14.1" TFT display, ATI Radeon 7500 64MB and Windows XP.

I ordered the Pyro Firewire Platinum DV Cardbus that comes with a full version of Adobe Premiere 6 and some very nice extras like Title Deko.

Since the laptop hard drive is neither fast nor big, I also ordered the new Maxtor 3000DV 80GB 7200rpm firewire hard drive that is supposed to be much faster than the first generation external hard drives.

I have heard that a second monitor is necessary and the video chipset is capable of driving two monitors, but I wasn't sure if a 17" was sufficient or I should go bigger. Also, does anyone see if I am missing the boat on anything here?

I know a notebook rig is not typical for video so your help is much appreciated. Thanks.

I use a Sony P3 500 with 192 MBs of RAM using Windows 98SE to edit video using both Premiere and Ulead Media Studio Pro. I have a 100 GB 7200 RPM External Firewire Drive.

Your setup is more than sufficient to edit video. Although, I would personally think that outputing to a TV monitor would be more beneficial than outputting to a computer monitor.

a ntsc monitor is neccessary not a second computer monitor. Just making sure you know the difference, but yeah it seems like a good setup.

Only thing that has me wondering is why you turning a laptop into an editing machine? is it absolutely neccessary? if its because you want to do some editing while traveling, i dont see why this is possible since you are going to be carrying your seperate monitor and external hard drive(s) around.

I am little curious as to why you are going that route. to me it just doesn't make sense.

That dual monitor setup might be a problem. I know for sure that
Windows 2000 cannot handle a dual monitor setup (perhaps it
can with quality drivers) when there is only one graphics card in
your system (which is the case with a laptop!). I myself had a
compaq and now a dell running Windows 2000. Neither systems
gave me the posibility for dual monitor. When I ran windows 98
second edition this was possible!

Now I have *not* ran Windows XP on my laptop yet, so I cannot
tell you if the new OS supports dual monitors of one chip. This
might be a good thing to try before you buy if you want to go
down this route!