This is the last straw, I've been pulling my hair our ever since my purchase. Alright, I capture the HD video with Premiere Pro CS4. It creates a MPEG file. But using this video file in any program, it will at first create huge green colored digital artifacts and trying to play the video will crash the program. It does this in After Effects, Media Encoder, Premiere and about any other video program I've tried. I have tried to reformat these videos with the media encoder but it always crashes. A big filming\editing job is just around the corner, and there's no way it can be done in this condition.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Probably not the answer your looking for, but... go back to CS3. I got CS4, and after a week of testing it out, I finally uninstalled it and went back to CS3 which is giving me no problems. I think CS4 is great, but has some serious problems that adobe needs to work out.

This isn't an XH A1S problem so much as it is a CS4 problem... therefore, thread moved to World Premiere.

Try capturing with HDVSplit (free program)

Make sure you've downloaded the Canon HDV template add on for Premiere Pro.

(especially if you're using 24F)

By Mpeg, you mean M2T? Or something else?

oddly, i have had similar artifacts show up in Vegas...usually a green horizontal line with a pixelated jaggies nearby. it's extremely frustrating, but for me it may be the tape, as it hasn't happened on any other tape. i generally use the panasonic MQ, but i chanced a JVC ProHD in a pinch...ran a head cleaner before popping in the new tape, but my footage is full of artifacts, both of the green and other varieties.

Is it possible to change the capture setting to ".AVI" or does it have to be M2, I'm about to buy the A1s and upgrade to Premiere CS4, but this makes me nervous. I use PC.

After importing the video in Premiere, I just now noticed an error message that might be helpful. It reads "Error detected in MPEG stream around frame 4004. Inserting 33 red frames." What is a MPEG stream?

Jeremiah, Where can the Canon HDV template be downloaded, and what is it for?

Danny, Premiere will only capture HD in the MPEG format.

I'll do some experimenting today and let you know if I find anything out.

Mitch, the MPEG stream is the file that HDV cameras capture when you shoot. When you get MPEG errors, it's almost always the result of dirty recording and/or playback heads on your cam, so you need to clean the heads. You can do a search on the HX-A1 forum for specific advice on that. You might also have a bad tape (this happens, but much more rarely).

IF the clip on your tape has a dropout, it's gone for good. IF the dropout was made on ingest (capture), you can re-capture the clip on the tape. Dropouts with HDV are much more serious than DV because it always affects multiple frames, due to i-frame compression.

Green artifacts are almost always a sign of MPEG stream problems and seldom a software malfunction.

HTH,
Brian Brown
BrownCow Productions
CS4 & XH-A1

Brian, this camera is brand new, less than two weeks old. These videos were recorded on new high quality tapes. None of the Adobe applications can play these videos without eventually crashing. Premiere doesn't seem to have as much trouble as the others do, at least the footage doesn't always turn green. But here's the strange thing, Windows Media Player has absolutely NO trouble playing them.

Hmm... OK. If your camera and tape are fine, you might have a bad Firewire cable. Maybe it IS a software problem. But know that media players will often just parse the stream on missing data OR the A/V will be out of sync.

Let us know some details about your hardware and software. Also, take a look at your CS4 application version numbers... PPro is 4.0.1 now, as is AE. Media Encoder is up to version 2, and Encore has an update, as well. You can update these individually or via the Adobe Updater in the Help drop down of most apps.

By their own admission, Adobe coded CS4 to run most efficiently on a 64-bit OS like Vista64, XP64, and whatever "flavor" of Mac is 64-bit(sorry, I know nothing about Macs, although they seem pretty cool). I'm reading this and other forums of folks having trouble with CS4 on XP 32-bit OS's.

I've had nothing but smooth-sailing with CS4 and my Vista64, 8GB RAM, and somewhat-aged Q6600 CPU.

HTH,
Brian Brown

Brian, I wonder if something in the signal setup on A1's vcr/play mode is incorrect. Because I just downloaded the HDV Split capturing program, and right after I hit the record button it crashed! Could there be a setting on the A1s that is causing all this?

I do have the latest versions Premiere, AE and the Media Encoder. I'm running Vista Ultimate sp1 32bit. With 4GB of RAM, a 3.16 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo and has a Windows Experience Index base score of 5.7. If it wasn't for the processor it would be 5.9 and I think that's as high as it goes.

As for the media player. It will play just fine until I seek or pause it and press play again. It will then distort the video beyond recognition, but the audio still plays.

Something in capture or in camera is very wrong. If you could give me your default settings in the signal setup and time code menus in vcr/play mode I'd really appreciate it.

My signal setup settings:

In record mode
Signal Standard...HDV
Frame Rate...60i
Comp Out.....1080i/480i

In play mode
Playback STD...Auto
Comp Out...1080i/480i
AV►DV...Off
HD Downconvert...Off
Letterbox...Off

My time code settings

In record mode
Frame Setting...Drop
Count-Up...Rec-Run
Start Value is grayed out

In play mode everything is the same except
HDV/DV IN...Regen

Something kind of strange is that the PLAYBACK STD and HD DOWNCONVERT become grayed out when it is plugged into the computer.

Here's a screen shot of the error in After Effects.

My guess from that screen grab would be hardware: faulty firewire cable, or firewire socket? Or possibly camera circuitry or the tape itself (that last one would be easy to rule ... out by trying another tape).

Also, once you connect to the computer, I believe its normal for those HD>SD conversion options to be grayed out. You dont want them anyway. Good luck!

Here's a short clip I just captured on the A1s. Could someone else download it and see if they get the same results. Try it in Premiere or AE if you could. I would really help narrow down the problem.

Here it is: http://ia311341.us.archive.org/1/items/River_30/captured.mpeg

I can't get that clip to import into Premiere CS3.2.0. However it plays fine in a couple of software media players (VLC and Mediaplayer Classic).

Will try a few other things and report back....

Hmmm... tried it with Premiere CS3 on a different machine and it DID load this time. No artifacts. Also ran it through MPEG2Repair, which is a mpeg transport stream fix program, and it reported "no errors".

Very strange, it won't play right on either of my computers. Have you tried it on After Effects?

Loads and plays fine in After Effects CS3 8.0.2 on both machines.

It must be incompatible with CS4 then. Now what am I gonna do? I have some filming for a client to do today and a lot next week with no way to edit it. What a mess.

I have CS4 on a dual boot - just checked and your clip loaded fine into both CS4 Premiere and After Effects.

This is one of the most confusing computer problems I've ever had. Do you have Vista as your operating system?

I have CS3 on a XP64 install, and both CS3 and CS4 on a XP32 install ... CS4 isn't working well for me - I'll probably wait for more stable releases, more memory and Windows 7 before I try to do much with it.

Did you add effects and try play it? Will it render? I just now tried to import the same exact video into AE CS4 and it immediately crashed.

So when you first received this camera all you had to do was plug it in and it was ready to go?

I'm headed out to do some filming now, thanks for all your help!

OK I just pulled your clip into AfterEffects CS4 9.01.51 on XP32 and added Curves. Plays fine....

I have a Sony FX7, can't help you with Canon settings, sorry.

Mitch, your computer must have some sort of problem, or the clip you uploaded didn't include the "red zone" frames in your footage. I also imported into an HDV 60i sequence and had no trouble with the clip on a QX6700 machine booted to a partition with Vista x64 SP1, in CS4 version of PPro and AE (Vista and CS4 fully updated as of this afternoon). Imported, fiddled with a few different effects and it all behaved properly. Really doubt it is the camera.

I believe the red frames indicate a dropout that the capture module of PPro identified; in old versions it used to be that dropouts caused a capture abort or other unfriendly anomalies. Did you run a head cleaning tape for a few seconds with this new camera before starting to shoot with it? That is generally recommended.

If you have CS3 and CS4 installed on the same partition, it is possible that they conflicted. I had similar problems with CS2 and CS3 (really messed up the system to have them co-exist, which it SHOULDN'T do, but did), which is why I have CS4 on a separate partition (so I can use either CS3 with Cineform Prospect or Adobe CS4 without Cineform without worries, pending their long-awaited upgrade to fully support CS4).

Here's what I get after importing it into AE and putting it into a composition. Does anyone have an idea of why this is happening to me and only me?

If you have CS3 and CS4 installed on the same partition, it is possible that they conflicted.

Pete, I do have Premiere Elements 3.0.2 installed on the same partition as PPro on both computers. Could this have something to do with it? But I've been using PPro with SD video taken on a different camera for some time now with no problems.

Footage works great for me (looks great, too.... is that a stock XH-A1? Nice DOF). Anyways, I ran it through the paces with CS4 on my Vista-64 box. In PPro, I loaded it up with various effects, brought it into AE with Dynamic Link. Played back with zero problems.

I guess it's clear that you have some software issues. I wonder if there's conflicting MPEG software loaded on your system somewhere... codec packs, etc.

First off, nice footage (I was thinking spinnerbait might be better.....) and I agree with the others that it's not a camera problem. I was able to download it and it worked fine in my system also. So there has been more than enough people who can edit it but BOTH of your computers can't? The good news is that whatever it is, you have replicated it on both your systems so that's a good clue. Here is what I would do:

1. Backup everything.

2. On one computer, uninstall any other programs/add ons/premiere elements etc that may have some conflicting mpeg software. Don't do them all at once, but restart after each unistall to help isolate the problem. Start with unistalling elements then reboot your computer, this is also a good time to say a little prayer, and try CS4 again. If it works, good. If not keep doing this until you have exhausted all options. (Sometimes things have become so corrupted, even though you have removed the offender, that number three is necessary)

3. Reformat the drive, install OS, update OS, install CS4 and update CS4. This may be a good idea anyway because having a clean install makes for a more efficient place for working on all that new A1 HD footage!

I have a Matrox RT.X2 system with CS3 that works great and am also building a CS4/64 Bit/Vista Ultimate system. Having two systems like you do is a good idea. Being a chicken and the person that Murphy was thinking about when he wrote that law, I bought a KVM dual monitor switch so that I can use all my monitors/mouse/keyboard/surround sound with both computers. Plus the third monitor still works with the Matrox.

I was only going to do this as a work around until CS4 matured but like the idea for a long term workflow. Knowing that a solid backup is just a switch away makes for a more restful nights sleep.

Thanks, yes it's a stock A1s raw clip with absolutely no changes or add ons except Stephen Dempsey's Vivid RGB preset.

I haven't installed any codec packs on ether computer. The only software that has been installed main editing computer: The Adobe Creative Suite CS4, Premiere Elements 3.0.3 and 6, Photoshop Elements 5.0, disc defrag software, Microsoft Office 2007, and probably a couple more that I'm not thinking of.

Is there something that isn't installed that should be? What would you do if you had this problem?

Mitch,

I can feel your frustration but I think you missed the point in my previous post. IMHO as far as software is concerned, you are not missing anything. You have too much. On your main editing computer install the OS, CS4 and Internet explorer, (to get updates only) and that's it. No elements of any flavor,virus protection, nada. You have proven to all of us having two different versions of premier elements, one of photoshop elements, the CS4 suite plus whatever other software makes a terrible combination. Twice, on two computers. Thinking you need to ADD something else to make it stable is not going down the right road.

You can try the backup/uninstall/reboot procedures I suggested previously, SOMETIMES it works but it does leave crap behind. But it sounds like you need a fresh install and it will save you much more time and headaches in the long run.

If you have the premiere and photoshop elements installed because you are not quite yet comfortable with the CS4 suite, put those on the other computer and work with them there. A great tutorial based training aid to get you up and running with CS4 (or any program for that matter) is at Lynda.com. It's some of the best money you can spend.

Hope this helps and let us know how you make out.

Dave

What would you do if you had this problem?I'd follow David's advice. But I'd skip immediately to step 3.

I uninstalled Premiere Elements and restarted the computer. Imported the video into AE and guess what, it didn't turn green! But after scrubbing the timeline it did crash, every time. I then imported it into the Media Encoder. Worked great! No more green video at least. But it was the same old story in Windows Media Player, take a look at the screenshot below.

I found out that the codec for this video is the MainConcept (Adobe2) MPEG Video Decoder. Could this codec need reinstalled?

Mitch,

Sounds like you are on the right track but I think you’re in for a OS and CS4 reinstall. Shared files may have been removed, you never know what can happen.

In all honesty, your system is probably border line for running CS4. I know it meets the Adobe minimums, but personally I think Adobe should change them. If you read their own white paper on this, they list MUCH higher computer specs as optimal.

I jumped on the CS4 64 bit bandwagon late last year, dreaming about the upgrades, Photoshop in true 64 bit, upgraded Soundbooth and on and on. All you have to do is just make a few hardware and software upgrades. So $1500 later with a Q9650, 64 bit Vista Ultimate and the CS4 Production Premium upgrade I was all set. It was 60 days of hell.

I had been running CS3 with the Matrox RT.X2 system and it was rock solid. I upgraded to the Q9650 and it was faster yet. I was really excited. The vista 64 install went well once I found out about the 2GB install limit. Getting 64 bit drivers was not too bad, but updates for the Matrox RT.X2 never surfaced until after I abandoned the project.

When I tried to run CS4 with it’s higher system requirements it was a lot slower than CS3 with the Matrox card and the real time playback wasn’t even close.

I had been burning Blu Ray discs for 18 months with never a crash and now Premiere and Encore were apologizing to me on a regular basis, as incessantly as a dive bar owner wanting to close. Deadlines were approaching and to save what little sanity I had left, I went back to CS3.

Currently I am building another computer that will handle CS4, the Matrox card with 64 bit Vista but am not placing any pressure on myself to make it function for paying work. So with that background, here is what I would advise you to do.

It sounds like you have a deadline looming and with CS4 being your only option, start new with a OS and CS4 install like previously discussed. The first thing you should do is back up all your important data. Don’t add ANYTHING to your system that is not required in your upcoming project.

Not sure what your computer expertise is but here are a few pointers when you install Vista.

IMPORTANT! Do initial install with 2GB of memory only. After you have installed Vista, install all current updates then shut down your computer, install the rest of the memory and restart. Vista will now recognize the other memory.

If you can, install from the bios. You will have to change the boot order so that whatever drive you have the Vista CD in is listed first. After install go back and change the order back. This will give you the cleanest install. When asked about quick or full disk reformatting, pick full.

If you are not comfortable with that, you can install from windows. Vista will compress old files for you, it just makes for a larger install.

If at any time you get a blue screen, read IMPORTANT above. You have backed up all your files, right?

After Vista is installed, check for updates.

Install latest drivers for video card etc.

Install CS4 and updates.

Write back and tell us how great your system is.

Dave

I took the plunge, and reinstalled Vista, updates and drivers on my machine. I have some good news and some not so good news. First the good news, Adobe seems to be working with the HD video the way it should (Finally!). But, Windows Media Player still has the same problem (see post above)! Doesn't this happen to anyone else? Here's how it happens: import the video, press the stop button or let it get to the end, then hit play. Another thing, when trying to capture in HDV Split, it ether crashes or says it cannot receive data from the camera.

Thanks for all your help!

Mitch,

Glad to hear you are almost there. Now for the Media Player. Sounds like the problem lies with your "import the video".

Make a small (30 second) project to quickly check the process. You can use a longer one you already have, it will just take more time.

Click on File-export-adobe media encoder.

When the media encoder pops up, select MPEG2, entire sequence, hdtv 1080 29.97 high quality. (Assuming you shot on your A1)
Quality slider to 5, Hit OK.

Name and save.

After it's done, navigate to the file, double click it and Media Player will play your video minus the green screen in all it's HD splendor.

Dave

David,

Your footage looks really nice :). I was able to import it into both Avid Media Composer 3.1.1 and Sony Vegas 8.0c. IMHO, like others have noted, your footage is fine.

Would there be a better format than MPEG to convert my video to for editing?

Hi Mitch,

For whatever its worth, it did play the first time when using Windows Media Player. However it would not play a second time. It gave me the same garbled screen you showed in an earlier post. I did not try to load it into Premiere.

I'm wondering if Windows Media Player isn't fully compatible with HD video. Here is the way it happens to me:

1. Open the video in Windows Media Player
2. Press the stop button or let the video finish
3. Hit play

Is this how it happened to you Bob? Do others have the same problem?

Mitch,

It must be contagious. This had never happened to me before until I loaded up a test clip for a client on Youtube last week.

When first viewed in SD it plays fine. After the SD version plays and you select the HD button, the screen resizes and goes green like yours! Hit play again and it plays as it’s supposed to.

I played it on my system with no problem before uploading, so I'm baffled. I don’t think I have ever uploaded anything to Youtube previously that contained an After Effects project with a different resolution than the video.

What version of Media Player are you using?

If you haven't seen enough green screen......

YouTube - Matrox 1280 264 direct (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fP6ZnZPd9U)

Dave

David, I'm using Windows Media Player version 11.0.6001.7004. That's exactly how my videos looked on my editing software until I reinstalled the OS. Premiere Elements 3.0.2 seems to have been the culprit. But I still can't capture from the A1s with HDV split. As soon as the record button is hit it immediately crashes.

I've got another problem. WMP won't play any HD mpeg videos that were exported from Premiere. The audio plays alright but the video is black.

Sounds like you need to download the k-lite codec pack.

Or try playing with VLC.

Thanks Jeremiah, that solved my WMP issue. I also got HDV Split to work today. Thank you for your help everyone!