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

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

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

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

Adam,

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

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

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

-gb-

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

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

WMP plays all clips perfectly with sound.

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

what your saying is the space bar isnt working on the time line i think...i dont know all the technical terms for most of the buttons but the last time i had that happen i just restarted the computer. and when it did it again i upgraded to pro2.

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

It depends on the complexity of your movie. You say 5-10 minutes isn't long, but I spent all summer on a project that takes up 600GB and it's only 15 minutes. Every time I want to export a render uncompressed is another 200GB.

There really isn't any noticable performance gain with a raptor drive, I wouldn't bother with one. Get a 250GB SATA drive (assuming your motherboard supports it) and you should be ok for simple projects (assuming you're doing SD...HDV is a different story).

Hey Ben... yea.. I'm actually doing HDV now. That is why I am upgrading my PC and getting a dedicated scratch drive.

I am so confused about how scratch drives work and from the little I've found about how to use them optimally, it seems like it is every other configuration other than the one I have.

I am looking at a 4 drive configuration as follows:

- 120 GB 10k rpm SATA (primary OS)
- 74 GB 10k rpm SATA (scratch disk)
- 500 GB 7,200rpm SATA (1st media storage)
- 500 GB 7,200rpm SATA (2nd media storage)

I'm definitely trying to optimize the efficiency of the scratch disk, but I have no idea how much data is actually stored on the scratch disk when working with a project. So it sounds like even 160 GB isnt enough for a scratch disk when editting HDV? Also, I wouldn't see a performance increase with the 10k drive? Thanks a bunch.

Hey,
I recently tried opening a 1.5 project in 2.0. WITHOUT SAVING, i exited 2.0, and now I can't open the project *or any of the autosave projects* in 1.5. Due to AspectHD 2.0 compatibility issues I can't edit in 2.0. What went wrong? I can still open them in 2.0, but I need to open them in 1.5. Help!!!

What happens when you try to open the project in 1.5? That is, by "can't", what sort of error message do you get, does it just crash/freeze, etc.?

Also, have you tried the oft-recommended Premiere-project-defibrillator trick of importing the damaged project into a new, empty project?

You got it right first time Michael. So I just closed PPro and on restarting it everything worked fine, so far anyway. Thanks for your help.

Oh, sorry. Error is "The project could not be loaded. It may be damaged or contain outdated elements."

Importing it into a new project causes the same error.

I use an external NTSC monitor while editing. I sometimes like to use the program monitor in the P-Pro 2.0 workspace to view the video as it plays back through the timeline. Is there a way to make the program monitor full size (full screen) without any distortion in the image? It's difficult looking at that small preview window.

Thanks

There are a number of video cards whereby an external monitor is connected and displays the "scrub surface" of the monitor window only. I use the Matrox Parhelia APVe card with one large DVI panel for desktop and the other connected as component HiDef. (NTSC can be in addition or in place of that). I then use the Matrox WhatYouSeeIsWhatYouGet plugin for standard def projects and Cineform's for HDV projects. There are other alternatives, but this works beautifully.

Sorry about that. What I meant is that the video transitions aren't there. Im not sure why but I chose Export Movie and saved it to my folder.

Right, but - where your transitions are supposed to be what do you see instead?

Your video footage, unaltered? Or a section of black video? Or what?

I filmed about 25 minutes with my JVC GY HD100UA. It's in 720p 24. I also captured to a hard drive with hdvrack-equipped laptop.

I also used Cineform to turn my hdv into cineform .avi files.

I have a one long 25 minute avi file I got by capturing via firewire. My PPro 2.0 used the cineform as a plug in.

After 15 minutes, the file has like 1 seconds of dialog playing over and over like a stuck record. The picture is static.

When I play the same piece in Windows Media player, no problem.

The M2T files from the HDVrack laptop are fine. I used HDLink to make them into avi files, which work fine.

So I have usable footage. But the other footage only has the problem in PPro2.0 I created a new project and put the file into that, the same problem.

I did note HDVrack created 2 M2T files, one ending where the problem begin on the other file. So it seemed like something happened what that point, though I didn't notice anything at the time.

Hard to describe... any thoughts?

Dennis,
I had that exact same problem. Mine was 1080i Sony FX1 footage though. I wish I could help you though, I have no clue what the problem was, it just went away for me after I reconverted everything (had to for a different reason).

I might try transferring it again, just to see if it was some odd hiccup.

If it happens when I try again, I might transfer without using Cineform, and maybe narrow down the problem.

Well, while this problem may occur for someone else, Cineform sent me a fix for my issues with Ppro 2.0 and now I'm fine editing in it. Thanks anyway.

As I play through my timeline I notice the audio is playing about 1 to 2 frames before the video. It's not just the audio linked to video tracks; I set a sound effect lined up to a cut to another shot but the sound effect manages to play while I'm still on the previous shot. What's going on? Any way to fix this? It's really messing up my audio editing...

Don,

Thanks...

I currently use the Canopus ADVC-100. This external unit allows me to preview playback on my commodore 1702 NTSC monitor via a modified S-video connection. http://www.retrothing.com/2006/03/commodore_1702_.html By the way... if you want an affordable monitor - you can pick one of these up for $50. Make a cable from $7. You have Tint, Color, Biightness, and contrast controls too. Makes it nice... when calibrating to color bars. ;-) These little units are nice in the field too.

I do not have two PC monitors. Sometimes I like to see the full size output (say 16X9) on my PC monitor. I do not care for the small preview window in p-pro. Is there a way to get a larger preview window without distorting the image?

About 1/3 of the font's on my system no longer work in PP 2.0. They worked fine in PP 1.5. Most the font's I could careless about, but the tribe I work for has developed thier own font, we've used for years from print to web and video, and in PP 1.5, but now it dosen't work. It still works in Phsotshop CS2, Illustrator CS2 and After Effects 7.0. Any suggestions?

I would try reinstalling those fonts.

I first reinstalled the font.... and rebooted..... then uninstalled... rebooted and reinstalled.... to no avail

Never mind...this is a Cineform issue, not a Premiere issue.

I got some music videos that need to intercut with my film, but I got all those on a dvd playable in every player there is. So there are no .avi or other data files. I want to edit this footage in premiere, and it doesn't play these files, but vlc does. How do I do this? Is there some fancy dvd-ripping involved and do i lose quality during the process?
whats the easiest solution?

Regards

Depends if it's copyprotected or not. If it is that's where 'ripping' comes in.

Otherwise, a "vob" file is just an mpeg2 video stream with one or several audio streams.

Try changing the extention to .mpg ... that may be enough for Premiere to accept it. Otherwise demux it back to separate video and audio streams using something like "mpeg tools" in the demo version of TMPGEnc.

Hi All,

I took over the job of helping with an intro movie for an art festival in Southern Florida.

I popped one of the previous tapes in the camera before starting to see what format it was in, because they knew nothing about any of the camera work. They just wrote, directed and produced. The tape played in a 16:9 style format, so that is what I shot.

I shot my footage on Sunday, about 6minutes worth, and when we finished they gave me two tapes they already had. When I captured them today, something is wrong about the format. When captured in a 16:9 project they are 16:9 ratio, or very close, but the files need to be rendered when put into the PPro timeline. Then, after rendering, they are still 16:9 ratio, but are smaller, and must be blown up to 135% to fill the window. When captured in a 4:3 project, they do not need rendering, but maintain the 16:9 or cropped size.

These were shot with a DVX100b, and the tapes are supposedly straight from the camera. Does this camera crop in the camera? I can’t figure it out. Remember the tapes are straight from the camera!

What is it I’m missing here? Specs below:

Editing in PPro 2.0

Camera-- DVX100b

View as 16:9

When captured in a 16:9 project they need to be rendered, then the size reduces.

When captured in a 4:3 project they do not need to be rendered, but are still 16:9 format.


The footage, even if I get this fixed is horrible, with bad noise and the worst color I have ever seen. I am going to try and save it, but not sure how. The guy who shot it is supposed to work for a local TV station.

Thanks for any help you can give me. I know not what I do!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :)

Mike

I have been exporting uncompressed AVI's from PPro2 to use in AE7, exporting from AE7 to uncompressed AVI to bring back into the premiere timeline. What a pain. Now I should be able to use dynamic link. When I select 'Dynamic Link - New AE Comp' in Premiere, AE7 opens up and creates a new linked comp but I can't do anything with it, the little preview screen in the project pane is black. I have tried opening AE7 first so it dosen't have to be prompted by Premiere but same result. The Adobe help file is clear as mud. Surely it should be as simple as what I was doing? Go on then, what am I missing out? ;)
Make me sane again.

Bump Bump!

It's possible that they were shot in a messy "4:3 letterbox" mode, in which it just shoots a 4:3 image, and puts a 16:9 matte over the image, as opposed to cropping and making an anamorphic 16:9 image. An old DV camera I owned had that feature, but I'm not sure how common it is.

The DVX100b has a letterbox mode, and a squeeze mode. I would guess the footage was shot in letterbox and should be edited in a 4x3 timeline. If you open squeeze mode footage in a 4x3 timeline everything will be vertically stretched. If you select a clip in your project window, it will tell you the pixel aspect ratio, 1.2 is widescreen, 0.9 is 4x3.

Hope this helps
-Kevin

I was capturing footage yesterday and I found the device control a bit strange. The play and stop button and reverse and forward work fine. But the jog control and shuttle acted a bit strange in my eyes.

I switched from Final Cut Pro to Adobe Production Studio recently, and I bought the Adobe Classroom in a Book training book.

There are 3 methods to capture footage:
1)press record and capture entire tape or a part of it
2)capture and log (and then batch capture)
3)capture using scene detection

I like the 2nd method but it annoyed me tremendously. While in the monitors, the jog/shuttle controls work perfectly and are very responsive, in the capture panel it is completely the opposite. When I jog forward, I can slow-forward frame per frame untill a certain moment where it jumps back a few seconds in timecode. When I jog backwards, it immidiately makes strange jumps in timecode making it impossible to move to the desired frame. With the shuttle control, slow and fast forward work pretty much like in the monitors. However, shuttle backwards also works strangely. Fast-backwards works fine, but slow-backwards also makes these strange jumps in timecode. Is this typical Premiere behaviour is it dependent of the videocamera? Also, the slow-back and slow-forward buttons are grey. Is there a reason for this, or does it not work with certain types/brands of cameras?I am using a Canon XL-H1 (PAL model) and Cineform.

I am also interested to learn which capture method everyone is using and why they have chosen for that particular capture method.

If I downconvert the footage in camera Z1U, then edit it. When I recapture in HDV, will I have to edit the footage all over again?

I did this two or three times now because in some jobs I need to do a quick edit on location.

I use the downconvert of my FX1 (the same for Z1) and capture and edit in PPro2.0. I export it and show it to the audience.
At the studio I create an Adobe HDV Project and import the DV project that I created on location. When you open a sequence created in the DV project you get a small video footage in the monitor window.
What I do to ake right is make all the AVI's offline and recapture using batch capture without downconversion on the FX1. This really works...you only have to resize titles you made on the DV project.
It's a tricky and time-consuming alternative to intermediate codecs like AspectHD...far from perfect...but it works for me and my specific needs.

EDIT: to import an entire project you must import the .pproj file. it places all the project in a new bin

The real question is this:

Does the batch capture of the HDV come out frame accurate? If it does, great. If not, then there is a lot of work to do to get it all to match again, isn't there?

I think you may be a bit limited in your options using the XL-H1, as Premiere doesn't offer full support yet. Such as scene detect and print to tape in 24f.

I'm currently only working in SD. I always use scene detect, and just capture the whole tape. I just set it and forget it. But I'm usually capturing 5-6 hours of footage at a time, and I would go mad if I had to go through it manually.

Hi Everyone,

I have a question regarding the Project Window.
My issues is that when I import items into the
Project Window and I change the display to Icon
(or Thumbnail) View, the clips are not in alphabetical
or numerical order. They are random and make no
sense.

My question is: how can I get the clips in order?

A lot of time, I want to view things that were shot
in sequence. And yes, I have changed the Project
Window to List View instead of the Icon/Thumbnail
View option and re-ordered the files so that they are
in order when viewing them in the List View. When
it is in the List view, everything is how I want it to be,
but the moment I change it to the Icon/Thumbnail
View, I revert back to the random and disordered
Thumbnails.

I hope I have explained myself well enough. If not,
let me know.

Thanks in advance!

Jon

PS I am using Windows XP with PP1.0

Hello. I have some .vob files from a clients handycam that he wants me to edit together. So I copy the VOB files to my HD, and rename them to filename01.mpg (as the case may be.)

I import them into Premiere Pro 2.0, and it seems to work. Except for the fact that only five out of the 25 minutes of footage is there. Why is this, and how do I make PPro import all of it? WMPlayer sees everything (i.e. the full length).

Any help is appreciated,
Mike

Yup,

You are right Kevin. It was shot 4:3 .9 cropped. My few shots are 16:9 1.2. The people doing this can't get the people back together again, I'm the third camera person, in about 5 months. The first guy kept all of his footaqge and thier tapes and hard drive. He shot 9 hours of video for a 7 minute short and the actors were ready to give up. Then he quit and kept everything.

What is the best way to incorporate my footage? Shrink it down to fit, or do some sort of render. The previous footage is so bad and the sound so messed up that I wish I could back out, but I promissed.

If I enlarge their footage it will be very grainy and it is bad enough now. So best to modify mine, right?

I have about 30 more seconds footage to shot for them. How do I do that, shoot 4:3 and crop in post?

Thanks for the help guys, keep it coming.

Mike

In my case it really doesnt matter. And I didnt even check if it was frame accurate. The result in HDV seemed the same to me.
Again, in my case, quick edits, most of them in under 30 minutes, arent exactly frame acuracy dependable. It just serves to deliver the client a better looking sample of what was shown on location together with a final edit (usually a 6-8 hour session) in a full-HDV workflow.

This presents me with a problem: the tape mechanism is getting used double time when i do this. One for the DV edit, another for the HDV re-capture.
I intend to resolve this by buying a FireStore. It will save me time capturing on the field (and give me over an hour of extra editing time on location) and I would only need to run the tape once again for HDV capture...or never if I use AspectHD or similar.

Just waiting for the bucks to try it. For now the mentioned workflow works for my specific needs.

Paulo

I just bought the XH A1 and I wanted to know if I record in SD 24f, should I still just select 24p in PPro 2.0??

Hi guys;
I'm using PPro. 2.0 And in the time line my time code display this numbers,
00:11:38:11511. I know that the last five digits are the frames, but I don't want the time code to display all those number, only fames.
Anybody knows how to switch them back to frames only. Any help will be appreciated. It’s very annoying when you want to scroll frames but this way it takes too long to scroll thru the project.

In SD, it works just like the DVX-100 or XL2. You choose 2:3 or 2:3:3:2 pull-down in the camera menu, and then make sure the PPro project is set for the correct pull-down.

To capture and edit native HDV F-Mode in PPro, you need the preset files that can be downloaded from the Adobe web site. Once you have those, just choose your preset and you're all set.

In SD, it works just like the DVX-100 or XL2. You choose 2:3 or 2:3:3:2 pull-down in the camera menu, and then make sure the PPro project is set for the correct pull-down.

To capture and edit native HDV F-Mode in PPro, you need the preset files that can be downloaded from the Adobe web site. Once you have those, just choose your preset and you're all set.
I went to the website and all they have is 24F for editing HDV footage. I didn't see anything for SD 24F.

James if you shoot SD 24f, then use the 24p preset in Premiere. I'm not familiar with the camera, but if you plan to edit in a 23.976 project, then I would shoot with the 2:3:3:2 advanced pulldown. I'm assuming the camera has this feature. I won't have one for another few weeks.

I'm wondering if it has something to do with the embedded chapter points. Is there a way to get Premiere to ignore this?

I suspect it's rather the poor handling of mpeg files all together. I am having all sorts of issues with a similar project where the client handed me a hard drive camcorder (JVC Everio). Depending on what you mean by "edit together" you have several options - I spent about two weeks now, on and off, on this project.

Bottom line is: Premiere, although can handle MPEG, it doesn't really like it (I suspect it's actually not Premiere but Windows, but I have no means to confirm that). If you have to do editing on the footage, you are better off decompressing the footage with Movie Maker - I know, it's a primitive app, but it does the job. It will take some time, but you can also add the clips together if you have to. Just export as DV-AVI from Movie Maker and import that into PPRO.

If you don't need to do any editing on the footage, and your final product is a DVD, you can use Encore - in my case it is unpractical since I have close to 200 clips, most of them very short (10-30 seconds). I tried several pieces of software to "stitch" the clips together without any other editing, but could not find a working piece of software.

Good luck and come back with your results, lets put together a workflow to help everyone else on this forum!

So what you are saying is that scene detect does not work with 25F footage? As far as I could judge, the icon was active with 25F footage. I will have to test this... I am using the Cineform for Premiere codec.