An update: Just got off tech support with Adobe. The "expert tech" told me that Premiere does not support external Firewire hard drives, and that the fact that I was able to capture four hours of video before was "luck." She said they do not support external drives (except removable SCSI) for either capture or playback. She said my only option is to install additional internal hard drives. Has anyone else heard of this? THis seems absolutely ridiculous to me. I used to be a big Premiere fan, but give me a break. On Xpress Pro, I have three firewire drives daisy-chained into ONE port, PLUS my DVX100 on the end of this daisy chain and never a problem with captured, realtime playback etc. Tech support said that b/c Adobe uses MSFT DirectX this will not work with the Premiere system. Fortunately I am using a client's computer and it is not my $700 wasted on a useless program (sorry, I'm pissed). If anyone has any suggestions, they'd be much appreciated. THanks!

Peter

I checked after reading your post and found that Adobe Premiere Pro System Requirements (www.adobe.com/products/premiere/systemreqs.html) says this, "...dedicated 7200rpm UDMA 66 IDE or SCSI hard disk"

Thanks Ming. Sure enough, there it is in black and white. There must be users on this forum that use external firewire drives with Premiere, though...anyone?

Peter

Ken,

Thanks for the link, it really take me 2 days to digest all the info... as least now i know more about DV and can start to ask some make-sense question...

As Mr. Adam wilt stated, "the basic video encoding algorithm is the same between all 3 formats (DV, DVCAM & DVCPRO)... the video data recorded in all 3 formats is esentially identical, though there may be minor differences in the actual codec implementations."

Does that means if the camera section and lens are the same, the result from shooting in DV and DVCAM will be identical? (At least, that what i understand from Mr. Adam's article... correct me if i am wrong!)

Let's make one simple example, if i use a PD-170 shooting in DVCAM format and shift to DV format... the image from these 2 formats will be identical??? and you will see no differences between the shifting from DVCAM to DV... (except for the audio lock issue) If so... why sony need to make the DVCAM format... only for the audio lock function???

Any comments is welcome... i really want to understand the benefit of DVCAM over DV... cos i am choosing between PDX-10 & DVC-80... and currently i am more on the PDX-10 because of the DVCAM... if not, i definitely go for DVC-80...

Edmond

P.S. By the way, is the PDX-10 really a native 16x9 CCD? someone say yes and someone say no... it really make me confuse... if yes, i think with the price scheme, that's the lowest camera range that can give me uncropped 16x9 image... or do i have other choice under 3k?

"Does that means if the camera section and lens are the same, the result from shooting in DV and DVCAM will be identical?"

Yes sir. That's basically* correct.

*DVCAM's primary claims of superiority over standard DV is that it features locked audio (to prevent audio/video synch drift) and its higher tape speed uses more tape to lay down the footage. This helps to prevent drop-outs due to tape abnormalities.

Dear all,

Yesterday I burn 2 clips into DVD-R and compare it on a 110-inch screen... one is using the highbit rate (custom setting) 8 avg and 9 max... and the other is medium bitrate (standard setting) which are 4.2 avg and 6 max... I really can not see any different... but as i mentioned on my previous post the title i add-in have a lot of artifacts and flicking plus the picture is soft compare to the orginial DV that i shoot... (my JVC have the direct plug-in from the camcorder to the projector using a D2 - component cable. so i can see the different between the DVD and original DV.)

Question, what's wrong with my capture equipment, i am using a pinnacle DV500 card with the set-top box using IEEE1394 plug. (As my understanding, there should be no loss on the digital transfer... so... what went wrong?)

Is the MPEG decoder having problem, or my authorizing program Sonic My DVD 5.0 soften my picture?

Any input is welcome... thanks...

Edmond

Ken,

Thanks for the reply... so the PD170 shooting in DV and DVCAM formats will be identical... only the audio-lock is different...

But is the "higher tape speed uses more tape to lay down the footage" means better resolution or it only means it do prevent the drop-frame issue...

One more stupid question, as the technical detail shown the digital-8 formats have higher track pitch and track width than DVCAM... does that means, the digital-8 have a "higher tape speed uses more tape to lay down the footage" than DVCAM? so... digital-8 format have the same or higher quality on preventing the drop-frame issue than DVCAM...

Edmond

Once again, thankyou for your kindly reply...

By the way, do you know the 16x9 issue on the PDX-10?

"But is the "higher tape speed uses more tape to lay down the footage" means better resolution or it only means it do prevent the drop-frame issue..."

Nope. Tape format does not determine a camera's resolution. It's strictly a recording technique.

I am not knowledgeable enough about Digital 8 to answer your second question.

Refer to the PDX-10 (http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=43) forum for more info on that camera.

Hi Edmond,
Re: your query on the PDX10 16:9 format. It is indeed native 16:9, unlike it's consumer twin the TRV950. This may be why you've heard conflicting reports.

Check out this link which gives a nice explanation.

<http://www.creativevideo.co.uk/pages/cvp_dsr-pdx10p-16x9.htm>


I have the TRV 950 and kind of wish I'd gone for the PDX now... but too late. I've added an XLR module, but it would have been nice to have the native 16:9, that most recognise as the best for any of the low budget prosumer cameras.

Both cameras have their limitations due to CCD size, but in the right conditions produce blinding pictures.

Cheers
Gareth

To my opinion, what also counts, comparing DVCAM and DV, is the fact that recording always generates some minor failures. Only the bigger ones result in dropouts. The others are smoothed by a correctingalgorithm.

When the correctingalgorithm has to estimate for the minor holes in reading, it will affect the result due to lack of information.

DVcam not only has less dropouts but the readingalgorithm has to do less corrections. This may result in a minor better picture.

Am I right?

Thanks Ken & Jan

Fully understand... Once again, thank you very much! It really help on my decision making...

Cos i been stuck on the DVCAM issue, I insist on the quality of the DVCAM is much better than the quality of DV... and the value that i weight between DVCAM is much higher than the camera section & lens...

Thanks, Gareth Watkins

Thanks for the link...

Edmond

This problem has annoyed me some time. Usually can ripple delete but occasionaly I cant. Seems when I start to apply effects premiere stops handing out ripple deletes .

Any ideas?

Cheers,
Ben Gurvich

Hi Ben,

Can you supply more information. Especially the version of Premiere, how big your projects are, how many effects and which ones, computer specs etc.

Hopefully then we can get a bit more of an idea.

Thanks,

Ed

Hi Edmond,

There will be a slight quality loss when converting to DVD as you have to compress the footage.

How does it look through a normal TV. Obviously blowing footage up to larger sizes will decrease the quality slightly.

How does the DVD look cmpared to your DVCAM footage in your computer at 720x480?

The artifacts and flickering could be caused by wrong field order, or that the title has not been deinterlaced.

I believe that MyDVD also does its own compression on the footage when you author the disk. I also think that you can import an DV AVI file and My DVD will convert it, maybe try that?

If anyone has any other suggestions please chime in...

I am always afraid to use ripple delete because i don't know what it does exatcly anf i am afraid for surpises.

Who can give me more trust in the process? Whar does it doe and what safeguards it?

Does it recognise the stereo signal also?

I own a PDX10p and Premiere does not recogise the stereo signal.
I must use scenalyzer for that.

I prefer the stand alone version of the mainconcept encoder and prefer and use it always!


It gives really amazing good results and faithfull details and colours which I very much prefer above the TMPGenc encoder which I used before!

I use widescreen and the stdrd Mainconcept plugin crops the widescreen into 4x3 which i don't want. (resulting in a black upper and under part of a 4x3 screen) So I lose vertical resolution. May be it is my fault, but i could not reach better. Correct me iff I am wrong.

So I have been outputting some of my work to WMP and Quicktime to post on the web. Or at least trying to output...

It seems as if everything I try ends up with so so quality in a file size that is too big for the result I am getting. I have tried all the presets, and they suck, especially for quicktime. Then I did some of my own modifications and they were okay at best. Considering I had a 24MB file of a 2 min video at 320x240, I would expect some better quality.

One interesting thing I personally found was that I get better quality using the codec for WMP 8 than WMP 9. In fact I was getting a pretty big difference. I ended up using WMP 8 for my final product, but its still just not up to my standards. You can check the result here:
http://www.interlightvideo.com/Gone%20Fishing.wmv

What have you guys figured out to work best?

I see a black empty area around the picture. Those pixels ar not used. That is not optimal for windowsMedia. You lose pixelinformation.
You use a very high bitrate. So I expect a better quality. How is the source?
If the source has the black borders, try cropping it for better results: more pixels. With yr bitrate it should be no problem.

I use the stand alone WinMediaEncoder from MS. I prefer it. I agree that the the Premiere plugin gives not the optimal results I want.

Version 9 must certainly gives better result as version 8.

The movie itself is fun. I like it.

no worries,

i am using premiere 6.5 and i guess it happens when i put in a dissolve, basically something that requires rendering.
I am using 3 video track with 2 used for clips im not using or about to use, and one used for the real project.


Cheers,
Ben Gurvich

Ed Smith,

The image from the DV directly to the projector is better than the image from the DVD-R using the Philips Q50 deinterlaced the 480i into 480p to my Sony VPL-VW10HT projector. The image is more sharp and colorful than the image from the DVD-R...

As you mentioned, Sonic MyDVD 5.0 does its own compression on the footage when i author the disk. Should i stay back to Adobe software to do the job?

Now the question is the soften image is due from the DVD authorizing process in Sonic MyDVD 5.0 or from the MPEG process in Adobe Premiere 6.5?

I don't know the Sonic MyDVD 5.0 will accept the AVI format or not, but i will try it tonight and see...

Beside Sonic MyDVD 5.0 can you recommend any authorizing software to me? Do you think the MPEG decoder from the adobe premiere is good? I already upgrade to 1.3 beta version from the adobe website...

Edmond

P.S. Thanks for your reply... Thanks!

Thought I had this posted here already. Posted this in the PDX10 group and the NLE group but am having no luck so I'll give you Premiere folks a crack at this issue. I am an Avid / Premiere Pro guy myself but this is frustrating the heck out of me.

Well, I just discovered a very odd thing happening here with the old PDX-10 and any editing application.

I have been using a DSR-20 for a long time and it has been working flawlessly. I plug the 1394 in and it goes through the normal discover messages for a new DV device to which I cancel out of - all 4 messages. New DV device found, new AV tuner, etc. (which is odd as there is really no tuner in the DSR20)

I plug in the PDX-10 and I only get one message. I cancel it and can open my apps - Avid XpressPro, Premiere Pro, Vegas, etc. I can capture and control the camera in VCR mode. I however for the life of me cannot get dv playing out from any applications back into the camera. They are set right and think they are as evidenced by the stuttered output on the PC screens.

Keep in mind that it works fine with my tiny Sony Vaio laptop. I get imediate in and out. Same 4 messages I get using the DSR20 on the home system when I connect too.

Now, here's a hint. When I plug into the laptop, I look at the device drivers and notice there is a 1394 device listed, the TI driver is showing. On the bigger home system, I have a generic (probably Microsoft) driver. So far, in almost a year of editing with the DSR20, the driver hasn't been an issue and I am a bit reluctant to fool with a mostly working very well system.

A few questions come to mind, why does the DSR20 work fine with both drivers?

Why doesn't the PDX10?

How do I fix this?

What are you folks seeing as the listed device driver?

How can I change so I only use the right driver?

Why does the home PC only ask one question for the PDX10 and 4 for the DSR20?

How do I get and load the TI drivers and will that help.

Tried removing the 1394 drivers and letting Winf=dows discover the devices agian, no better.

Reinstalled Avid Xpress Pro to set up the correct drivers, no better in any app.

Etc.

I will need to get video back onto the camera at some point. That's 33% of why I bought it. I know it can work. It works fine from the laptop. What do I need to make it work right on the big PC?

The 1394 card in the home PC is a built in card so I can't change it. I can add a second one which I may have to do.

I just discovered all this last night so I will work on it this weekend but it's quite nerve wracking right now.

Sean

Is it possible that the unused tracks are "in the way" of the ripple delete? The only time 6.5 won't do a ripple delete for me is when clips on the other audio or video tracks butt up against (or near) each other in a way that would keep that whole section of the timeline from moving down. Everything above and below the clip you want to bump has to have room to move to the left. The ripple delete moves the whole timeline, not just the track you are editing.

Does that make sense? It seems easier for me to visualize than to explain...

As as guy from a broadcasting background, if tape time isn't an issue, go for the fastest tape speed. You could sort of look at it as a resolution issue but not like you think. Faster tape speed means the information has more magnetic particles actually recording each pixel (or however you want to look at it). More space between signals results in less smear of magnetic information between tracks. Each track is cleaner and has lower signal to noise ratios.

Like cars and motorcycles, faster is sometimes better.

Taps speed suffers however. That 60 minute MiniDV tape willnow be 43 minutes of DVCam footage.

The actual signal in your NLE or played out to a monitor is exactly the same for MiniDV, DVCam and even DVCPro 25. The DV format is the DV format is the DV format. DV is DV and is not dependant on tape speed to be the format.

Hope that helps.

And as a gy with a PDX10, I can tell you, it has more pixels in 16x9 than any other camera out there until you ht the pro cameras.

Look for reviews of the camera or drop by the PDX10 group for lots of good info.

Sean

<<<-- Originally posted by Edmond Chan : But is the "higher tape speed uses more tape to lay down the footage" means better resolution or it only means it do prevent the drop-frame issue... -->>>

Well it also means that Sony will sell you 50% more tape, so they have a bit of a vested interest in all this... ;-)

Thanks for the relpy Jan.
Youre absolutely right about the black bars, I hadnt thought of that before. How do I crop them out?
The source is DV shot on an XL1- so thats not it.
That program you speak of, is it free? Where can I get it? Thanks!

John is absolutely right, and it is confusing to word. I will try to repeat in case you dont understand. This is for PPro by the way, but i think it is the same for 6.5. The ripple delete takes an empty space in your project, and deletes it. All of your footage to the right of the CTI (current time indicator) will be pulled to the left to give you no breaks in the video. It is an excellent tool because you dont have to go and individually move clips down to get rid of a black space. If you were to have a track (usually an audio track) poking out past where your are try to ripple, it would not work, or at least only ripple to the edge of that audio clip (or whatever clip it is). The ripple will NEVER delete or change your edit, it will only get rid of blank space that may have been created while removing a clip.

Well, I'm glad somebody said that. <g>

Have you noticed that the two primary tape manufacturers (Sony and Panasonic) each have "professional" recording formats (DVCAM and DVCPRO) that eat tape faster than "standard" formats?

WinMediaencoder (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/download/default.asp) can be found here!
It is free.
It has the opportunity to crop the video.
for PAL cropping with 48 of 576 and 60 of 720 is a good value resulting in a good optimal 3:4 picture of 352x264.
I dont know the good values for NTSC; but you will find them yourself with some calculation.

Where do the borders come from? Are they in the source? I thought I didn't see them in the title. But may be the title was misleading me.

Succes!
I am waiting to see the new result.
(I think a transferrate of 500kb to 750Kb must be more as sufficient. Higher speeds are difficult on a slow Internet.)

Sean, please do not post the same questions in multiple forums. I am going to close this thread, so that people do not get confused.

For anybody wishing to post a reply to this message please visit this thread:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?s=&threadid=25033

Thanks,

Ed

Hi Edmond,

Most people are happy with the Mainconcept encoder with Premiere. I'm happy with it and have had no problems.

I use Sonic ReelDVD 3.0.3 its a great tool, once you get your head around it. If you don't want to spend that much then look at Sonic DVDit or the Ulead range. Do a search and you'll find information about them.

Let us know how it goes...

Ed

Thanks again Jan. You know, I cant figure out where the bars are coming from. They are not in the source video. I am trying to determine if they have been encoded and you are downloading that information uselessly, or if they are just added by WMP or what. Its NTSC version if that makes any difference for you, but it shouldnt for me.
Anyways thanks for the link, I will try it out soon and see if I cant get a better video. Anyone have any results with Quicktime?

The Black border around the video frame is the underscan. In the end you'll never see them on a TV screen. However you will see them when encoding for web/CD etc, when viewed on a PC.

They are recorded when you record the image in your camera.

Cheers,

Ed

thanks guys,
confusing as it sounds i think i got it.

Cheers,
Ben Gurvich

It's very likely I'm totally missing a very easy solution but I thought I'd run it by everyone here to see what I can do.

Setup is as follows:

Adobe Premiere 6.02
Canon XL1

When exporting to tape any project back to my XL1 it always wants to record in 12 bit audio mode. In premiere I have audio in the first two audio levels. I'm set up in A/B editing and draging from A to B causes the audio to move to the Audio 2 'lane'. What I'm thinking is that it's treating it as 4 different audio streams. Audio 1 R/L, and Audio 2 R/L. I want to export to tape in 16 bit stereo mode with both audio layers going to it.


I've looked through all the settings I can find in Premiere and the XL1 and have yet to find something. Can anyone help?

hi Jacob,

Are you running Premiere with any hardware, other than a firewire card?

Did you capture the material in at 12bits?

In the audio project settings is the rate set to 48000 Hz at 16bit stereo?

I can't remember whether v6 had the settings viewer? If it does it would be found in the Project tab and it will tell you if you have set anything to 12bits. You need to make sure that everything in the settings view is all the same. If everything in Premiere is set to 16bits, then you must have a setting wrong in the camera.

Double check that you have switched to 16bit in the XL1s menu?

Thanks,

Ed

I'm really just now getting to where think I know my way around Premiere 6.0 and this happens.

I tried to add a plugin for text effects. It didn't work. No problem, I thought, I'll just read up a little before trying it again. The next time I opened the program I get an error message that reads like this:

"The Adobe UI font could not be loaded. For best results, please exit the program and either install it or uninstall other fonts."

I click OK and move on. Now the font in which all my workspace text is written in has changed to this little bitty, hard to read font. Every place where there is text for controls, effects and so on. I hope that makes sense.

Does anyone know how to fix this problem? It's driving me crazy.

Thanks for your help.

OK, this is probably really obvious (typical disclaimer) - but I've not figured it out. I exported a clip to TIFF files to play around with them in Photoshop. How do I get them back into PPro with the same timing, etc.?

Thanks John (and all). I did finally find it. Also got Vixen to work. I like the vectorscope (shiny dials and lights and all). I'll play a bit to see if it's worth the money.

G'day,

I'm interested in creating split-screen effects in Adobe Premiere Pro but I don't just want static frames. I would like the visible part of the frame to change shape with the action. Does anyone know any good online resources or have personal experience in this area?

Thanks.

When you exported them, the names were in numerical sequence. Import them into Premiere by selecting the first one and checking the box that says they are a numerical sequence.

Ok, I have been working with Pinnacle 8 for several months. It was my first editing experience and I love the program. You don't need to touch the book and it can do any basic functions that I need. However, I am making an extreme sports video and need good slow motion. I got Premier Pro and wow!! I am scratching my head and can't do the first thing. I may enroll in class or something but for the mean time, I am dead in the water. My immediate solution is to do all the basic edits and piece together my video in Pinnacle and then transport the whole file into Premier for the slow motion. How do I do that? How do I get the edited video footage from my files in Pinnacle over to premier to add the slow motion? Do I need to record it back out to a minidv tape and then re-capture it? As is obvious by now, I am very new at this. Any advice would be helpful.
Thanks
Sam

i used p pro for the first time last night also, and its actually pretty simple. i figured that you could do a "slow motion" on the clip by right clicking/speed duration. you can adjust either speed or duration of the clip. i dont think you can access speed/duration settings if your clip is linked with an audio track. to unlink the audio from the video track, right click/unlink audio from video. you will now be able to access speed/duration settings...

there may be another way to do it, but this is the only way that i know how.

ive heard the slow motion in p pro sucks though, and youre much better off doing slow motion in after effects..

i could be wrong, feel free to correct me...

=)

good luck! :D

<<<-- Originally posted by Jan Roovers : I am always afraid to use ripple delete because i don't know what it does exatcly anf i am afraid for surpises.

Who can give me more trust in the process? Whar does it doe and what safeguards it? -->>>

haha...thats what im thinking...what the heck is ripple delete!? :D haha...

Just like anything in the video editting work there is about a dozen ways to do this. Try this turtorial to start out with. It worked nicely when I used it once.

http://www.marcpeters.co.uk/dallas-titles.html

I am about to shoot some green screen for a project in a couple of days. It is not a must to use the green screen and I am debating whether or not to do it based on some tests that I have shot.

I am using the Matrox RTX100 to do the chroma keying. The NTSC looks very good on the monitor for my test footage. However, when I encode to WM9 I get lots of artifacts around the subject area. Is it typical that ultra-compressed formats such as WM9 will look bad around the edges on chroma keyed clips?

My end product will be delivered on CD and will be a compressed format, probably WM9 or Quick-time and NOT DVD.

Would chroma keying in AfterEffects yield better results?

I would begin with an un-install and then re-install of Premiere.

You have much more control over your key in AE, so if you know what you are doing then you could def. get better results. However, I dont know about the quality when you compress it.

I have done a lot of Slo-Mo with PPro and the results have been acceptable. I like turning on the frame blend speed option (right click, go to field options).
As for your question about doing the edit in Pinnacle, all you have to do is save the final product in pinnacle to a format that PPro accepts. I recommend .AVI . Then open pro, select file/import or double click in the project window and select your file. Then drop it onto the time line, right click and go to speed duration, and presto! speed changes in PPro.
I would recommend trying to do the edit in Pro however. You have to learn sometime! Get the manual, and start playing. You will figure it out before too long. Good luck!

I just tried using AE for the same footage and could not obtain any acceptable results. My lighting of the green screen was not even and with AE I was only able to get have the background keyed out without keying out the subject. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but there are only controls available in AE where there are a lot more with Matrox and you can select a range of colors for your keying too. I could not figure out how to do this in AE.