.mxf Files Mishandled in Premiere CS4 CS5

[Adam Stanislav]

Originally Posted by Dan Keaton

Our MXF Files are the compatible with Sony XDCam Optical Disk Format files.

Dan, is the spec for this format available for download somewhere on the web?

[Dan Keaton]

Dear Adam,

Not the I know of.

We worked closely with Sony and they suggested the very minor changes that we had to make to comply with their format.

We made the changes, then our files could be processed by Sony's XDCam cameras and optical disk decks.

[Mark Job]

Originally Posted by Dan Keaton

Dear Adam,

Not the I know of.

We worked closely with Sony and they suggested the very minor changes that we had to make to comply with their format.

We made the changes, then our files could be processed by Sony's XDCam cameras and optical disk decks.

...Hi Dan: Now if we could convince Avid to allow Convergent Design's XDCAM HD 4:2:2 file structure to be recognized by Media Composer's AMA feature (As MC recognizes the file structure as it exists on XDCAM recorded discs), then it would no longer be necessary to even have to import XDCAM HD files - just link to where they sit in a USB reader on a CF card or a firewire 800 reader.

[Adam Stanislav]

Thanks, Dan.

[William Urschel]

Gentlemen:

Finally, thank you ALL for your attention, your obvious perspicacity, and your very thoughtful suggestions to the nightmare I have been experiencing with all this. I am now running an Adobe app successfully, and almost all has been solved:

1) As I have posted here (and at quite a few other boards on the Internet), my latest insoluable problem in attempting to edit audio in mxf files was while running WIN7 Ultimate, with my prime focus upon using Premiere CS5 (Sony Vegas Pro 8 or 9 or whatever aside). As finally presented above in an organized way, and this may be very pertinent to the genesis of my wierd, wierd problem, first wiped the program hard drive clean, and performed what I thought was a clean install of Vista Ultimate 64bit, Adobe Production Premium CS4, and the appropriate MainConcept plug in to enable import and edit of the high data rate (100Mbps) nano mxf files. And ARRRGGGGEEE - then I could not edit the audio in the timeline of Premiere Pro CS4, as described ad nauseum. A crucial FACT that I failed to mention was that when I opened Premiere CS4, the empty timeline laid out THREE empty video tracks (which was what I had ALWAYS seen in set up), BUT the empty timeline laid out SEVEN EMPTY AUDIO TRACKS, PLUS A MASTER TRACK - this anomilie was
unlike the typical three empty audio tracks which any version of Premier had laid out over my prior 13 yearsw experience with Premier. And as I indicated, the audio could not be edited in the timeline, since it just wastn't there!

2) Soooo, as you well know, in utter disgust, and in hopes of a brighter future, I wiped the hard drive clean again and performed a clean install of WIN7 Ultimat 64bit, as well as the newly introduced Adobe Production Premium CS5, and again could not edit the audio within the timeline. And again I failed to mention that the blank timeline when opened had 3 video rows, but SEVEN audio rows. And I could not edit the audio in Premiere.

3) Because of a query and challenge (not hostile, mind you!) in another forum, regarding both of the above installations, I went into Preferences to check that the default source channel mapping for audio was properly set up - I did this twice for each separate set up, even though I knew it wasn't neccessary. And for an already imported clip not yet used in a sequence, I went into "Clip - Modify - Audio Channels" to further assure proper mapping. TO NO AVAIL. Everything just noted checked out, but I could not edit audio in any way in the timeline.

4) Sooooooo, yesterday, in the latest installation (Win7, Production Premium CS5), I opened Premiere and
imported some nano files, brought them into Premier, and then increased the audio rows in the timeline from the wierd seven to eight, and then to 9 -AND THERE IN THE NINTH AUDIO TRACK WAS THE AUDIO DATA CORRESPONDING TO THE VIDEO IN VIDEO TRACK ONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And of course it was fully editable in the timeline, and it also, of course, exhibited the same ol one audio track lagging the other, which Adobe evidently does not feel is important enough to fix as yet - we can only hope - I'm waiting for someone to criticize me for my comment about that (as above), but give me a break!

5) In any event, and to close this up (you thought I never would, but considering all the effort all of you have
made, I thought a full description was in order), I have uninstalled Production Premium CS5 (until and if Adobe fixes the audio lag), reinstalled Production Premium CS4 and the corresponding necessary MainConcept plug-in, updated everything, and cleaned up the Registry. And so far, EVERYTHING APPEARS TO BE FUNCTIONING WELL, IN EDITING NANO MXF FILES, VIDIO AND AUDIO. When I first opened Premiere CS4, in the timeline, there were three video tracks and nine audio tracks. When I imported nano mxf files into Premiere and pulled a couple into the timeline, the video showed up in the timeline in video track one, while the audio showed up in audio track 9.


One final note. There was a query above regarding the compatibility of Cineform with what we're doing here.
I have invested over the years a considerable sum in Cineform and updates, and currently have rights to the latest NEO successor to my now out of date Prospect HD 4k. According to the latest on the Cineform board, if I am not mistaken, one of the Cineform principals in response to a query, indicated that Cineform could not handle the Sony related codec of nanoFlash - but anyone interested had better do their own investigation on that! I continue to use Cineform codec in the free Neo edition to handle my large collection of previously encoded cineform files DV and SxS.

[Mark Job]

Hey Bill:
I am very happy for you. Now, you will hopefully not have to *spend* anymore cash to get something to actually work, because this is what it boils down to.

[Steve Kalle]

Bill, my comment about Cineform not working was only about files from the nanoFlash, which Cineform does not yet support for conversion. I have tried using HDLink several times and it always says the format is not supported.

[William Urschel]

Steve, my understanding in reading a post by one of Cineform's principals is that a "fix" enabling use of Cineform in handling nanoFlash files will NEVER come about because of the Sony codec used by nano.
If anyone has information reliably disputing this, I would be grateful to hear about it, since Cineform's "visually lossless" program is so blasted useful - and Cineform's responsiveness to its customers is the equal of the exceptional service we see on this Forum!

[Tim Kolb]

Hi William,

I'm back a little late to the thread...

The audio track thing is interesting...I'm glad you've gotten a bit of an improvement anyway...

I need to duplicate the audio lag myself (and I trust that it's there...I just need to pass info in first hand on these things). Does there seem to be any difference between how the data rates play? (50Mb vs 100Mb, etc?) Out of curiosity, does I frame do any better (if you've tried it...)?

On CineForm and the never coming Sony XDcam support...can you link me to that thread? ...or is that something they told you over the phone?

Thanks!

Tim

[Andy Urtusuastegui]

Tim, I am looking to buy a nanoFlash, and have CS5. So I have been doing a little testing.

I used the provided clips on the CD web page. 1080 30p 100mbit LongGop.

The sound is fine a the initial "Clap Sync", but by the time she says "1080P" the left and right channel are out of sync.

[Steve Kalle]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the nano records 24bit uncompressed WAV. Can't you just unlink the audio from the video in Premiere?

Is the sync off ONLY during playback within the timeline or is the encoded timeline also affected?

[Tim Kolb]

OK, Thanks Andy.

What sort of sequence are you running it in? XDcamHD 4:2:2?

[William Urschel]

Tim - for info re compatability between nanoFlash files and Cineform, please see the DVInfonet Cineform board. Buried in there someplace, as my sometimes faulty memory fixates, one of the two principals of Cineform apparently made the statement that Cineform would not handle nanoFlash data now, nor would it in the future, because of the Sony based codec in nanoFlash - I believe also that the statement was made that the blockage to successful resolution of the issue did not rest with Cineform, but did with Sony......please, though, I could be at least partially mistaken about this......should I run across it again in my meanderings through the Cineform board, I will post a link here.

I have the rights to Cineform Neo4k v5 (recent successor, as you may well know, to Prospect4k). After reading the Cineform post I've just related, I dropped Cineform for the last couple of months until three days ago, and am now running it again - Neo4k v5 with Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 (with the MainConcept plug in). In a project I just started, set up for edit of nanoFlash files (1080x1920 30p 100Mbps Long GOP), thus far all I have done is two days of work in setting up some standard titling (close credits, etc) using the Adobe Premiere titler - I decided to reinstall Cineform in order to export and save all the title work permanently in a really clean way with the Cineform AVI wrapper, at which of course Cineform is so capable. But I haven't attempted to do anything further with it at the moment.

By the way, there is some ranting going on over at the Adobe sponsored board - Premeire CS5 - in a thread I started quite a while ago, inquiring about when we might see a fix to the nano audio issue in Premiere CS5. After a lapse of a week, that thread has suddenly become active. As above in this thread, I was not circumspect in my comments about Adobe and Premiere - if you think I am a bad person for my comments (!) you ought to see what is being posted by someone claiming to be an Adobe employee. And some Adobe customers on that same thread are far more direct than anything I've said about their "displeasure" with Adobe. One fellow indicates that he was "told" by Adobe (I won't use the word he used in place of "told") that Premiere CS5 worked fine with nanoFlash files, paid $2,000 for some version of a CS5 Suite, and now is more than just a bit displeased in finding out that this is not true.

Before I respond to your query about other formats I might have used in nanoFlash recordings, let me say that for the time being I have decided to again become the circumspect, politically correct "nice" guy I always was (past tense!), and not disparage anyone, and just praise those who provide such an great set of products and superlative, outstanding customer service, such as Convergent Designs, Cineform, and BOXX (BOXX, my PC maker here in Austin, Texas - WOW, are they soooo knowledgeable and helpful). But I will report the facts (facts?) as I have experienced them. To wit, as I said above, I have just spent two days creating some titling using Premiere CS4. For me, after some initial bugs were worked out by Adobe, Premiere CS 4 has been as solid as a rock, with two exceptions. The first has been the initial issue of this thread, a problem for which I am probably responsible. But forever, I personally have had problems with runawway RAM and crashes with the Premiere CS4 Titler. Given my again politically correct persona, I will not comment about what I have seen posted all over the place about others' experience with the Premiere CS4 Titler. But personally, instead of the two days I have just spent creating titles, it would have been only a day and a half, except that after a day, the Premiere CS4 Titler unexpectedly (excuse me, isn't ai always unexpected!) crashed, and not only took half my titles, but also or as part of the wipeout, removed the last ten of my twenty "saves", so I started all over. Just the facts....that's what happened, and has frequently happened to me. Let others speak for themselves!

Finally, you inquired about my running 50 Mbps files, ect. At this point I have run nothing but 100 Mbps Long GOP and don't intend to do anything else, even if it corrects the issue with CS5 sound (which according to some on the Adobe PPCS5 board it does not, but again, please see that board) since I am interested in recording close to the best possible picture at less than the top data rate.

In the words of Tiny Tim, "May God bless us, everyone."

[Dan Keaton]

Dear William,

I really wish we knew when the audio issue in CS5 would be fixed and a new version released.

But, I do not know when the new version is scheduled to be released.

Does Adobe release any information as to when to expect their next version?

[Tim Kolb]

William,

I only asked about other data rates as a troubleshooting question...not to recommend you change your workflow.

Titler...embedding title files in the project was the worst thing that ever happened to project stability in Premiere Pro...period.

...and yeah, I saw the Adobe forum thread. (You may want to revisit it...)