Adobe Premiere & Premiere Pro discussions from 2005

[Jon Back]

I have the Mastering Premiere Pro. First thing - it says DVD all over it, but it really is just a CD disk. Second, it is helpful, but not as helpful as reading these forums or the Adobe forums. Lots of examples to work through, lots of Flash animation to follow. I haven't used Steven Gotz's tutorials, but they would almost have to be better than this disc.

[Pete Bauer]

Clint,

This isn't particularly scientific, but I perceive that even from the same XL2 (standard definition) 720x480 source footage, up-rezzing to an HD-standard 720p looks a little better in both mpeg and WMV than a final 640x480 or 720x480 file. My theory is that by going to a higher pixel count during the rendering process, re-compression artifacts are less apparent.

The cost, of course, is a larger file size and as Rob pointed out, if you're going to DVD, it has to be 720x480 (plus a lot of other constraints to comply with the DVD standards). But to view on a computer or for transfer, I do think the up-rezzed stuff looks better.

The Adobe Media Encoder built into PPro and Encore preserve the aspect ratio of the footage; the Pixel Aspect Ratio will be changed during the rendering process. So nothing should end up distorted. If you're interested, I've got a couple of short samples of XL2 footage up-rezzed to 720p30 posted on my web site:
http://www.geosynchrony.com/scratchpad.htm

Sorry, it all isn't the most engaging footage...it is just there to test or demo stuff.

[Andrew Sohn]

I would consider that, but the DV500 supports only up to 6.5 (since after this, Pinacle started bundling Edition with all of their hardware). I actually find Premiere 6.5's titler quite good. How does TitleDeko compare?

[K. Forman]

I haven't really played with Title deko much, but it looks pretty full featured (read: confusing ;)

[Jose di Cani]

right click on video clip..choose LINK....you probably have unlinked audio and video accidently. Otherwise, check menu for link or help for lnking audio and video clips. peace

[Jose di Cani]

what a shame. I use premier all the time but this is weird. MAybe in an update they will enhance their software for thje newer cams on the market (xl2). ADobe isn't stupid. they will fix it soon. Xl2 is a mayor player so they have no choise.

[Joe Mobic]

In Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5, I have a 10minute movie on my Timeline with approximately 25+ clips. The project is saved in a folder entitled Movie, which also contains over 70+ .avi file clips which some were used to create the movie currently on the Timeline.

So when I go into After Effects, how can I just pull up the Timeline clips like its placed in Adobe Premiere? I can open and import the individual 70+.avi file clips that were used to create my movie, but I am trying to get the whole 10 movie.
What I am trying to do is use the Magic Bullet Suite Plug in for my 10 minute movie


Thanks

[Pete Bauer]

Hi Joe,
Not sure about older versions of AE, but with 6.5 you can just import the PPro project file directly into AE as a single object. You can then create a new 10 minute composition and apply your MB to it.

[Rob Lohman]

You certainly can up-rez to 1280 x 720. However, standard DV (720 x 480
for NTSC) is SQUARE, not widescreen (unless you shot in 16:9 widescreen).

So if you simply export 720 x 480 (square) to 1280 x 720 it will look distorted,
unless the program knows what it is doing. Doing such up conversions can
be a tricky thing and may require various trial and error runs.

However, this is only useful if you are displaying it on a HD capable system
(ie computer or HD projector attached properly). If you go out to DVD stick
with the "normal" SD resolution.

[Pete Bauer]

Hey Rob,

I think you're mistaken on that one. NTSC DVDs have the same Pixel Aspect Ratios (PAR) of 0.9 for narrow and 1.2 for widescreen that miniDV does. (Hence the need for PAR flags in the mpeg stream for the DVD player read). Going from miniDV tape to DVD mpeg wouldn't normally involve change in PAR.

Up-rezzing from wide 720x480 to 720p (1280x720) does involve a change in PAR from 1.2 to square (1.0 PAR) pixels as the output is rendered. The presets in the Adobe Media Encoder do this with little to no fuss on the part of the user.

If a person did want to up-rez a narrow screen (0.9 PAR) DV project to 1280x720 (widescreen), it could be done, too, using either pan-and-scan in the timeline or the cropping feature of the Adobe Media Encoder, although of course resolution will be lost in the process.

[Rob Lohman]

We are on the same page Pete! 1.2 PAR will indeed transfer over nicely to
1280 x 720 (both equal about 1.77 aspect ratio). I was saying that if your
footage is not widescreen (ie 0.9 PAR for NTSC) it will not transfer over to
1280 x 720 (get's stretched) unless the encoder crops your footage to
widescreen automatically.

Perhaps I did not word it that great earlier.

p.s. what I meant with square is not the pixel aspect ratio but that look of
the "screen", ie non widescreen. Not square pixels. I know the screen is not
truely square since it is 4:3, but you get my drift. It isn't what we call widescreen.

[Matthew Weitz]

When I try and import a MPEG file, I get an "Unsupported audio sample rate" error.

When I try it a second time, it imports but the video is a black screen with no sound.

Has anyone seen this before?

On my old computer the video played just fine.

[Rob Lohman]

On my old computer the video played just fine

It does not play (in Windows Media player for example) well on your current
system? If so, it may simply be missing some codecs. Do you have any DVD
player software installed? That usually installs required MPEG-2 and audio
codecs to play back such files.

I'm not 100% sure if PPro 1.5 can load MPEG-2 in the timeline or not (I don't
use that NLE). Hopefully someone else will comment on that.

[Pete Bauer]

Mpeg files can be EXPORTED from the PPro timeline but unfortunately, mpeg isn't on the list of formats supported for import and editing in PPro. Depending on the file settings, it'll usually import, but most likely won't play or edit correctly within PPro.

To effectively be able to use your mpeg files in PPro, you need a plug-in like MainConcept's or to first convert them to AVI with an application like Canopus Procoder.

[Pete Bauer]

Joe,

Re-reading my last answer, I was obviously in TOO much of a hurry yesterday; will correct and expand a bit. To be able to apply an effect, such as Magic Bullet, within AE 6.5 to a PPro sequence:

1. File>>Import...

2. Choose the PPro project file

The PPro project will appear as a heading in the AE Project Window. Nested under it will be all its PPro sequences labeled as "Compositions" and references to all source files used in the project.

3. You can work with a sequence (now called a composition) in at least two ways:

A. In the project window, double click the composition that you want to apply the effect to. It should appear within both a timeline window with all the source files nested under it, and in a viewer window. You can work with individual layers this way.
(or)
B. Create a new blank composition (Composition>>New...) and drag the composition you want from the project window into the new composition. Since it is "nested" into a new composition, it won't have all the source files nested under it. This is the quick way to apply a consistent effect to the whole sequence/composition.

4. Apply your effect.

That should do it.

To "interpret footage" for source clips, just right click and choose "interpret footage." You can't do that with a nested composition, though. It is set, as is.

AE definitely has a steep learning curve -- which of course is a euphemism for -- "hard!" I only have the PPro Magic Bullet Movie Looks that ships with the Adobe Video Collection, so can't personally verify that the AE Magic Bullet plug-in works under these circumstances, but can't see any reason why it shouldn't. Keep practicing and trying different things, and it'll reward you with some amazing final products!