Strange Happenings! Disapearing Video!
 

While editing my movie for DV#4 today, a strange thing happened. I captured some footage, and then opened it in the monitor window. I set my in and out points as always, and attempted to send the scene to the timeline. When I did, it sent it all but the video did not appear on the line, just the audio. When I'd play the timeline the video was there, but you could not see it, only a blank space. You could however see the audio.

When I would drop the unedited clip into the timeline, it was all there. And even stranger, if it set my in and out points in the montior window, then put the clip in the timeline from the source window, it was cropped just like I had done in the monitor window! Very strange!

It will not keep me from getting my movie in, at least I don't think so so far, but I need to get this issue resolved!

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance.

Mike

when you set your in and out points i think you can also choose to drop the audio or drop the video by selecting the little icons to the bottom left of the window. perhaps you have selected to drop the video?

Yes, I know that thanks. I'm taking both, and remember the video does not show up in the timeline but is actually there are plays when you play the timeline. Go figure.

Mike

yeh i thought that was a bit of a simple point to make.. i certainly know more about premiere than no one! Another obvious suggestion.. maybe the timeline column with the video in has simply been reduced in size so that its not showing? perhaps it needs a bit of fine mouse work to drag the size bigger.. then again if you restart premiere I think things like that would reset.. hmm...

Very odd. I've never seen that happen. What version of Premiere Pro do you have? Have you installed any available Premiere Pro updates?

Hi Christopher,

I have PP 1.5 and all of the upgrades. I will try a reinstall soon, but I was right in middle of my movie for DV#4, and I did not want to take any chances on loosing anything.

It is a very strange problem indeed. It is wierd to bring a file into the monitor window and set in and out points and then drop it in only to find no visible video file, and even weirder is that if you play the time line, the video plays, but is still njot visible in the timeline! And, the final kicker, if I set my in and out points in the monitor window, and then go to the source window and take the file from there and drop it into the timeline it is trimmed just like I had set it in the monitor window, and the video is there. I can drag the edges back out to ad frames but it is very inconvenient.

If a reinstall does not work I'm off to Adobe. This just happened while working on this movie, so maybe there is a changed setting some where, although I don't remember touching anything.

Just another stumbling block! Now I'm finding it difficuft to render my movie into a manageable size, and every setting I find wants to send out a 4:3 instead of 16:9.

Well, I have 6 or 7 hours, we'll see.

Thanks---mike

One thing you could try is deleting the Premiere Pro preferences file. See http://ppro.wikicities.com/wiki/FAQ#...rences_file.3F

Did you try one of the 16:9 presets in the Adobe Media Encoder?

And your project was set to 16:9 to begin with, right?

(EDIT: Whoops, I thought there were 16:9 presets, but checking I see there are only Windows Media HD anamorphic presets. I'll see if I can get you something that'll work)

Try the settings below. This should give you a good filesize, yet decent quality. Note the size, 368 x 204 pixels. This is a size I used for the times I needed to export 16:9.

Another option would be to use a pixel size such as 320 x 240, but change the pixel aspect ratio to D1/DV NTSC Widescreen 16:9. I don't think this would work well if the video was embedded in a Web page, though.

Anyhow, you can try these settings if you like.

Pre Encoding Tasks Summary:
DeInterlace
Field Order: Lower

General Summary:
Output: Compressed
Average Kbps: 300.00

Video Summary:
Codec: Windows Media Video 9
Encoding Passes: Two
Bitrate Mode: Constant
Allow interlaced processing: Off

Audio Summary:
Codec: Windows Media Audio 9.1
Encoding Passes: Two
Bitrate Mode: Constant

Metadata Summary:

Audiences Summary:
Corporate LAN or cable modem/DSL (256 Kbps)
Decoder Complexity: Auto
Maximum Bitrate [kbps]: 256.00 (low quality)
Frame Rate [fps]: 30
Pixel Aspect Ratio: Square Pixels (1.0)
Frame Width [pixels]: 368
Frame Height [pixels]: 204
Keyframe Interval [seconds]: 5
Buffer Size [seconds]: Default
Image Quality: 50.00 (medium quality)
Audio Format: 48 kbps, 44 kHz, stereo CBR

I got one up to my site, but only works as a "save target link" type and last time I got it to stream, and I'm trying get another up that will do that. It is much faster!

I will try your settings too, and thanks very much. This encoding stuff is where I really fall down. Not that I can really shoot a movie with good video and good audio, but trying to get it up its the worst. Getting files up that is!


Thanks----Mike

Thanks Christopher,

Resetting the preferances cleared it up and saved me a lot of hassle. Sure glad you hang around here! I will remember that. By the way, my training DVDs for After Effects recommend resetting the preferances every time you open the AE, probably a good Idea huh!

For those who have as much trouble encoding as I do, I did find one thing out that may help. When adjusting the settings I just could not get the file to a reasonable size. I accidently stumbled on the little word "Audience" on the left side. It does not even look like it is selectable, but it is. When I hit it I found the new window and clicked on the top or Audience tab. There were about 6 or more different Audiences selected at once, and that what was making the file size so large. I cleared out all but one, and the file size went way down.

I'm sure most knew this already, but it was a first for me. Never saw that in any of my training DVDs. Next, I will try your settings. I see that I chose the same Audience setting that hyou have, so that's good!

Thanks again Chris!

Mike

Glad to know that things are going better. Videography sure can be complex at times, eh? (At least the computer side of it!)

Talk about understatements!!!!!!!!!!!

I get a kick, a frustrating one albeit, watching the training tapes for all of this software. They explain in great detail and over and over again how to a select a file, for example, as if most can't yet do that. Then say something like select your encoder and encode. How would anyone who can understand all the encoding and transcoding not know a simple thing like selecting a file!!!! I swear this is true and I can show you the tapes! And these are the good ones, but Total Training!

Thanks again,

Mike