Adobe Premiere & Premiere Pro discussions from 2004

[Ted Springer]

Does Vegas not allow the import of Photoshop and Illustrator files, or anything with an alpha channel or something? I'd just stay in vegas and import the results from the other programs into that... unless Vegas can't handle those files.

[Rob Lohman]

Using AE and Encore is fine. But why do you want to switch to
Premiere as well? I see no advantage in that (unless you have
a hardware board that only works with Premiere). AE should be
able to load Vegas' DV AVI files and vice versa.

[Kevin King]

Thanks for the reply.

I think it's more of a workflow issue than anything. Vegas will import just about anything, but in a limited way. For example, it will not preserve the layers of a photoshop doc. That's a big limiting factor for me.

The main issue for me is workflow between AE and Vegas.

For example, a wedding film....

1. I want to use cinelook (sp?) to add an old B&W film effect to a few clips. As I understand it... I have to load these clips into AE, apply the filter, then render a new copy of these clips. I then open Vegas and load these clips as media and add them to my timeline. If I want to fade in and out of my effect, I need to keep going back to AE and re-rendering it, "trial and error" style until I get the look I'm after.

2. If I want to wait until my entire project is done (say a 60 minute video) to go back and add my text and compositing... I render it as an AVI, then I'll open AE, and load the ENTIRE 60 minute piece just to go back and add a few titles at the begining, then re-render the whole thing again. The reason this approach is required is that in my editing style, I often fade-in text slowley in one scene, and allow it to fade-out into another scene.


I know there are simpler and more efficient ways to do this, but with AE/Premiere preserving the tracks for eachother, it seems like it would be much more time efficient to use 2 tools that were specifically designed to work together.

My real concern is that I've heard premiere is buggy. Does it have this reputation or is it stable and usable for most people?

Thanks again!

[Edward Troxel]

You can easily use Vegas and the other programs. When moving between Vegas and AE, use UNCOMPRESSED AVI files. If you are wanting images, Photoshop files are fine. Likewise, you can use PNG. Both of these will allow Alpha channels. To move to Envoy, just render MPEG and AC-3 from Vegas. It should (hopefully) use them just fine. No need to lose the time invested learning Vegas.

Have you tried doing B&W/Filmlook from within Vegas? Have you looked at the tools from Zenote? Or Pixelan? Or Boris?

I would NOT pass a 60 minute video to AE. Just pass the small section(s) you need to actually modify. So if you are adding titles over the first 2 minutes, only pass the first 2 minutes instead of the full 60.

Also, you can always frameserve from Vegas to AE.

[John Britt]

Kevin --

1) Bugginess: I save often in Premiere. Then again, I save often with every application, from Word to Photoshop. To me, the threat of crashing has been a component of simply being a Windows user, not of being a Premiere user. I've actually heard that Premiere Pro is *more* stable than previous versions, although I'm not ready to upgrade from 6.5 just yet...

2) A/B editing: Actually, Premiere Pro has done away with A/B editing, if what I've read is true. This is one reason why I'm avoiding upgrading from 6.5 -- I actually like A/B editing. Dunno, must be something in the water... (edit: by the way, in Premiere 6.5, you can choose to either use A/B editing or single-track editing. That's a nice feature and I don't know why they don't offer than choice with P Pro)

If you like Vegas and are proficient with it, then why not stick with it? After Effects can handle Photoshop layers really well as it is -- in fact, Photoshop and After Effects together make for some great uses of still photography in video.

And as Edward said, don't put 60 minutes of video into AE just to do 2 minutes of titling. In fact, I often do my titling in After Effects against a transperancy, then export it as an uncompressed AVI with an alpha channel; I import that file in Premiere on top of my main video tracks and set the transperancy to Alpha Key. That way I can move the title sequence or edit the underlying video without having to go back into AE to redo the whole thing.

[Nawaf Alali]

1) when I first upgraded from premiere 6.5 to Pro, I got LOTS of bugs. Premiere was crashing like crazy. It was so bad that I had to move back to 6.5, temporarly. Now Adobe released fixes for those bugs. After installing them, my system works like a rock. Never crashed since then. (I use Matrox RTX100 Xtreme with Premiere)

2) In Premiere 6.5, you had the choice between A/B Editing and Single Track Editing. So if you found A/B editing annoying, you could always switch to the "advanced" editing, the single track.
Now in Pro, they completely removed A/B editing. you could only use the single track.

3) I don't think you need 100 hours to learn Adobe. I bought a book for Encore DVD, and took me 2 days only to completely learn the software. Super easy to use, and works really really nice with Premiere Pro and After Effects. If you have those 3 softwares, you could make awesome interactive/motion menus on DVDs, in a matter of hours. Of course, you could do it with other softwares. It's just that Adobe made it easier.

[Kevin King]

Thanks for the feedback everyone. That's a big help. I purchased a Premiere Pro book today and have learned a lot.

I think I will make the swtich, mainly when I got to looking at the "Video Collection" bundle. Woah - major software at a major savings. I'm chipping away with the demo version of AE right now, just playing with it - about to make the purchase though.

I'm still using Photoshop 5 (or is it 6?) anyway... an older version. Been wanting to upgrade to CS. Was debating over getting the basic or the pro version of AE, plus planning to purchase Encore for its normal price.

For $1500 I get AE Pro plus Encore (those 2 packages alone total over $1500 if purchased on their own), plus they include Photoshop CS, AND Audition (been needing a good pro-level audio app - wouldn't have shelled out for it by itself, but heck, it's included) PLUS they include Premiere Pro. That's a heck of a value, especially when all the products work together. (Okay, not as well as they advertise, but better than no compatabillity at all).

Anyway, thanks again.
-K

[Rob Lohman]

I don't think "Audition" is what you would call a "pro-level"
audio application. It is basically a new version of Cool Edit Pro
with a new name (as far as I heard). Not to say that it can't
do the job or work wonders for you. I just don't think it is
pro-level, that's all.

[Kevin King]

<<<-- Originally posted by Nawaf Alali : 1)Premiere was crashing like crazy. It was so bad that I had to move back to 6.5, temporarly. Now Adobe released fixes for those bugs.. -->>>

Where can I find a download for those fixes? Adobe doesn't seem to have them anywhere in the open on their site. Been digging and digging.

I got the "try out" version and it crashes (locks up my box, hardcore) after about 4 seconds of editing, always while a clip is playing. I'm lost.

[Nick Medrano]

Hey Kevin,
I am an avid Premiere Pro user. I have never used Vegas, though.

Premiere Pro is the most stable version of Premiere that I have ever used. But, there is one bug that EVERY Premiere user should know:

http://www.adobe.com/support/techdocs/3260e.htm

This deals with saving certain projects and how sometimes you can crash Premiere. I've dealt with it a few times when I had a long timeline, but Adobe has zeroed in on the bug and currently has a work-around for it. Now, I have ZERO problems.

I monitor the official Adobe forums and that is the only bug that you'll find.

Good luck!

[Jared Heck]

I don't know if this will help anyone but I was having a similar problem with Premiere Pro and my JVC deck. I changed two things that seemed to have resolved the issue with me. First off never use the Firewire port on a Creative card, i have had more problems with my computer locking up than anything else from that card. Second make sure you use a high quality cable, something with the large magnetic shields on both ends. Premiere seems to be a lot more sesitive to this than other programs, the upside is that it is a lot more accurate and faster doing exact time code searches.

Thanks

Jared

[Andrew Cleary]

well, in pro you can use any transition on any video track. most of them make it real hard to look good, but you can use them all. if this doesnt answer the question, IM me.

[Lars Siden]

Hello Tim,

Problems with playback and capture as you describe often involves poor drivers for the Sound card ( 75% ) or the GFX card.

First Playback:
If you have an onboard soundcard that you don't use - make sure it is disabled in BIOS. If you're using an onboard soundcard, update both Motherboard/Chipset drivers and soundcard drivers.

Too be on the safe side, make sure you're using the latest gfx card driver as well.

And the classic stuff: Disable background stuff like Anti Virus and software firewalls etc etc

One more thing: Make sure that you HDD:s are using DMA mode 4 or 5 ( or better ) and _not_ PIO mode ( you can check this in device manager ).

Secondly missing timecode:

I have the same problem with my XM2/GL2 - just turn on OPTICAL scene recognition and you should be fine.

Best regards,

Lazze Z

[Brad Carter]

premiere 6.5 and pro (I tried both). On exporting a DVCAM project to mpeg2 for DVD... I see a aliasing or flickering that looks like edges get pixelated and it pulses about every 1/2 second. When i switched to Pro it still does it but not as bad. I've read multiple forums regarding this problem, and the common advise seems to be to change the output to constant instead of VBR or variable bit rate. I see it in the pre-burned video and on the DVD. Tried different projects too... still does it. Changing to constant bit rate fixed the problem in the titles, but I still see it a little in video, although it's only visable in a static shot... if the camera moves it's too hard to see. Anybody ever see this and fix it? Thanks.

I'm using AMD 2ghz and winXP

[Frank Granovski]

Just curious, how did you shoot the footage and what lighting did you use?