Trouble playing CineForm AVIs in Premiere Pro 2

[David Wislon]

I have been a CineForm user from day one and am a great great enthusiast for the products.

I have just recently run into something of a puzzler. I am shooting P2 and converting the mxf files to the CineForm codec with HDLink. The workflow had been functioning flawlessly. But on or about March 10 (just as I was leaving for 7 weeks of shooting in Russia) something changed and all the CineForm/HDLink AVIs created since that date will no longer play in my PP2 timeline. The files scrub just fine and will play in AE but Premiere returns a "cannot find file*.avi" and hangs the application. CineForm AVIs created before that time still play fine. Other CineForm AVIs (captured HDV) play fine. This condition exists on both my desktop and laptop which makes me wonder if there are external forces at work here. Could there have been a Microsoft update that affected this situation?

I have an open trouble ticket with Jake who I think has been scratching his head as well but I was hoping someone here had experienced and solved the same problem.

Would an upgrade from v4.2 to v5 be of help here? I'm also considering making the leap to Prospect and would do it in a heartbeat if that would help as well. Many thanks...

[David Wislon]

It seems I forgot to mentioned that I am using Aspect HD v4.2 in Premiere Pro 2.

[Peter Ferling]

Close your troubled project. Go to the project folders location. Delete the media cache, preview and Encoded files folders. Reopen you're project and it will recreate new cache files.

[David Newman]

Peter's idea is a good one. Also send Jake a short clip that does it. Will the same clip play in Premiere's edit modes? Open Premiere is an native HDV mode and bring in same clips that don't work -- see if they play. Also try moving the clips to a different folder -- simply the path to the video clips -- just in case there is a weird path naming problem.

[David Wislon]

Peter and David - many thanks for the rapid replies and thoughts. As Peter suggested I deleted the project's cashe, preview and encoded folders but after generating new files, the Premiere timeline would still not play, returning the familiar "cannot locate file *.*" and then hanging Premiere. I am also now running Aspect v5 with the same results.

I double checked to make sure the path names were all in order and that didn't seem to be the problem. At David's suggestion, I opened Premiere in native HDV 720p 30 mode. I brought in a number of the same clips that have not played in Aspect HD 1280x720 30p mode - any and all of the clips played without problem in (plain vanilla) Premiere HDV 720 30 mode.

I will send a clip off to Jake. Thanks again for the help.

[David Newman]

Still, please try moving or even renaming the clips.

[David Wislon]

David, thank you. You definitely have my rapt attention.

My file structure is a series of 37 file folders each (50-87) representing a captured P2 card. I then create AVIs through HDLink and put them in a folder under the appropriate folder. In other words, each of the 37 folders contains (in addition to the P2 Genie generated Contents Folder) a folder labled AVI where I send all of the AVIs from HDLink from that particular P2 card. By the way, the 37 file folders are backed up to a second hard drive which behaves identically.

At your insightful suggestion, I moved one of the troublesome AVIs to an entirely new folder, reimported it into Premiere and it plays beautifully. The same AVI imported from its original location will not play. It seems it does not make a difference if the new location is on the same or a different hard drive.

This much is clear. What this means and where do go from here is a little murky to me at the moment.

Thanks again very much for your time and help.

[David Wislon]

One last thought... Simply renaming an AVI file seems to make no difference. A renamed file will not play from it original location and a file I have moved will play either with the original name or a new name I have given it.

[David Newman]

Can I see what the full path is? Maybe there is a character that the play module isn't handling.

[David Wislon]

For example:K:\Bol'shoe Zatmenie_080\AVIs\0004WW.avi

but you've got me worrying about that apostrophe because it is the more stylized left-leaning version of the character. I'm going to try to change to the more standard apostrophy and see if that makes a difference. I'll report back.

[David Newman]

Try without the apostrophe as they can be used in place of quotes in some tools, and quotes are a no-no.

[David Wislon]

David, I changed the apostrophe for the less stylish variety, went through the whole work flow and the file played perfectly. Thank you. The Library of Congress mandates the use of that apostrophe in the transliteration of Cyrillic to Roman characters, but what they don't know will never hurt them. We'll simply remove the apostrophes.

Who was that masked man anyway? Thank you again, I think you solved it. I'll let Jake know.