Avoding crash with multi-cam project with giant files in Premiere CS4?
 

Hello,

I have a 2.30 hour long multicam speech to make it into a video, I have 1280x720 m2t video files (filmed with jvc's HD110's & HD201's) ranging from 2Gigs up to 9Gigs (I was able to make even longer videos back in the day but they were DV).

My question is how to avoid crashing using Premiere CS4?

I have 3 long takes. So what do you think about this:

Option A. Make 3 different projects (edit them) and then make a final project and import the 3 ones into this one and join them here for final render.

Option B. Make just one project but with 4 different timelines (3 for the long takes and the 4th for join and final render).

Option C. Just put all three takes into a single timeline and do everything there.

Option D. ???? (insight)

I was able to make the first project with the first takes it took around 30-40 just to load (and they weren't the longest takes) the videos (I had to retry a bunch of times since Premiere crashed), now I have to make a decision on how to continue (I haven't started editing this take yet, hope goes well).

The system is a Dell Precision 390 Core2 Quad, 8 gigs of ram on a windows XP 64, editing on internal hard drive (7200).

As always time is the big constraint and have to be done fast and then fight to make the dvd's.

Any help will be very appreciated!

Thanks

I use CS3 and do multicam all the time, but not with sequences as long as yours. Projects are about 2 hours and are divided into between 10 and 14 different sequences.

Your option A might speed your loading time, if you're not loading all the footage into every project. If you are, option B will work.

Here are a couple of tricks that help get things done for me:
- Don't use the audio track from the embedded sequence. I copy out the audio from the embedded sequence into the top level sequence. Now, I've had some other niggling audio issues so it may not pertain to your situation.

- Don't color correct until all the editing is done. Editing corrected footage in multicam timelines put a tremendous strain on the system resources. Lightening the load will keep your system happier longer.

Jose,
Try regressing your Premiere Pro to 4.0.1, if you have installed the 4.1 update. The 4.1 update appears to have screwed up Multi-Camera editing. My longest video to date was 1.5 hours, in one project, and that went swimmingly. Once I installed 4.1, though, Multi-Camera just wouldn't work--the Multi-camera window stuttered and hung, and if you closed PPro with the Multi-Camera window still open, the only way to recover the project was to create a new project and import the old project, because the old project would freeze after loading.

I've uninstalled/reinstalled, and have only installed the 4.0.1 update--I'm going to avoid the 4.1 update and hold out for a working Multi-Camera update.

Just my experience, YMMV.
Thanks,
Matt

Hello guys,

Thanks for the replies, I'm doing option B. I'm done with cuts.

I have version 4.1 already, found a problem with multi-cam monitor, if I do some edit and then close the multi-cam monitor and open it again Premiere just crashes, no warning, no screen...nothing it just closes the whole thing, I was puzzled because I was able to go all the way (edit) to the half of the first cut...tried removing the cache files and everything, but no luck! Then I thought that having all the timelines in a single project was too much (too big) so I decided to have a single project for each cut, that is, option A. But the same thing happened, so I was very, very worried...then I don't know why but tried the option "reset current workspace" and...IT WORKED!!! Now everytime I close the multi-cam monitor, before I re-opened the monitor I reset the workspace...strange!!!

Now I have to do final touches and fight with Encore, I'm worried Encore not recognizing the files from the Premiere project because of some codec or something and not been able to make the dvd...a little bit worried about this, but lets see what happens.

I send multicam edits straight to Encore from the timeline all the time and it almost always works flawlessly.

Howdy again,

I'll try that and hope it works and doesn't fail in the transcoding process or something.

Thanks