right way to export 16:9 to 4:3 letterboxed?
 

In this recent post:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/forumdisplay.php?f=67

The user was achieving 16:9 to 4:3 letterboxing by importing 16:9 footage into a 4:3 project and then using scaling to get the letterbox effect. Something seems wrong about this. Is there a way to explicitly tell PPro to export 16:9 to 4:3 letterboxed or what's the right way to do this?

Thanks,
Aaron

1- Mac uses a different file system than PC. Is the drive formatted NTFS (which Macs can't write to without certain software) or FAT32 (2GB file limit)?

If not, you will need special software to see files on the drive. Do you see files on the drive?

2- Mac uses quicktime-based files, which may be slow in Premiere. You can convert the files to AVI, or you can try to re-capture off the source tapes. Final Cut may be able to export a project file which gives Premiere the timecodes of the clips so you can re-capture.

I think Premiere Pro can import quicktime files. I may be wrong there.

3- You're working with mini-DV right?

Chris,
you could use Automatic Duck tool to import Fcp-footage into Premiere Pro

http://premiere.digitalmedianet.com/...e.jsp?id=30775

Hey guys. I actully work with Chris.

The exact sitaution is that footage was captured from MiniDV by Final Cut Pro. The subsequent files were stored on an external HDD (FAT32), and that HDD was shipped to him.

When exploring the HDD the files have NO extensions. If we give them the extension of ".mov" or ".mpeg", APP will import the clips, but then must render them...and there are about 20 hours of clips. :(

If we rename them as as any other kind of format, Premiere will simply not import them at all.

Per, as far as I can tell Automatic Duck is for importing an entire project. We just need to iport clips without having to rerender them.

Is there a reason the files have no extensions?

Whoops! That ^ was actually me! (This PC was still signed in under his account)

Mac OS X doesn't like to put file extensions on stuff. I just manually add them in.

I think you'll have to either render/convert the clips, or export an edit list or XML from final cut and re-capture off mini-DV tapes.

I would look at batch converting the clips to .AVI files.

I finally found someone with the same problem as me, only to find their question hasn't been answered either!

I shot a short on an XL2 in 16:9 24p Advanced mode, and no matter what program/computer I use the footage is garbled like you describe. I believe you're supposed to capture at 29.97, though, since 24p Advanced footage is stil initially contained as an NTSC signal - you'll get missing frames at 23.98.

My problem is a little different in that capturing the footage makes it look no better, with digital artifacting and the horrible garbled audio with gaps. The footage plays back fine on any camcorder (besides Sony ones), so my friend who owns the camera is going to exchange it. I am going to get him to call canon's technical support first.

does ppro have this option? anyways, i don't thinnk i can change this setting because of my canopus storm plug-in. thanks anyway.

CCE SP and 24p Help
 

Does anyone out there have any suggestions for doin optimal 24p DVDs with CCE SP? I have an hour and 15 minuets to get on the dvd. Any suggestions on what settings to use? Thanks! Im new to CCE.

garbled and glitchy sound only on export to tape
 

My PPro project is a 16:9/24p project. If I export to DVD, I get great looking video with great audio. If I export to AVI, I get great video and audio as well. If I export to miniDV tape, my audio becomes intermittently garbled and glitchy.

If I export to AVI, and reimport the AVI into a new project, it plays fine in the timeline w/ clear audio - but if I export that single clip to tape, I get garbled and glitchy sound again.

Does anybody have a fix for this?

I'm about to lose PPro for something else. I loved it while editing, but exporting is kind of a big deal to me too :)

Thanks for *any* tips,
Aaron

There is a check box for "scale upon import" (the no-hassle way to do it) or you can scale manually in the timeline, but as far as I know, there should be no difference in the end result. Don't know that there's any other ways to do it. Anyone else?

Derek,

The XL2 oversamples at 960x480, but all miniDV is 720x480, regardless whether it is 4:3 or 16:9, and that's what the camera actually puts out via the firewire port. The only difference between narrow and widescreen is the Pixel Aspect Ratio (ie, nonsquare pixels, either height x width = 0.9 or 1.2).

Unless you have a capture card like a Canopus Storm or something, which might use 854x480 square pixels for widescreen, setting any other pixel dimensions for miniDV will just throw things off. The 24p shoudln't have anything to do with aspect ratios, except that Windows Media Player doesn't handle exported 24pA (aka 2:3:3:2) properly, which is a whole separate issue from either the XL2 or PPro themselves.

Pete,

You said that Windows Media Player doesn't handle 24pA properly -- I just exported a 24p project to AVI and the video plays fine in Real Player but in Windows media player it seems to flicker between 16:9 and 4:3 frames. Is this what you're talking about? And do you know why this happens?

Thanks,
Aaron

Mpeg Encoding Problem-Jumping Frames
 

Every time I export an Mpeg from the timeline, the last frame of every dissolve or transition "jumps back in," for lack of a better phrase. Also, when I apply any blur effect, i get this really bad kind of interlacing. I don't know how to explain these very well, so here's a clip with examples of both: (the blur effect is at the end.)

http://www.thetimelinepost.com/videos/quiltproblems.mpg

This is a big problem whenever I export to DVDs and when I am trying to export web clips. The only workaround I have found is to export to an AVI first, then export that to an MPG. That will be unacceptable when I finsish this 2 hour project.

Thanks, and this is my first post.

Thanks for the help Glenn and Per.

Try checking the field order when you export. Also, are you using mpegs in the timeline? It may be an issue with editing mpegs instead of dv avi.

transfer
 

they're raw AVI DV files. going ntsc to ntsc

solved--sort of
 

I figured I'd post my "fix" to this in case someone comes searching.

To recap: I shot on an XL2 in 16:9/24p mode. PPro captured the clips from the DV tape to an AVI file at 23.976 fps. (I saw no way to get PPro to capture these clips at 29.97--in fact, I captured the clips into both a 29.97 project and 24p project but the AVI file captured was 23.976 in both cases!)

Anyway, I found that when I edited the 24p clips in a 16:9/29.97 project, I ran into rendering problems--video being rendered at 4:3 for example. So I reimported the clips into a 16:9/24p project and from there everything was great. I edited, rendering often, even previewing the *video* on my TV to make sure it was looking good along the way.

I finished editing and wanted to export my final masterpiece, an 11-minute short, to miniDV. I exported to tape, but when I listened to the audio on the tape, it was intermittently garbled and glitchy. My first attempts at solving this were swapping computer systems, firewire drives, tape decks, firewire *cords* to see if any of the hardware was the culprit. Nope! Still got the glitchy audio.

I was able to export the whole timeline to an AVI file, which played the audio & video great in RealPlayer on my computer. I imported that big AVI file into another project and tried to export *that* to tape. Same audio problems! Aggh!

I'm suspecting at this point that PPro is just no good w/ 24p and my world would be a lot better if somehow I could have captured that original footage at 29.97. Okay how about this then? I'll export the whole timeline to tape (just the video, cos the audio was what was getting messed up--I'll export the audio as a .wav and re-sync it later), then *re-import* that same video into a 29.97 project. Okay, I did this--but here's the deal: when I re-imported that video, PPro re-imported it as 23.976 again! Ka-blooomers!!! I know that even in the 29.97 footage there's a flag or something that says "I'm 24p" (http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=43482). But still, it seems reasonable to think that PPro would let me choose whether I wanted to capture it at 29.97 or 23.976!

Anyway, what I eventually discovered was that there was nothing wrong with my audio at all. In fact, I cleared the audio tracks out in my timeline and played that back to tape. The audio glitches were still there! And in exactly the same spots as before!

So here's my thinking: somehow the video signal that PPro was writing to tape was "spilling" over into the audio track and producing audio artifacts. (There's probably a better technical explanation, but my audio tracks were clear, blank, nada, so I don't know how else to explain the audio I was hearing.)

My other thought was to capture the footage from tape into Premiere 6.5, who should know nothing of 24p and should just treat it as a plain, dumb ol 29.97 file. But I didn't get this far.

I took the big video-only AVI file that I had and imported that into a project with my big audio-only WAV file and joined them in a 4:3 timeline (I needed to do this anyway, cos I needed to produce a 4:3 letterboxed version). The audio glitches on "export to tape" were still there of course *until* I shrunk the big 16:9 clip 75% to get the letterboxing. When I rendered and exported to tape *this* timeline, *finally* the audio glitches were gone.

My theories are these (I'm too tired to run the experiments now):

* Because I processed the image somewhat (shrunk to letterbox size), this *forced* PPro to render completely *new* render files and those files were somehow cleaner than the original AVI.

OR

* Shrinking the video removed information from the video signal that was causing the audio artifacts.

Anyway, sorry to leave such a long post, but please reply if you have any further insights!

Later,
Aaron

Dvd?
 

If you have a DVD burner, which you should, you could export to DVD and play that from your DVD player to the VCR. Ofcourse that only works if you have a DVD burner.


Owen

I have a DVD burner but DVD video is compressed and I needed the best quality DV video for my export, so alas I had to do the above.

Aaron: this is a known issue w/ PPro 1.5. In 1.0, 24p could be interpreted as 29.97 with no issues. However in 1.5, like you mentioned, regardless of project settings, it will always look for the 24p flag, and subsuquently there is no way to render the footage as 29.97.

There are a few known glitches with the 24p setting,s and i have encountered this one as well, being a DVX user. The other big issue is strobing, have you noticed any? Look at the dark areas of your letterboxed version and see if you see the blacks fluttering. You probably will. One way to get around this issue (or at least cut it off a little bit) is to apply the broadcast safe effect and set it to 100 IRE, helps a bit. Again, this isnt an issue when exporting to mpeg2 or anything else, just going back to tape from my experience and what i understand.

Now, regarding the audio issue, I also have experienced this, on multiple projects and on multiple computers. The probably may lie where you said, but the other probably solution to all this, which i will be trying on my next export, is to lower the audio gain for the entire track -3db or so. I suspect, based on when my glitches occur, that the full gain signal combined with 24p acting like you suggested could be the issue. So, given that letterboxing reduces the artifacting, that combined with a slightly lowered top ed on the audio may yield a suitable full res backup. When reimporting into an NLE, just boost the gain 3db. Its not a best case scenario, but it will have to work given Adobe's shoddy 24p implementation.

Take a look at adobes forums for a more in depth discussion about it - theyre fuming over there.

Adobe really needs to kick it up a notch if they intend to be a contender. Here is one person hoping that the macromedia acquisition will yield better end user interaction, and actually posting bug fixes instead of waiting for major releases (which is what adobe almost always does).

Yep. Here's an old thread about it:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=36753

and a link to a page on my personal web site where I fiddled with 24p problems a little:

http://www.geosynchrony.com/scratchpad.htm (scroll down the page a bit for the 24pA Anomaly paragraph)

One of these days I'll find some spare time and try to learn more about what's really going on. For now, those two links pretty much cover what I know about the subject, though.

jeff,

i just screened my production tonight in a local theatre and i didn't notice the strobing in the 4:3 letterboxed export...LUCKILY. i really do hope premiere releases a patch soon, cos i am liking it save for these glitches we've all been experiencing.

as for the audio glitches, the weird thing was that the audio artifacts were there even when i cleared the audio tracks! (with or without an audio track, the glitches were there and in the same places!)

in the meantime, it seems that i can keep the same workflow for my 24p projects, assuming i can use premiere 6.5 to re-render 29.97 and lose the 24p flags. we'll see...

aaron

if hes sweaty, so be it.. that was him AT THAT TIME.. youre being honest...

i think a bleach bypass would help, enriched balck and whites using a colour curve, with a cut in saturation would aleviate the warm look (mind u i havent seen the footage so i cant say) but apart from that, theres not much u can do.. .
I mena you might be able to get a soft focus filter happening, but thats so cheesy its quite sad..

Shaun,

If you are able to post a couple of good quality frame grabs or a short hi-rez video clip to a web site, it may help folks come up with an idea that might work for you.

problem with premiere pro 7.0
 

I've got a problem with premiere pro 7.0 when viewing DV files (both inported or captured), they are displayed like a chequered flag ...
The same files don't have any problems with premiere 6.5.
Do you know where's the prob?

thanks a lot

Danilo

the solution thus far
 

well, since no one seems to be able to help us, let me share what i've discovered thus far...

after several days and hours on the phone with a very nice tech specialist at Adobe, we've been able to find a workaround. (this issue by the way, has been escalated to their research and development dept and is now being handled by their engineers. so if nothing else, we can feel special that our little problem is a reall brain teaser, even for Adobe!) ;-) in any case, the problem seems to be that in some configurations, Premiere isn't reading the 24p headers properly and plays the clips at 29.97 rather than 23.976. this flaw also screws the interleave for the audio, hence choppy audio or no audio at all. the fix from Adobe is to force Premiere to process the 24p pull-up by going into "Playback Settings" and selecting "Repeat Frame: ABBCD" rather than the default "Interlaced FRame." after hours of testing and configs, this was the one and only solution Adobe could find, and it works. my 24p footage plays out to my camera properly with clean picture and sound. upgrading to SP2 did help resolve some of the issues i had, but adjusting the playback settings as above was the trick. after days on the phone with Adobe i'm skipping over a lot, but hope what i posted here helps anyone in a similar bind. good luck!!

What are the properties of your video? How was it captures?

where is this on lynda.com?

Mic is present in very top of frame
 

My footage has the tip of the mic showing at the top of the frame.....maybe 5% or less the total frame (but just at the top edge). I see this both of the camcorder GL-2 LCD screen as well as the Capture screen. What can I do to eliminate it. Is there a border I can add to the top or something to get it out?

another problem I've noticed on some of my footage is that on my GL-2 camcorder LCD screen, i don't see the MIC, but on the adobe capture screen, I do see it. how does this affect the final result....is it what is seen on the capture screen or the LCD screen that counts?

Hi Joe,

The mic is probably in the 'safe-area' this should not be seen on a normal TV, but is when editing with a computer or when exporting to a video file (AVI, MPG etc). Just to check to see if it is in the safe area you can put a guide up on the Premiere preview monitor. I would also suggest hooking up a TV just to check that you can't see it.

The mic is in the picture then you can either crop the footage, or maybe add letter boxing to your project which will then mask the mic out.

Hope this helps a little,

Hi Joe, as Ed said, basically the GL2 monitor overscans, which means you just can't see the entire frame. You have to get used to how far above the LCD the mic has to be to be out of shot. You could letterbox and that would help.

If the shot you're doing is a locked off camera, you might be able to take a piece of static area where the mic wasn't in frame, and place it over the mic when it's in frame.

I use this to hide dropouts and it works reasonably well.

Aaron

Any Good Premiere Pro 1.5.1 Books?
 

Has anyone seen yet any good books that cover 1.5.1?

Obviously, what I am most interested in here is the new HDV capabilities.

Thanks,

David

At the moment, I don't think there are specific books geared towards editing HDV in Premiere Pro. However, I would reccomend checking out Steven's HDV page: http://www.stevengotz.com

Premiere Pro 1.5.1 handles HDV footage just like regular DV footage. Editing techniques are exactly the same. Plug-ins work almost the same (some plug-ins don't handle HD resolution). Any Premiere Pro book will teach the software.

Adobe is using CineForm's HDV software to edit the software. www.cineform.com will show you why it thinks it's the best solution for Premiere Pro.

a narrow Monitor view in PPro 1.5
 

Did I unawarely alter something in my Monitor window? In the Source view the scene/ picture is downscaled horisontally, with a black bar on each side, while in the Project view the picture is normally scaled. I can’t find the reason for this, and I cannot remember it was like this before. Maybe something I changed somewhere? Any suggestions or help?

I don't know of any on 1.5.1.

Mine is focused on v1 with a pdf update on the Focal Press site for v1.5 and Jacob Rosenberg's book is based on v1.5...but 1.5.1 is pretty new in book years...

I suspect we'll all have a new crop of tree-killing instruction when the next version hits.

help with overlay edits please
 

Hello everyone,
I have what I assume to be a simple problem. Using premiere pro 7 and dragging a clip down onto the timeline, placing it over another clip in video 1, I assumed was an overlay edit which should replace the video footage with the drag and drop footage but keep the audio from the original footage on the timeline.

What I get is the original footage cut away and replaced with the drag and drop video and audio. How do I just overlay the new video IE: cut it in but still retain the original audio ?

Thankyou

If you are dragging from the source monitor, the simplest way is to toggle the 3-way switch (has a film icon on it) at the bottom right from "video & Audio" to "video only". You can toggle it once mor if you just wanted the audio, for instance.

If working solely in the timeline, you want to Alt + click the video clip to slect it w/o slececting its audio. You can also Alt+click the audio and delet it if you wish.