Adobe Premiere & Premiere Pro discussions from 2005

Matthew Weitz · July 7th, 2005, 10:33 AM

I noticed an option in Photoshop that would allow me to adjust the pixel aspect ratio of the pictures.

Should I convert them to .9 before importing them into Premiere? Would that help?

Doug Boze · July 7th, 2005, 04:38 PM

This is weird, but PPro slows my mouse movement way, way down. I'm using a Logitech Trackman Marble, with Logitech's driver under XP Pro, and it zips all over the place just the way I like it to. But inside PPro, it's spin, spin, spin that ball to get the pointer where it needs to go. This is especially annoying with dual displays. Any ideas?

Doug Boze · July 7th, 2005, 04:42 PM

I discovered that having the capture window in the second monitor will not display the video from the source VTR, just a blank window. Dragging it to the left monitor and hey, presto! there's the live video from the tape. I suspect this has something to do with the video card? It's a Matrox G550 dual head. Odd thing is that the monitor windows do work in the second, right-hand display.

Henry Cho · July 7th, 2005, 07:23 PM

many consumer dualhead video cards do NOT support video overlay to 2 monitors. the only fix i'm aware of is to put all your video windows on monitor 1 (the monitor connected to port 1 of your video card, not your windows-defined primary monitor -- in your case, monitor 2).

Henry Cho · July 7th, 2005, 07:24 PM

that is odd. did you check your mouse control panel and see if anything changes when you launch premiere pro?

Henry Cho · July 7th, 2005, 07:28 PM

yes, the .9 pixel aspect ratio is a new feature of photoshop cs.

personally, i find working in the .9 pixel aspect ratio in photoshop a little wierd. i guess when working with images only, it' cool... it just does a lot of funny things to type -- jagged edges, etc.

you can work with either or... the way i suggested above is a comfortable way for me.

Doug Boze · July 8th, 2005, 03:42 AM

I haven't checked that, since the mouse behaved normally in all other apps and the system outside of PPro. Then a while ago I made an even more bizarre discovery: I had set the system to power down the monitors after 15 minutes of inactivity, which it did. Upon moving the trackball to get them on again, I noticed that the speed of the mouse is as I had intended within PPro! Really, this is weird. On another machine, after playing a game that uses DirectX, the same method of powering down the monitor is disabled, softly. I say softly, because the settings are not changed. They are exactly correct. It just ceases to work until such time as I look at the settings and it works again as planned. What in the world is Premiere (and BTW, earlier versions did the same) doing vis-a-vis the mouse to screw it up? And why does power saving restore it?

Ken E. Williams · July 8th, 2005, 09:01 AM

On the PPro timeline I have about 30 still photos (each 26MB PSDs) that are linked by simple dissolve transitions. Each 15 second clip has some changing motion and scaling applied via the Effect Control Window. The problem is that a few of the clips have, or cause, bad rendering. Symptoms are that the rendering may quit early; the resultant preview is a green screen; and some of the video preview files are created with a size of 0 bytes.

The system has 20+ GB of free defragmented space on each drive. The project uses the default DV NTSC D1 settings.

I have recreated the clips using the same photo and applied new motion & scale key frames [only start and end key frames]. This didn’t give any improvement. Sometimes deleting the most recent few video preview files and re-rendering gives a good rendering of the clip. I’m looking for a consistent workaround or fix.

Does anyone have a solution or idea about this problem?

Thanks,

Ken W.

Joshua Provost · July 8th, 2005, 09:38 AM

Ken,

Try deleting the Preview File directory from disk, and launching the project again. Sometimes those files get corrupted. Also, try an actual render out, Export > Movie to a good format and see if the results are what you want. I've never fully trusted Premiere's preview feature.

Peter Ferling · July 8th, 2005, 12:39 PM

The best workflow:

1. Make a copy of images to a seperate folder for your project.
2. Make a an action in Photoshop to down convert your images to the NTSC spec and do a batch on the folder.
3. Important and edit in premiere. Even if you plan to pan and zoom, use the low rez files as proxies to keep things moving along in realtime.
4. Note which images require high-rez, and then replace them in you image folder prior to final render.

Rob Williams · July 8th, 2005, 01:39 PM

I have experienced the same thing. What DPI are your stills? I have seen this happen when I have had stills with a 600 DPI setting. When I reduced these to either 150 or 300 DPI the symptom went away.

Ken E. Williams · July 8th, 2005, 01:48 PM

Thank you both for your fast and helpful replies. It's great to have some ideas to try tonight.

Joshua:
I'll delete the Preview directory and try an actual render out (Export > Movie)

Rob:
That's interesting. These are big picture files. I'll reduce the photo's dpi. Perhaps that is why only some pictures have rendering problems. Similarly, I'll check if the problem pictures have been sharpened.

Thanks!

Ken W.

Rob Williams · July 8th, 2005, 01:56 PM

I had previously tried deleting the pre-rendered files and also exporting to AVI but I still had the green screens. I doubt that any photo enhancing you have done will cause this (it never mattered on mine). I also found that while the project would render fine at first (with high DPI images), it would eventually start this symptom as the project size grew (in numbers of photos). I also tried importing the assets as JPG instead of PSD files and no change. But if I lowered the DPI (in either JPG or PSD) formats, everything worked.

I can't explain why this happens I only know if I lower the DPI of the stills, the problem never comes back.

Ken E. Williams · July 8th, 2005, 02:15 PM

Thanks Rob.

>I also found that while the project would render fine at first (with high DPI images), it would eventually start this symptom as the project size grew (in numbers of photos).

Yes, this is exactly what I'm seeing!

It's great to see that someone else has seen these strange symptoms and already has a fix. Excellent!

Miguel Lombana · July 8th, 2005, 06:55 PM

Has anyone (or is anyone) used one of the Dell Power Edge Servers for Premier? I'm seeing where these boxes are on sale this week for about 1k with 2 XEON 3.0 processors and a ton of other upgrades.

I spoke with Dell and they advised me that the PE1800 is a hot box but they don't support things like an AGP slot eventhough it has one. Not sure if I can add a video card in via PCIe or what other limitations I may have by running a box like this.

Would appreciate any advice, I'm looking to upgrade from my single processor 2.8gHT chipset box to something a little more extreme to save render times etc, but need to make sure from someone with experience on these units that it will do what I need rather than having to get up-sold by Dell to a 2000+ dollar workstation.

THanks in advance,

MIGUEL

July 7th, 2005, 04:38 PM	#1217
Doug Boze Major Player Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Auburn, Washington Posts: 218	Slow mouse in PPro? This is weird, but PPro slows my mouse movement way, way down. I'm using a Logitech Trackman Marble, with Logitech's driver under XP Pro, and it zips all over the place just the way I like it to. But inside PPro, it's spin, spin, spin that ball to get the pointer where it needs to go. This is especially annoying with dual displays. Any ideas? __________________ "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin, 1759

July 7th, 2005, 04:42 PM	#1218
Doug Boze Major Player Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Auburn, Washington Posts: 218	Capture window and dual monitors... I discovered that having the capture window in the second monitor will not display the video from the source VTR, just a blank window. Dragging it to the left monitor and hey, presto! there's the live video from the tape. I suspect this has something to do with the video card? It's a Matrox G550 dual head. Odd thing is that the monitor windows do work in the second, right-hand display. __________________ "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin, 1759

July 8th, 2005, 03:42 AM	#1222
Doug Boze Major Player Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Auburn, Washington Posts: 218	I haven't checked that, since the mouse behaved normally in all other apps and the system outside of PPro. Then a while ago I made an even more bizarre discovery: I had set the system to power down the monitors after 15 minutes of inactivity, which it did. Upon moving the trackball to get them on again, I noticed that the speed of the mouse is as I had intended within PPro! Really, this is weird. On another machine, after playing a game that uses DirectX, the same method of powering down the monitor is disabled, softly. I say softly, because the settings are not changed. They are exactly correct. It just ceases to work until such time as I look at the settings and it works again as planned. What in the world is Premiere (and BTW, earlier versions did the same) doing vis-a-vis the mouse to screw it up? And why does power saving restore it? __________________ "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin, 1759

July 8th, 2005, 09:01 AM	#1223
Ken E. Williams Regular Crew Join Date: May 2003 Location: New Hampshire Posts: 55	Premiere Pro 1.5 Rendering problem – green screen preview On the PPro timeline I have about 30 still photos (each 26MB PSDs) that are linked by simple dissolve transitions. Each 15 second clip has some changing motion and scaling applied via the Effect Control Window. The problem is that a few of the clips have, or cause, bad rendering. Symptoms are that the rendering may quit early; the resultant preview is a green screen; and some of the video preview files are created with a size of 0 bytes. The system has 20+ GB of free defragmented space on each drive. The project uses the default DV NTSC D1 settings. I have recreated the clips using the same photo and applied new motion & scale key frames [only start and end key frames]. This didn’t give any improvement. Sometimes deleting the most recent few video preview files and re-rendering gives a good rendering of the clip. I’m looking for a consistent workaround or fix. Does anyone have a solution or idea about this problem? Thanks, Ken W.

July 8th, 2005, 09:38 AM	#1224
Joshua Provost Major Player Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Phoenix, AZ Posts: 493	Ken, Try deleting the Preview File directory from disk, and launching the project again. Sometimes those files get corrupted. Also, try an actual render out, Export > Movie to a good format and see if the results are what you want. I've never fully trusted Premiere's preview feature. __________________ Owner/Operator, 727 Records Co-Founder, Matter of Chance Productions Blogger, Try Avoidance

July 7th, 2005, 10:33 AM	#1216
Matthew Weitz Regular Crew Join Date: Apr 2005 Posts: 42	I noticed an option in Photoshop that would allow me to adjust the pixel aspect ratio of the pictures. Should I convert them to .9 before importing them into Premiere? Would that help?

July 7th, 2005, 07:23 PM	#1219
Henry Cho Major Player Join Date: May 2005 Location: NYC Posts: 516	many consumer dualhead video cards do NOT support video overlay to 2 monitors. the only fix i'm aware of is to put all your video windows on monitor 1 (the monitor connected to port 1 of your video card, not your windows-defined primary monitor -- in your case, monitor 2).

July 7th, 2005, 07:24 PM	#1220
Henry Cho Major Player Join Date: May 2005 Location: NYC Posts: 516	that is odd. did you check your mouse control panel and see if anything changes when you launch premiere pro?

July 7th, 2005, 07:28 PM	#1221
Henry Cho Major Player Join Date: May 2005 Location: NYC Posts: 516	yes, the .9 pixel aspect ratio is a new feature of photoshop cs. personally, i find working in the .9 pixel aspect ratio in photoshop a little wierd. i guess when working with images only, it' cool... it just does a lot of funny things to type -- jagged edges, etc. you can work with either or... the way i suggested above is a comfortable way for me.

July 8th, 2005, 12:39 PM	#1225
Peter Ferling Trustee Join Date: May 2005 Location: Wyomissing, PA Posts: 1,141 Images: 57	The best workflow: 1. Make a copy of images to a seperate folder for your project. 2. Make a an action in Photoshop to down convert your images to the NTSC spec and do a batch on the folder. 3. Important and edit in premiere. Even if you plan to pan and zoom, use the low rez files as proxies to keep things moving along in realtime. 4. Note which images require high-rez, and then replace them in you image folder prior to final render.

July 8th, 2005, 01:39 PM	#1226
Rob Williams New Boot Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: SF Bay Area, CA Posts: 12	I have experienced the same thing. What DPI are your stills? I have seen this happen when I have had stills with a 600 DPI setting. When I reduced these to either 150 or 300 DPI the symptom went away.

July 8th, 2005, 01:48 PM	#1227
Ken E. Williams Regular Crew Join Date: May 2003 Location: New Hampshire Posts: 55	Thank you both for your fast and helpful replies. It's great to have some ideas to try tonight. Joshua: I'll delete the Preview directory and try an actual render out (Export > Movie) Rob: That's interesting. These are big picture files. I'll reduce the photo's dpi. Perhaps that is why only some pictures have rendering problems. Similarly, I'll check if the problem pictures have been sharpened. Thanks! Ken W.

July 8th, 2005, 01:56 PM	#1228
Rob Williams New Boot Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: SF Bay Area, CA Posts: 12	I had previously tried deleting the pre-rendered files and also exporting to AVI but I still had the green screens. I doubt that any photo enhancing you have done will cause this (it never mattered on mine). I also found that while the project would render fine at first (with high DPI images), it would eventually start this symptom as the project size grew (in numbers of photos). I also tried importing the assets as JPG instead of PSD files and no change. But if I lowered the DPI (in either JPG or PSD) formats, everything worked. I can't explain why this happens I only know if I lower the DPI of the stills, the problem never comes back.

July 8th, 2005, 02:15 PM	#1229
Ken E. Williams Regular Crew Join Date: May 2003 Location: New Hampshire Posts: 55	Thanks Rob. >I also found that while the project would render fine at first (with high DPI images), it would eventually start this symptom as the project size grew (in numbers of photos). Yes, this is exactly what I'm seeing! It's great to see that someone else has seen these strange symptoms and already has a fix. Excellent!

July 8th, 2005, 06:55 PM	#1230
Miguel Lombana Major Player Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Litchfield Park, AZ (W/of Phoenix) Posts: 502	Dell Power Edge 1800 Servers for Premier Pro Has anyone (or is anyone) used one of the Dell Power Edge Servers for Premier? I'm seeing where these boxes are on sale this week for about 1k with 2 XEON 3.0 processors and a ton of other upgrades. I spoke with Dell and they advised me that the PE1800 is a hot box but they don't support things like an AGP slot eventhough it has one. Not sure if I can add a video card in via PCIe or what other limitations I may have by running a box like this. Would appreciate any advice, I'm looking to upgrade from my single processor 2.8gHT chipset box to something a little more extreme to save render times etc, but need to make sure from someone with experience on these units that it will do what I need rather than having to get up-sold by Dell to a 2000+ dollar workstation. THanks in advance, MIGUEL __________________ Miguel Lombana http://www.miguellombana.com & http://www.phoenixhamradio.com Last edited by Miguel Lombana; July 8th, 2005 at 09:36 PM.