How to get best quality DV capture in PC with Premiere 6.5?
 

Hey, I just got my Panasonic pv-dv852 (1.2 megapixels) and it's a great camera. I just shot some random footage outside my apartment complex handheld just walking around and captured it in Premiere 6.5. The file size is huge but the video doesn't seem SUPER and the avi it captured is rather small on my screen. Is this because I was walking around and the digital camcorders don't do well when jerked this much or what? When I set it to 200% larger size (which is obviously alot bigger) the video quality ofcourse drops. If I burned one of these movies on a video CD or DVD, how much magnification would be done to make the movie fill the TV screen? Is all DV footage always 720X480? This seems rather small. I have my resolution on my computer set at 1024 X 768. What are some tips to get the best video capture quality or processes to run to make video look the best possible when capturing on a pc? By the way, my computer specs are: (p4 2.4 gigahertz, a gigrdram, 128 mg radeon card). That's alot of questions, thanks!

Don't let what you see in the monitor window in Premiere fool you, the quality is probably much better. If you watch that footage through your camera or -- even better -- on a TV, it will look much better. Capturing video with the default settings in Premiere should be fine and will get a nice looking image on the TV screen.

So try looking at it on a camera or TV monitor. If the quality is still crap, tell us and we'll figure it out :)

DV footage will always be 720x480 for NTSC and 720x576 for PAL.
If you capture through firewire off a DV camera you get the
original digital file so you cannot get a lower quality. Keep in mind
that Premiere's preview window is just that, a preview. It can
have less quality and will certainly be at a lower resolution. If
you double-click on the file in the bin it will open a new window
which should be the footage in full resolution and quality.

HTH

Hey, well you guys were right. I ran the footage through just the supplied analog connector to my 36 inch and I was relieved to have a much better picture than I thought. Actually, when I wasn't jolting the camera around while walking, the picture was amazing! Near broadcast! When there is good lighting and the shutterspeed is set right among other things, this dv852 can look amazing as others on this site recommended this camcorder. I guess the little window that the movie played in on my desktop after I exported the file isn't a good representation of how the movie will look on a television not to mention the fact that it's so much smaller on the computer. Thanks guys, no fears now!

-Bryan Roberts

Premiere JPG to AVI conversion
 

I have attempted to convert my JPG pics to AVI via the method mentioned in the Premiere 6.0 manual. It takes FOREVER!! Does anyone know of a faster way to do that? I'd like to do this because when I'm making mods to the timeline it has to re-render every JPG and it's very frustrating.

Thanks in advance.

I suggest to create a new movie, put the jpegs there in the
way you want and create an UNCOMPRESSED avi at the output
resolution you need. Now load your other project and import
this AVI file. No quality and speed loss.

This works best ofcourse for small segments and not the larger
ones!

I'm just curious, why are you making JPEGS into AVIs?

I just bought the Adobe 6.5 and haven't opened it due to being afraid it is full of bugs like the Pinnacle DV8 was. I had the same rendering problems with DV8 and it would stop on transistions. Not sure why, but I ended up having to split the porject up and render it in sections and then put it all together. too much hassle.

I will wathc this thread.

Adam,
I wouldn't hold off on using Prem 6.5 if I were you- the problem I've had is with the Canopus driver, which has been updated, but I continued to use an older Canopus driver for Prem 5.1 because some projects were underway and I didn't want to make any software changes mid-stream. With updated drivers, and a few other acceptable set up changes, I'm sure I'll be able to render a whole one hour program without having to split it up into sections. Mike Rupp

the canapus driver you are taliking about is a capture card or soemthing? Not sure what that is. What is it?

The canopus driver I'm referring to is the Canopus driver/codec that all of the Canopus cards run on. I've been using one for about three years now, and didn't update the driver when I upgraded to Prem6.5. The "old" setup in Prem 5.1 rendered an hour program without any problems- I just haven't sorted everything out after changing over to Prem 6.5. Prem 6.5 runs much faster and has more features than the older version- using it is much better than 5.1, but there are some changes that need to be made. I haven't gotten into using the MS-DV codec yet,as recommended earlier in this thread. At any rate, I'm confident that it can and will be all sorted out soon when I load new drivers after finishing off a couple projects. Mike

RE: AVI File limits.

You might be interested in this

http://www.nct.ch/multimedia/avi_io/

AVI_IO is a work around to the current AVI file limitation problem. Note, it doesn't INCREASE the size of the AVI file limitation BUT DOES eliminate the "problem".

capture and playback up to 400GB of avi video and audio data in one step

Sean

Thanks Sean, I'll check it out. Mike

Capturing a still from a clip in premiere? Ok now how about in Vegas 3.0 ?
 

I want to capture a still frame from a clip in premiere. So i can then change the duration on that still frame so I get a hold effect. How do I snatch the still frame?

thanks in advance.

Jer

Look in the top left hand corner. Under the ...File Menu there is the Export Timeline selection. Select that and choose Export Frame. You can figure out the rest.

vegas
 

Can anyone tell me how to do this same thing in Vegas video 3?

thanks again,

Jer

Help with Premiere 6.5 exporting
 

Hey, I did a search and didn't get too much help. I have a 2.5 minute short that I just finished in Premiere 6.5 which was shot on a DV camcorder that I wanted to export to a file to view on my computer. I would like the highest reasonable quality to view. I converted using the default Microsoft DV (NTSC) compressor and it was a Microsoft DV formatted file type and the quality was piss poor, not to mention the file was only 500 megs. Then I tried going for the default quicktime compression with their Planar RGB compressor which was such good quality that it wouldn't run smooth on my pentium 4 2.4 gigahertz with a gig of rdram! not to mention the file was a rediculous 5 gigs or so big. So what compressor and file type should I use if I want to have good quality that isn't unreasonably big? Also, what is a good compressor for a video CD..... Thanks guys!

That the other file was 5 GB was due to you saving it uncompressed,
and to be able to play that back you will need at least a harddisk
that can sustain 33 mb/s or more to play back such a file. Not
a good idea, stick with another format/compression.

I don't understand why you would get such bad results from
exporting to Microsoft DV. What settings were you using? If
I export at full resolution and correct frame rate DV will look
fine to me.

So the following questions:

1. what is your input format (DV?), What resolution & fps?
2. if you output to DV what settings are you using?

Video CD needs to be MPEG1 at 320x240 for NTSC at 30 fps with
a max of 1125 (if I remember correctly) kbps. See the site
dvdrhelp
for more information.

Technical details of the VCD format can be found on this page
on that site.

Rob, I think I just figured it out but to answer quetions - yes, my input is DV and it was captured with the Microsoft DV (NTSC) compressor at 720X480 with 29.97 fps (30). When I output, I was using 720X480 with the Microsoft DV compressor at 30 fps BUT the default is to use Square pixels with an aspect ratio of 1.0 and I changed this to D1/DV NTSC (.9) and this made it look MUCH better. Thanks for the help!

-Bryan

Doing an across the screen fade in Premiere 6?
 

If you watch a fade to black closely in a movie, sometimes not all the screen will fade at equal speeds. It will kind of fade across the screen creating a very nice, smooth effect. Is there any software that can do it? I have Premiere 6 and AE 5 and was hoping one of them could do it so I didn't have to buy any new software. Premiere would be the best to do it in because I don't know AE at all. I need to learn it soon. Thanks!

Can you provide an example of a known film that includes the effect in question? It may be that you're just perceiving the greater dynamic range of film as the exposure is slowly cut.

You may be able to get a more pleasing result in a video fade-out as an in-camera effect if you can manage a nice slow closure of the iris.

I will try to find a section of a film. I thought that it might be what you said, the greater dymanic range, but then I thought it was a specific effect because it looked so much like one. I will see what I can do about finding the effect. (Would recording a 4 second section of a movie off a DVD on to my cam and then posting it on the web be considered copyright infringment?)

Thanks!

What you are looking for is a gradient wipe. You can find it in either Premiere or AE.

I don't use AE very often so I am really rusty. I don't use Premiere all that often either so I am a bit rusty there too. There seems to be at least two gradient wipes in Premiere 6. One is in the QT transitions and looks like just what you want except that it fades from top to bottom not side to side.

The other is the gradient wipe transition which is under the "wipe" group of transitions. The gradient wipe included creates a rather grainy fade on the diagonal - probably not the look that you are going for.

What you need to do is to create your own gradient fading across the screen. To do this go into any graphics program - Photoshop, Paintshop, whatever and create a greyscale image 720x480 pixels with a linear gradient going from white on one side to black on the other.

In Premeire drop in a gradient wipe transition. A gradient wipe dialog box should open. Click on "select image" and choose the gradient you just created. Adjust the softness using the slider bar in the dialog box and you should have what you want.

Rick

I've noticed something like what you're talking about in older movies that predate the digital age.. when they do a fade to black, it seems like the bright areas of the picture fade slower than the dark ones. I assumed it was something to do with the film negative itself.

fade to black
 

The question intrigued me, particularly since experimenting with some advice I read on creating transitions above V1 using gradient mattes and keyframes. I don't know that what I've done comes close to your intent but it does create a fade to black that emphasizes the whiter areas for much longer than the gradient transitions I tried out. If I played more with the percentage options in the transitions I might have got the same thing done more simply - but in any case here's a jpg of the timeline, showing the opacity settings I used on a clip over black video over a white (235) matte.

http://www.contentshop.tv/fadetobl.jpg

What Are Some Neat Editing Effects On Premiere?
 

What are some neat effects for premiere(effects that you do manualy not already created effects)?Thanks

Gradual saturation in Premiere
 

In premiere how do you have a black and white clip and have the color sort of drain in? ive been trying to learn this effect for weeks.if anyone knows please reply to this with instructions.THANKS!

what are some neat effects in premiere?
 

What are some neat effects for premiere(effects that you do manualy not already created effects)?Thanks

One way would be to put duplicate clips on track V1A and V2. Change the clip on V2 ro B&W and then fade it. The color on V1A will begin to show through until it is completely color.

Heres a starter for all you people:



this effect makes the person transparent. first of all when you shoot the video the camera needs to be perfectly still on the ground or tripod.first you tape the the shot where the person is going to be with the whole picture in the shot.when the person comes the camera should be in the same exact position as it was when you were shooting the shot without the person.capture the one without the person and the one with the skater put the one without the person on video B and the one with the person on video A or vice versaTHE CLIPS HAVE TO BE THE SAME LENGTH. in between the two clips is the transiton bar.put the transition dissolve on the track and stretch it to the length of the two clips.double click on the transition you put on and put fade in and fade out on 40 then render it. all of this should make the person transparent

I am in computer programming and back in my younger years
also did some graphics programming. Fading can basically be
done in two ways:

1. just fade down the numbers
In this approach you simply process all the pixels and decrease
their values down with your step size (the size of the steps
depent on how fast you want to fade out). This has a side effect
in that darker parts of the image are gone a lot faster than the
highlights. Thus you will see the brighter parts longer.

2. controlled fade
In a controlled fade you will only fade down a color if there isn't
anything brighter left. This has the effect that all the brights
fade down first and more levels will start to fade down the lower
you go and will fade out all at the same time in the end.

Ofcourse you can do some other playing with this and come up
with other approaches, but these two are the basic ones in my
opinion.

To get on topic again, I do not know which algorithms are being
used by the editors out there. But different algorithms or editors
might give different results. There is not one way to fade an image!

I don't think anyone can tell you about a "neat effect". Because
generally "neat effects" tend to not look professional at all and
scream home video! The most things professionals seem to use
are (for effects):

1. straight cut
2. a fast fade
3. color correction

That's about it. Ofcourse there are lot of movies with special/
visual effects, computer generated images, compositing and
what not.

Are you looking for something specific? A lot can be done in
Premiere in combination with a decent paint program!

Another way would be to use an animated Color Balance (HLS)
video effect.

Make sure you are at the point where the clip is to be black
and white. Add the filter and set Saturation to -100. Hit the
"Enable Keyframing" box (the one inbetween the filter title
and the 'f'). Go down the timeline to the point where you want
all the color back in. Change the saturation to 0 here. If you
scrub with rendering (hold down the ALT key, you can preview
it realtime!) you can see it going gradually from B&W to color!

Upgrade my system to stop Premiere from crashing?
 

Hi, thank you for reading this.

I have a problem with premiere. It seems to crash alot and when you play the timeline it does not play smoothly.

I have a amd duron 900MHz processor, 128Meg ram, a 60Gig 7200RPM Hard drive, running on windows 98 2nd edition.

My computer almost never crashes, but it seems to crash everytime I load Premiere. I'm using Premiere 6 with the 6.02 update.

I have the auto save set to every minute and wonder if it might be that.

The question I have is do I need to upgrade my pc and if so what is the best way to go, please remember that I'm on a buget. Just shot a music video that I'm trying to edit and now I have this problem.

If it is not hardware related please also forward any suggestions.

Most of premiere is still on default settings.

Thank you all very much

Llewellyn

Well seems that your low on RAM. Always the more RAM the better. Also you might want to change the preferences so that Premiere will use 90% of the RAM. Then if you have a second HD (hard drive) make that second HD the scratch disk drive.
Then one question. Do you have your camera connected to your computer via firewire when trying to preview?

Other than that you should be set.
I am running all the current apps on this:
dual 650MHz
512 RAM
3 HD (2x 20G Hd, 1x120G HD (scratch disk))
ATI Radeon 8500 128MB of RAM
Photoshop 7.01, After Effects 5.5 Pro, Premiere 6.0

I can run all those at the sametime too.
Normally I dont do anything major within Photoshop when I have the others up. Just small edits.
Hope that helps.
Rob

Thank you

Regarding your question, no I do not have the camera plugged in.

Now that I think about it while I was logging and capturing the pc never crashed, but now that I have lots of footage in the timeline it seems to crash.

Maybe it is a memory problem. I will upgrade soon.

This is a silly question, but where do you set the amount of ram that premiere uses. I just cannot find it.

Thanks alot.

Llewellyn

PS I have set the second hard drive to the scratch drive

I cant remember specificly. Just go through the preferences slowly and see if it is in there. It is in the same spot as in Photoshop. It lets you enter a % I think. It might only in Photoshop that they have that option. If so sorry about getting your hopes up.

What speed are you HD's, 5200rpm or lower?

Rob

Hard drives are 7200RPM for editing and my operating sysem runs on a 5200RPM hard drive.

Thanks

Llewellyn

Unfortunatly, premiere will never run 100% stable. It is not the fault of your computer, it is just prone to crashes on a lot of systems, plain and simple.

Your biggest problems are your low amount of ram and running win98. Windows Xp Pro is much better investment, it is leaps and bounds above win98 in memory management, stability, you name it, it is better.

If you were to put 1gb of ram and winxp you would think you have an entirely new system. By the ram, pc133 ram is EXTREMELY cheap at the moment if you hunt and grab it asap. Give it 6 months and it will be scarce and very expensive.

BUT that also depends on your chipset and board, what exact chip and board do you have. Some boards only allow up to 512mb ram.


Zac

You mention that you have alot of clips loaded into the computer at this point. I am wondering how much space is left on the hard drive for premiere to work with?
Double the amount of RAM for starters and if you can afford to get another hard drive your system should be much more stable.
Premiere has been very stable for me and I am constantly supprised at how many people seem to have problems with getting there systems stable with premiere. 2000 Pro is the most stable OS of the bunch for the purposes of editing though XP Pro is getting better.