I ended up importing the whole project, then deleting the stuff I don't need. Then, I moved over what I did need, praying that it wouldn't go out of sync, like last time. It didn't, thankfully. But, man, that's why I use FCP.

hwm

Got a trial version of Cooledit 2, and tried the "gliding stretch filter". That was just what I wanted.

The video is easier to slow down in chunks, since there are some scene changes anyway.

I'm surprised how well the audio quality is preserved btw.

Thanks for the help.

Hey Heath,

How long was your project?

P6 has been out for such a long time (4 years I think). So obviously there will be major differences between it and FCP. Plus P6 had a few to many bugs... Saying that I manged to work with it OK.

Premiere Pro has nested sequences, which would have helped you in this situation.

Cheers,

Yeah, we have a new monster of a Dell with Premiere Pro in it. That's cool.

hwm

Granted but if you look at the images in pro vs non-pro formats, like DV, where tape speed is one of the factors, there is a difference. Most of us will never see it. In fact, DV footage is sort of hyper-real anyway. Very sharp and defined, crisper colors with less gradient, etc.

Just saw last night, one of those 300 doctors shows on one of the cable networks is shot with Sony VX cameras. They got a shooter in one of their shots. Looks like a run and gun 2 camera affair.

Sean

Chosing codecs for exported movies
 

This may be a silly question, but if someone could enlighten me, I’d be grateful. Very often I need to to put together a few minutes of video (about a gigbyte, raw) and send it off to someone. I frequently get phone calls from people that the clips wouldn’t run on their computers, or DVD players, or that the download takes too long, or the playback is jerky, etc.
There are so many codecs and formats to choose from when deciding how to export from Premiere, some of very poor quality. Is there sort of an industry standard codec that most people use to share their work on CD or DVD that can be relied on to run on everyone’s equipment? Is there one that doesn’t compress the data too much? I don’t mean Internet distrubution, but media that you send via UPS or Fedex.
Thanks for any thoughts.

The BEST compatible format we have today is DVD-Video. This is
ALWAYS MPEG2 and it CAN look as good as a commercial DVD with
proper encoding and software. Keep in mind that this is NOT the
same as a DVD-Rom (or data disc) with some movie on it!

The problem with every other format like QuickTime / AVI / WMV
etc. is that not everybody has it installed or the latest codec.
The other universal format that truly every system can playback
is MPEG1 (with a .MPG extension). However, this is low resolution
(320x240) and will not look very good (it can look pretty decent).

So for looking at compatability first and then quality second I
would come to the this list:

1. DVD-Video (very good quality if properly encoded)

2. MPEG1 (.MPG) / VideoCD (medium quality if properly encoded)

3. Windows Media / WMV ((very) good quality if poperly encoded)

4. QuickTime Sorenson

Why do I place WMV above QuickTime? The reason is compatability.
You have a better chance that the target playback platform will be
a PC instead of a Mac.

What you can always do is include multiple formats! I delivered
a project to a friend of mine and it included the following discs:

1. One DVD+R as a DVD-Video
2. One SVCD (super video CD, not very compatible) disc
3. One VCD (video CD) disc
4. One CD-ROM with both AVI and QuickTime on it

It all depends on your options. But if your clients can playback
DVD then I would distribute in that format. If you want to be
safe you can send a DVD-R and a +R version for example.

Not everyone has a DVD player in the computer yet, so that's
why I choose to include a seperate CD for the AVI/QT files.

Web:
You could take the shotgun approach and *hopefully* the client can play one of them. Do Windows Media 7/8/9, Quicktime (sorenson3 + IMA/qdesign/MPEG4 audio), and MPEG1 for web. (I stay away from Real because the player tries to hijack your system) Dial-up users will likely have problems and should have something mailed to them.

If you're mailing something to them:

DVD- Use good media so you don't run into compatibility issues. see http://www.digitalfaq.com/media/dvdmedia.htm

VCD - This can play back on most DVD players. It will also play back on nearly all computers. You can author it with a autorun.ini file to get Windows machines to automatically open up the movie.

VHS - good ole VHS. Quality about the same as VCD.

I am not to sure what you mean. Do you wish to edit on your computer and then send the file you edited to another editor to finish it off?

If so then MPEG files will not be of any help. The reason being that an MPEG file is normally made up of IBP frames (GOP - Group of pictures), thus making it hard to edit accurately.

If you wish to exchange files with another editor then you would first need to find out what their NLE is capable of using. Generally speaking a standard Microsoft AVI file should do if you are both working on PC.

If you are looking at just showing your work then an MPG with the audio multiplexed would do OK when viewing on a PC.

Cheers,

Ed

<<<-- Originally posted by Bankim Jain : Howd we do this i AF5 i havent tried it before in AF !! ANY help please !!! -->>>

I'm suprised that time remapping isn't featured in premiere pro... anyways its very simple in after effects, chose layer then scroll down till you see "enable time remapping"... Just screw around and you'll get it...

I had the same F*#king problem 2 weeks ago... "File appears to be damaged" what caused this for me was... I created a new folder to move my project into, after I moved the project file into the new folder I got that error message every time I tried to open in up... I had lost like 7 hours of work... Your probably screw...Sorry

Hi Abby,

I have not really used this feature in Premiere Pro. But generally speaking premiere only conforms audio to make it compatible with your current project settings. i.e. if you have set a project for 48000KHz ,16bit and you import an audio file that is different to this i.e 32000KHz, 12bit, premiere would then conform the audio for the project.

Make sure that the files you are creating in audition are the same format for your premiere project.

You can always delete the 'old' conformed audio files, and then import in your editied audio, which it will then conform.

Hope this helps,

Ed

Thanks, everyone for all the information. Now, if I can find a place to buy MPEG2 software for Premiere 6.0...

Steve: didn't Premiere come with one? If not, then don't look into
MPEG encoding software *for* Premiere, just get Canopus ProCoder.

It is the best encoder available at the moment and isn't that
expensive. After you are done in Premiere with edit you export
the movie and load it up into ProCoder.

What DVD authoring software will you be using? Because some of
them will have an MPEG2 encoder onboard as well and you can
just load your AVI into them. So you might want to look into that
before shelling out for a seperate encoder.

Premiere 6 should already be able to export to MPEG 2. I think it was done via Cleaner. If you upgrade to 6.5 there is a built in MPEG encoder made by Main Concept, that does a pretty good job with these things. Then all you need is a DVD authoring package/ DVD burner if you wish to create DVD's /VOB files.

Thanks,