Half of My Footage; Why doesn't it work?
 

Hi everyone. I'm somewhat new to premiere, i have 1.0, and i've used it a few times, but by no means am I an expert. I've edited footage in premiere before and never had a problem, this time, I am. For one, I import the footage, I don't usually upload it from premiere cause it so much easier on my older editing software, plus i realize the footage I upload will play in any of my editing softwares so I thought I was good.

I import it and it won't play back, theres this message in the bottom saying 'conforming' I assume thats some sort of rendering process, which takes like 30 minutes for each 1 hour file, long time to sit and wait.. after it was finally done, I came back to my computer, threw the files on the timeline, and they seemed to playback smoothly.. I was wrong. Half way through EACH of the three files i imported the screen just freezes.. and stays on one frame, the playhead keeps moving however, and the same one second audio clips keeps repeating...

Can anyone tell me what this is and if there is a way to fix it?

Also, if no one can offer me any advice to fixing the problem, is there a way I can edit in another program such as Vegas, and the move the project to premiere? Or is that impossible because they are vegas/premiere projects? I really need to get to editing, and it seems like out of the 3 editing softwares, nothing is working out... vegas doesn't output to dvd so i've heard.. only video cd? and i have Ulead, which is what i learned on, but of course it's limited in what it can do, but i cant use it either because NOTHING will playback smoothly. P.s i have two harddrives and both of them have plenty of free space..

The conforming process is Premiere working with the audio part of your video files.
I believe the conforming is to find the peaks/audio levels, and you will have to wait until it is done. From what I remember, Premiere makes a separate file with the audio information for each clip during the conforming.
(I might be wrong on this, I'm using PPro 2.0 now and can't really remember how 1.0 behaved, might be a little different)

As for your playback problem, I don't know why your files won't playback after the conforming is completed. Never had that problem myself.
Hopefully someone else can help you with this one.

How are you capturing the footage off of the camera?

I've had a similar problem with PPro 1.5. I tracked it down to importing Type 1 DV AVI files instead of Type 2. Sometimes they would be okay, other times not. The very long conforming seemed to be a problem, too.

Strangely, this only occurs with NTSC DV files and not PAL.

i captured using firewire, i don't know what settings, its ntsc dv i think? the thing is, i've imported tons of footage into premire before and never had a problem like this, of course the footage i uploaded before wasn't an hour long.

Do you think the only solution is to upload directly into premire pro.. if so, can anyone run me through the steps, I've never uploaded straight to premiere before.

I don't believe that is the only solution, because I have previously used footage captured with other software/other computers.

To capture with Premiere:
You might know some of this already, but since you said you never captured with Premiere before, I tried to write it very basic.
(This is for 2.0, might be a little different with 1.0)

In my experience, the camcorder must be turned on (in vcr mode) before you start premiere. If not, premiere might not recognize your camcorder.


File -> capture (Shortcut F5)

Under the "settings" tab top right, you can specify the location of the captured files, and under the "device control", you specify which camcorder you use.

Under the "logging" tab, you can specify timecode in/out points...
Also this is where you specify if you want to use scene detect, which will split each clip into different files.
When you are ready to capture, click the Record (red colored button) at the bottom of the window.

A quick tutorial to get you started:

http://av.adobe.com/tips/prep15ttclean_600_464.mov

thanks guys!