Don't bother with SCSI. Your 2 WD drives will be fine.
I'm running 20 Dells with two HDs one 40GB and the other 120GB. They have zero problems with capturing and editing.

but speed-wise?

1. is it true that scsi HD works better with 2000? (in a way that the os can take more advantage from the scsi bandwidth)
- No

2. If in the case of using ATA, should i consider RAID to boost performance?
- Yes, but not for your boot drive. We recommend that your system drive not be a raid. For Video a RAID stripe will increase your performance of EIDE, ATA, SATA or SCSi drives.

3. about RAID, can i install OS on RAID HDs?
- As I metnioned earlier, We do not recommend this.

4. My motherboard has both ATA, and SATA RAID controller, can i use the onboard controller, as SATA controller to upgrade to SATA as main HDs?
- Just use a single ATA drive for your c: drive. Install your OS and programs on it. Use the raid for your video storage and projects

5. i got the scsi control card from my friend, it's kinda old, but i didn't see much changes in SCSI, is my ultra2 wide card still good? or should i abandon it?
- do not use it. SCSI negotiated down to the slowest SCSI component in the chain. By using an old slower SCSi controller you will be limiting the performance of all the SCSI drives attached to it.

6. what would be my ideal set up?
- Run the OS off a 7200 ROM EIDE system drive. Then use the Mobo SATA raid controller and stripe a pair of SATA drives for outstanding system throughput.

Gary
Videoguys.com

Not that I would need this effect very often, but I couldn't figure out how to do a strobe effect through premiere. I have Pro and figured it would just be an effect. Any thoughts?

I mainly use vegas, but on big projects i use Premiere Pro (version 1.0) For mulitcam shoots in vegas i apply the cookie cutter effect and adjust to taste, but in premiere I can't seem to duplicate that process. I've tried using crop and feather, but what if i want a shape like and oval or arrow like in vegas? How would i achieve this?

One way woud be to make a matt in Vegas of what you want then drop it in Premiere.

2. If in the case of using ATA, should i consider RAID to boost performance?

If you are going to RAID, I assume you will use two drives that are of the same model and capacity. Mismatched drives means you lose capacity and lose performance (which really defeats the point of a RAID, although in some cases it could theoretically be useful). I also assume you are talking about RAID 0, and not the other RAID levels (most of which offer protection against hard drive failure).

What RAID 0 does:
It alternates/stripes data onto both hard drives. This is so that data can be read off both hard drives simultaneously. You can theoretically double the rate at which data is transferred off your hard drive. Please note that this does not double hard drive performance.

Performance of RAID 0 vs just one hard drive varies a lot and depends highly on what you want out of your hard drive. The RAID controller you are using also makes a big difference. For desktop/home user/workstation use, typically your main problem is program loading times. RAID 0 offers little performance gains (and is many cases *decreases* performance) at a high cost. Generally speaking it is never worth it for that usage.

File/web/database servers are different.

For some programs, your hard drive is used as a scratch disk when you run out of RAM. RAID 0 would help here, but it makes sense to get more RAM in the first place.

If one drive in the RAID fails, all your data is lost. Some data recovery may be possible, but it may be much more expensive than usual. Also, the RAID controller you use can also give you problems- quite a few of the on-board RAID controllers on motherboards have problems (i.e. data corruption).

DV:
Performance-wise, RAID makes very little difference. Any somewhat modern 7200rpm hard drive will have more than enough speed for DV editing. In a few special cases, RAID does give improved performance:

A- File copies. In some situations you will run into this. However, file copies are generally fast. You'd also get better performance by copying from one hard drive to another, instead of copying a file on a RAID to itself.

B- Very simple renders. This is just like A to a lesser extent. In Vegas, RAID might make a few percent difference when you are just rendering the color corrector filter. That's not much!

C- Your system can get so many streams of real-time that your hard drives can't catch up. DV needs roughly 3.6MB/s of sustained transfer. Your hard drive/RAID's sustained transfer rate should be roughly three times that, since your hard drives waste a lot of time moving the heads back and forth (no data is transferred when that happens).

Splitting your video files onto 2 seperate hard drives will give better performance for this scenario, but it gets harder to manage footage that way.

Other formats:
You may need some sort of RAID to get the sustained transfer rates needed to edit the format in question (uncompressed, HD, etc. etc.).

2- what would be my ideal set up?
My previous answer is inappropriate as I do not know how fast your combination of adapter card + SCSI drive should be. It depends a lot on how good the SCSI drive is.

Out of no where I suddenly cant edit clips in the cropping moniter.. Its just a white screen whenever I try to view clips in that moniter. I tried reinstalling... Any other ideas?

Which version of Pro are you running? Did you install/upgrade to
the latest version of Pro? I assume you also rebooted your
computer at least once?

p4 3.1ghz
1 gig ram
120gig
40gig
win xp
premiere pro
cd burner
ati 9800pro

works like a charm

Hi Kent,

PP has a strobe light effect in the stylize video effects folder. You can then adjust the parameters in the effects control window where needed.

Is this what you are after?

Thanks,

I've tried that but unless I'm not setting the parameters correctly I don't think that's what I want. I swear the effect is called strobe. It's where you see every 5th frame or so and seems to be used on every city access channel show. The strobe "light" effect has that flashing light like a club.

Can I just walk in to any computer store and blindly buy a PC for Premier without having to worry about hardware conflict issues with the software??

Pretty much any PC that you can buy new today will have Windows XP and enough power to run Premiere Pro. Just make sure you get one that has a video card with the capability of supporting GPU effects, and make sure it comes with a 1394 firewire connector.

Oh good, so I wouldn't have to worry about whether or not this motherboard, or that motherboard works with Premiere?

Only if you are going to buy a fancy capture card. Then you need to check to see what is compatible with Canopus or Matrox.

But not with Premiere Pro as long as you go Intel, or an AMD with SSE instruction set, which they all have now, I believe.

You might need a minimum of 512MB RAM. I don't use Premiere Pro often but your system will probably run smoother with a minimum 512MB of RAM. The Adobe site recommends 1GB?

2- I'd probably get a PC off monarchcomputers.com if living in the States. They charge you street prices for parts plus a $50 build fee, and have an excellent resellerratings.com rating. I have no experience buying from them however.

Advantantages
Good price. The DIY route is cheaper (you can get better street prices off newegg.com and save on the build fee- not worth it IMO). Some of the OEM computers can also be cheaper, but only on the low to midrange end.

The main advantage of getting a custom-built computer is that you get to choose whatever quality parts you want in your computer. If you ask on forums like this one you can get a lot of information on what parts to get (remember to post your needs, like whether you need DVD burning and what your budget is and how much storage you need and what you're trying to do).

After that, you get a few advantages from not having to deal with the BS that comes with OEM computers:
1- poor technical support. see dell's resellerratings.com rating
2- proprietary parts. Proprietary motherboards limit your upgrades, and proprietary power supplies makes fixing failing power supplies a PITA (power supplies fail occaisionally, but not very often).
3- OEM computers come bundled with lots of unnecessary software. Norton AV can slow your computer dramatically. Use alternatives.
4- Limited expansion. Some like the Dell 2400 and 4600 limit you to two hard drive bays (you can jury rig more). The 2400 line doesn't have an AGP slot, has 3 PCI slots, and only 2 RAM slots

My general recommendation for a DIY/custom computer would be:
Good case with quality power supply- Antec 3700AMB is great (comes with honestly rated 350W PSU), followed by 3700BQE (quieter, more expensive)
Pentium 3.0"C" 512kb cache (don't get the prescott, which has 1MB cache and may be labelled 3.0E) 2.8, 3.2, 3.4ghz models also good.
1GB RAM- You are fine with the cheapest stuff. Brand name RAM like Crucial, Corsair, Mushkin, and Kingston are also good (better warranty and support, less likely to be bad). Do not pay the premium for crazy enhanced latency or overclocking RAM (waste of money).
DVD burner- Nec 2510a, sony, Pioneer, Plextor make good models.
dual monitor video card (I prefer Nvidia) + dual monitors (flat CRT or thin bezel LCDs- ask for recommendations)
Large hard drive(s)- I like the Hitachi 250GB 7k250 (just need one)
mouse + keyboard - whatever works, but MS mouse + keyboard OEM seem fine.
Sound card: M-Audio Revolution 7.1 if you want a decent card for mixing; avoid Creative! *most computer builders may not give you this option of going with the m-audio.
Speakers: most of the consumer stuff is not accurate and inappropriate for mixing. Get Jay Rose's book on audio postproduction and you'll have a good idea of what you'll need. If you have good sound going in and want good sound going out, then go ask the audio forum. Check the audio forum here.

software- winXP Home/Pro, Ultramon for dual monitors (I find this necessary with Premiere Pro- try the trial), maybe antivirus + firewall depending on your needs.

i keep wishing there was a better way to jump between the fixed camera and the handheld camera tracks.

how does everyone else do it?

assuming you have two angles that were filmed as one uncut shot each and you put them on two timelines above/below each other...

does everyone else just do a cut and flip/flop back and forth between which one you want to use for the active video track?

it just always seems that there must be a better way.

i guess if there was a way to make the video tracks active/inactive on a cut by cut basis you could make your cuts but still be able to change back later vs. making the entire video track inactive.

i mean sure you could take the video track you aren't currently using and put it into a track that is just for inactive...i guess i don't do enough multi-camera stuff to feel comfortable enough doing it this way.

matthew

Thanks for the help..
however i'm an idiot at times.
I had the moniter on Alpha..

hah.

Greetings all.... first post...

I've been lurking around for a bit now trying to find my answers w/o pestering you guys (you're doing far more advanced things than I am!) but I'm getting frustrated now so figured I'd just post :)

I just received a GL2 as a b-day gift -- WOW! As well as Adobe Premiere Pro...

I love taking videos... home movies/nature movies...

I've ordered some books to assist me with PPRO but it'll be another week before they arrive.

I made a short video of the sky above our home on the 4th of July that includes a full double rainbow, with sheet lightning, and fireworks (the yard was amazing that night!) and I of course want to share it on the web...

My AVI video is perfect.... good color great quality etc. (we wont discuss the camera holder or the fact that the cam was in easy mode lol) but it's 835MB...

My web version is terrible. It's small enough but the quality leaves a LOT to be desired. I've saved this thing so many times now (which takes forever) and nothing is quite working out.

Can anyone offer me a recommended preset (or custom) to save this video in? I'd prefer something that would play in windows media viewer but if it comes down to it..I can also go with RealMedia...

There's soooo many options and so far my clicking around isn't getting me results... I just want something 30MB or less with the best quality it can muster up (realizing it wont be perfect).

Here is the poor quality version of the video...
http://www.picolio.com/Video/NaturesJuly4Celebration.wmv


Thoughts? Help?

Thanks in advance!

Deb

(p.s. I've really enjoyed reading these forums..you guys/gals are fantastic!)

Howdy neighbor! You need to give us a little more info, such as the length of the video, and what NLE you currently use. Premiere has Cleaner, which will help you with presets. Lowering the frame rate, and making it smaller will cut size. Say, 320x240 and 15 fps.

Hiya!

The video is 3mins and 40 secs long...
I believe it's standard 38? NLE DV/IEEE1394?
I wanted to confirm this but suddenly Adobe started locking up as soon as I plugged my camera in :/
(I'll try again after some sleep)

I saved it with
File -> Export -> Adobe Media Encoder -> WM9 NTSC 512k Download

We just put together another one of the flowers/sky/etc that my daughter had filmed by the pond...'tons of interval shots'. Again, I'm pleased with the quality of the AVI but not quite as pleased with the compressed web version... maybe it's just me... :dunno:

Here's the "time lapse" one...
http://www.PicOlio.com/Video/TimeIsRelative.wmv

Maybe later we'll practice holding the camera still :P

Hey Derrick, What Jimmy said.

We also do concerts and multicamera, but are just getting used to the editing. Multicamera is nice for fading into a close up of a musician doing a riff. Sync can be done easily using a visual or audio cue or both, like a person clapping in front of a mike.(preffered)
I use Premiere 6.5 which has only one place to put a transition, so I use the upper tracks for multicamera work. I have heard rumor that you Pro users can place a transition in between any track.

Anyway, like Jimmy says, place the video from the stationary camera in track 1 , with the other camera(s) occupying the upper tracks. In 6.5 all upper tracks will supercede the tracks below, which allows you to use the razor knife to "slice and dice" the upper tracks while leaving the main camera track in place. (also, you may want to look at the lower tracks while leaving the upper ones in place, so just de-delect the eye icon on the left of upper video track so you can see the lower one) It is quite easy to select the clip for deletion that you just cut with the razor. If you need a little more or less of the upper clip that now remains, you can stretch or shrink or move it to your liking after deleting the part preceding. Razor cut your desired out point, and there you are.
By keyframing the upper tracks, you can effectively create a dissolve between tracks, just like you would do with an audio fade. If I want a specials transition, like a wipe, I have to bring the clip down to track A or B and put the transition in between.

As you practice, you will find all kind of creative ways of making things look like you had cameras all over the place. I have shot musicians entering onto the stage from a camera back stage, and then dissolved from that view into a front view from a completely different song. Have you ever noticed how many cameras Austin City Limits has in their production. Must be nice to have a mega budget.

Richard
Sweetwater Productions

Bingo! If your second camera operator is quick with the framing and keeps a steady stream of different content coming with an eye for "get the good stuff at all times" then you are very fortunate. Then, you (the safety cam operator) can get a little creative with a few blast zooms or tight shots on the various performers, creating an editing environment that appears as though 3, 4 or even more cameras were deployed at the event!
But err to the cautious side of the edit bay ... you need a safety shot at all times to fall back on when your second unit is re-positioning...
Well stated Richard...

Has anyone else had a problem capturing DV with Premier Pro 7? When I try to capture footage from my Panasonic NV-DS1, the video looks blocky and tears across it. The audio seems to be fine. My camcorder records in PAL format and I have tried all kinds of settings including NTSC and custom settings with the same results.

I also have Pinnacle and Ulead software installed on my system which captures the DV footage fine.

My PC is a AMD 2000+ with 1Gb memory. 120Gb 7200 Hdd, ATI All-in-Wonder video, IEEE 1394 and USB2. I use the IEEE 1394 to capture the DV.

Although I could use a different program to capture the DV, I would like to resolve this issue and use only the Premier Pro. Thanks in advance for any help you might give me. I don't look good with greying hair.

Is the upgrade to Pro 1.5 free? If so I would go to that version.
I heard it fixed a LOT of problems. Otherwise you can try one
of the external programs like Scenalizer or CapDV (WinDV?).

hi- I was just surfing and came up with a site claiming to supply online dowloads of Adobe Premiere for only $60. Is this a scam?
here's link- http://www.flashcorpsoftware.com/adobe.php#Premier

thanks
-alex

This is from their website.

"If anything on this site is illegal in any way, shape, or form, then we are unaware of it. Neither us nor our host will be responsible for it. All backup devices are for personal use and should only be used in a legal way"

That's all you need to know.. It is illegal software.

hmmmm, thankyou...I thought something smelled wrong.

Even better quote

"Our products can not be registered with the software company however this will not effect the use of the program in any way. If you are needing some support, we recommend you buy some cheap tutorials off of sites such as ebay, they will usually run around $20.00"


I am not sure how these people still have a functioning website.
Reading their Terms of Service is outright funny. Especially the part about chargebacks being fraud and how they will contact the FBI on you if you do... heh... some people.

Thanks for the information. To be honest, I'm not sure if the upgrade is free or not. I would hate to think that I spent this much money on Premier Pro and had to pay again to fix any bugs in the software. I will do a little research on the software you spoke about.

u want Pixelans Step Time plugin and run a preset called Pulse on Stills

in here u can also adjust fade range, tempo, frame etc etc etc
Works great :)

Hey all,
I have an Italian friend who requires some assistance with Premiere. As i am a Vegas User, i dont want to steer him the wrong way, so im hoping some of u "Pro" users can assist.

Ive translated his questions as best i could so please try to keep the answers in Basic English (or Italian if you speak it) as he may have some trouble absorbing the english jargon

thanx guys
Pete
------------------------------


Hi Guys,
Im an Italian DVX100 user who is in PAL land, and im wanting to capture my footage and edit using Premiere.
I have some questions im hoping someone can answer.

1) Can someone please tell me the correct procedure to capture and export 25p material using premeiere?
(or using the best softwere for that operation)

2) Must I capture using no fields? Or do I capture with "lower field first" Whereby I would deinterlace in Post and blend fields in Progressive?
What are the ideal settings for progressive capture and editing?

3) After editing, i author my DVD. Now will this DVD have that annoying flickering problem on my TV? Or is this a thin/thick detail setting on the DVX camera?

Thanks in advance for your assistance.
Gabrielle

Awesome. I'll try that.

In Premiere Pro effects look in the 'Time' folder and apply the 'Posterize Time' effect. Adjust the frame rate down (probably 2-6) and see if that is what you are looking for.

I didn't expect to be back in this situation after four years of non-linear editing, but I'm stumped. I recently bought a Toshiba Satellite laptop with XP Media Centre. It has every connection known, including firewire, of course, and I can't get Premiere to recognize my camcorders (Sony VX2000 and a D-8). I can configure device control for the VX2000 but it stubbornly remains offline. Given the Media Centre is all about digital imaging, this is frustrating. Even MovieMaker doesn't see a camcorder connected. I've forgotten most of what I knew about troubleshooting this issue, it's been so long since I had it. Any suggestions welcome.

David Hurdon

Hi david,

I would not really use Win MCE as an NLE. I know that its built on the Win XP Pro platform, but for me its just far to risky, with the amout of bugs MS manged to put in the software. Any way saying that it should in theory work. To start trouble shooting:

1) When you connect your sony camera via firewire does Win MCE detect it? It normally says found new device as you connect it. It should also appear in My computer as a device.

2) Does the camera appear in device manager. I think it should appear under imaging devices. If not try and search in all catgorize for a Sony DV device.

3) Does the camera and cable work on another machine running Win XP Pro?

4) Are there any errors in event viewer relating to this?

5) What version of Premiere are you running?

6) Have you updated win MCE to the latest?

Cheers,

Thanks, Ed. I never had any concern about Media Centre as the O/S on this laptop, but I can't say I researched it either.
1. I hear a chime when I plug in the camera but no new hardware message.
2.No cam in device manager, anywhere, but for the unknown hardware entry.
3. No other XP system available. Has worked two years on win2kpro, two feet away.
4. No errors in event viewer.
5. Running 6.5
6. Update wouldn't run after download. I'm still trying to understand to what degree Toshiba customized Media Centre O/S on these Satellite laptops.
It is indeed frustrating to have the latest technology, slanted toward digital imaging work, and have it fail to perform as well as four-year old systems.

David Hurdon

I've been editing 3 2-hour long shows using 3 angles. That's a total of 18 hours of footage to go through. I've naturally created one project for each show to make things more managable.

I use Premiere Pro 1.5 with a Matrox RTX100 card with the latest drivers. In the process of editing, I must have crashed, hanged, and corrupted my projects countless of times. Thank god for the various backups I made throughout the process. Anyway, my question is rather simple: Am I the only one that is cursed with crashes, or are most of you riddled with them too, regarless of the OS or NLE you are using?

I followed all the necessary hardware and software requirements required by both Matrox and Adobe. Still, since I have an ASUS based system, would a brand name computer such as a Dell, IBM or an HP workstation be as suceptible to these crashes? Or would they be more robust... and if they do crash - as I suspect most systems do - then it would be on rare occassions?

Anyway, all this to say that I am damned tired of crashing here and there. All I wish for is to edit my videos, as if I were editing a text in Microsoft Word... I mean, I've never crashed Word in my life!

Thanks all!

You could check to see if your Matrox card is sharing IRQs, which might lead to problems.

In winxp, go to start --> run --> msinfo32
Look under hardware resources --> IRQs
Is your Matrox card on its own IRQ?

I don't own any Premiere Pro hardware acceleration myself, but IRQ sharing/conflicts seemed to be a problem with the previous generation of acceleration hardware.

My system never crashes. But then again, I only use Premiere Pro with a simple firewire connection. My fancy capture card is in the PC, but I don't use it anymore.

Hi David,

Does a Sony device appear in my computer?
Does the same thing happen for both cameras?

Since no program is able to detect the camera when it is connected, then to me me it sounds as though its a windows problem or that the firewire port is not functioning correctly.

I have manged to connect my canon XL1 upto a friends MCE system, and it detects the camera fine via firewire. I can capture and edit footage in Movie Maker.

You say that you hear a chime when it is connected, but no messages appear. There should be a message that appears in a bubble above the clock that says found Sony AV/C device or something along those lines. Have you got a OHCI ieee1394 device control in device manager? Is it enabled does it show any problems?

Certainly in device manager there should be a device under Imaging devices, that says Sony DV camcorder. When the camera is connected.

Since no program is able to detect the camera when it is connected, then to me me it sounds as though its a windows problem or that the firewire port is not functioning correctly. Maybe send it back to the place you brought it and ask them to check it out if you can't figure it out.

cheers,

Hi Frederic,

Getting the correct hardware is just 1 step. You will then need to configure Windows, Premiere and Matrox to make it work correctly. Setting these up should be explained in the Matrox Manual.

A few things to look into:

Paging files
Setting windowos to background services
The correctly display resolution
Making sure DMa is enabled
Making sure that no programs/applications are not running in the backgound while editing

Just a few things to look into...

I have a 30 min clip that I captured from the DVX100A, and when playing/editing in Premiere after about 3 sec of playing, the video skips about a second, and the audio stays, so it total out of sync. If I stop and play again it will be in sync for another 3 sec befor doing it again. I have chcked the AVI file in WMP and it plays just fine no skiping or out of sync audio. It's very odd.. anyone have any ideas? I'm kind of new at this but it's a new install on a 2.8Ghz/1Gig box.

Dimension XPS
Pentium® 4 Processor w/ HT Tech Extreme Edition (3.40GHz, 800 FSB), Microsoft® Windows® XP

Does any one have any sugestions about using this P.C. with Premiere Pro ???

1- Isn't that computer ridiculously, ridiculously expensive? Did you buy/have this computer already?

2- What exactly are you looking for? Tips on how to get the performance? Tips on how to make your system more stable? Tips on how to get started with Premiere Pro?

3- You might want to try the Premiere forum here. A moderator here might move this thread...

Could someone give me some advice on choosing a card for PP... I'm looking at the Matrox RT.X100 would that be my best bet... looking to spend no more than around 1,500...

Chris (or other Wranglers), I hope this is allowed.

There is a good XP Tweaks page that discusses all the things you can/should do to XP in order to maximize performance for video editing. So is easy, so is advanced.

http://www.videoguys.com/WinXP.html

Another site that discusses XP processes and which may be turned off to optimize performance is blackviper.com. Use with care...your mileage may vary.

A lot of those tweaks don't make a noticeable (i.e. meaningful) impact on performance. Of the service tweaks at blackviper, only a few are useful:
A- System restore and file indexing take up meaningful resources. You could disable these things for better performance (I'd prefer leaving system restore on, especially if installing Avid).
B- If your computer is low on RAM, then disabling unnecessary services will free up RAM. You should get more than enough RAM in the first place though (512 or 1gb).
C- The messenger service lets other people spam you. You should have a firewall up to take care of this though.

2- A useful tweak is to keep your computer clear of other programs that take up resources. In particular, go to msconfig and get rid of "realshed" and "qttask" (doing this gives a few % improvement, which actually ain't much). Also get rid of distributed computing applications unless you aren't running hyperthreading.

AV usually slows your system down. Set it scan in the mornings and such, but don't let them scan every file and program you open. Automatic updates are a very good idea.

3- Overclocking is one tweak that does make a major difference.

4- Also make sure your system is clear of bottlenecks. This can do a lot more than the tweaks outlined above. In particular, make sure your hard drives are using DMA mode (not PIO).

5- If you are setting up a new system, you could partition it so that it is setup well for Norton Ghost. Ask if you want details.

Norton Ghost allows you to clone partitions. By putting an old working partition back in place, you can recover from almost anything within ~10 minutes. You can also make a backup of your current partition and use Ghost Explorer in case you are unsure about getting rid of useful files. If you setup Ghost properly, you won't have anything useful saved on your windows partition.

My guess is that Ghost takes ~1hour to set up.

6- Keep an "installs" and "drivers" folder around for all your installers and drivers. This is handy if you want to setup another computer, or if you wish to reinstall your computer. With Dells these folders aren't as useful but it's a good habit to get into.

Deinterlacing is used to convert interlaced material to progressive. Your friend should avoid doing that.

When encoding a MPEG2 for DVD, your friend will need to tell the encoder that the material is progressive and not interlaced. Also, make sure the encoder is not trying to deinterlace the footage (slight drop in quality).